PHOTO | FILE The Kenyan dance halls of the 1960s were dominated by a special group of musicians whose talents mesmerised not just the country but the region and beyond.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By BILL ODIDI bodidi@yahoo.com
Posted  Monday, August 12  2013 at  01:00

 

Daudi Kabaka. Fundi Konde. Fadhili William. David Amunga. Sal Davis. Ben Blastus O’Bulawayo. Gabriel Omolo.

These are the names of musicians who ruled Kenya and beyond in the ’60s. Their hit songs were so successful that they were even top of the charts in the United Kingdom. They were re-recorded by fellow musicians in Africa, Europe, and North America.

What is their story?

It all started in 1958 when talent scout and promoter Peter Colmore learned of the presence in Nairobi of a young exceptional guitarist from the then Belgian Congo (now the DRC).

Colmore, an Englishman who had lived in Kenya for 20 years, traced the musician to a River Road club, where he was entertaining crowds.

That meeting between Colmore and Edouard Masengo marked the beginning of an association that had a profound influence on the early years of popular music in Kenya.

In January 1959, the two men flew to Elizabethville (Lubumbashi) to sign a promotional contract with Jean Bosco Mwenda, another talented Congolese singer and guitarist. Bosco had been recording with South African company, Gallatone, for a promotion. Shorty afterwards, the three men returned to Kenya.

Colmore signed deals with companies like Coca Cola and Aspro to promote their brands during shows around the country.

During a recording for The Aspro Show before a live TV audience in 1959 at City Hall, Nairobi, Bosco introduced the event by singing one of the popular commercial jingles of the time: Aspro ni dawa ya kweli… inamaliza homa kali mara moja.

These shows were taken around the country. Bosco and Masengo quickly turned into household names.

They popularised the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the string directly with the fingertips or fingernails.

Bosco’s recording of the instrumental piece, Masanga, is a perfect example of the style that was aped all across the region. It was taken up by musicians like George Mukabi, John Mwale, Ben Blastus O’Bulawayo, and David Amunga.

Bosco was accompanied in his performances by the Jambo Boys Band, which included a young guitarist called Fadhili William. By the early 1960s, Fadhili found himself at the frontline of a new wave of Kenyan musicians who brought a whole new variation of dance music.

A new recording company, Equator Records, was set up with a policy of “East African music for East Africans”. It was through this label, owned by Englishman Charles Worrod, that Fadhili and his mates, Daudi Kabaka, Gabriel Omolo, and Zambians Nashil Pichen and Peter Tsotsi, ruled the pop charts for the remainder of the decade.