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Rail Band featuring Salif Keita and Mory Kanté Belle Epoque Volume 2: Mansa (Stern's African Music) This is the second of Stern's ansd Sylla's epic retrospective of one of the most important bands from Mali. 2: Mansa includes five tracks with Salif Keita, five with Mory Kanté (including the title track, a 12-minute epic recorded in 1975), and eight others featuring singers Magan Ganessy or Djelimady Sissoko. Listen

Listen to all tracks CD1 01 Rail Band 06:33 02 Mansa 11:57 03 Finza 06:59 04 Demba 09:45 05 Kankoun 07:10 06 Konowale 06:43 07 Balakononifing 09:59 08 Dugu Kamaleba 11:50 09 Mamobo 05:01 CD2 01 Koro Koni 06:41 02 Kaira 09:37 03 Tie Diuguya 04:52 04 Dioula 05:13 05 Tiramakan 04:00 06 Lanseny 09:23 07 Gnagna 07:07 08 Mamadou Boutiqui 08:15 09 Gansana 07:11 Last year Sterns Africa released the first of three double-disc albums covering the early years of one of the greatest modern African cultural institutions, the Rail Band, titled Soundiata. Now comes the second, 2: Mansa. The early years, in the Rail Band's case, were not a fledgling period of false starts and awkward first steps. The Malian National Railways formed the Rail Band du Buffet Hôtel de la Gare de Bamako to entertain guests at the hotel adjacent to the central train station in Bamako, but that unpromising origin belied how excellent a band it was and what an impact it made right from the get-go in 1970. The lead singer was a young man named Salif Keita. Although he wasn't a jeli (a hereditary Mande griot), he sang like one, and on stage his shyness and fear of derision for being a poor village boy and an albino dissolved to reveal his extraordinary charisma. With Salif Keita center-stage the Rail Band caused an immediate sensation in Bamako and was soon famous throughout Mali and neighboring countries. Its dynamic fusion of jeliya and other traditional Malian forms with rock, blues and Latin music was audacious and brilliant, and its influence is still strong today. Salif Keita went on to start his own band, Les Ambassadeurs, in 1972, but by then another talented singer, Mory Kanté (who really was a jeli and not only sang but also played balafon) had joined the Rail Band. Around the same time the band hired a new guitarist, Djelimady Tounkara. Tounkara now leads the Super Rail Band, which still plays at the train-station hotel on special occasions when it's not touring the world, and he is widely recognized as one of the greatest guitarists of our time. (Salif Keita and Mory Kanté … they're still pretty well known too.) The three-volume Rail Band retrospective (compiled by Ibrahima Sylla, who produced Salif's 1987 landmark album, Soro) is not organized chronologically. This means that each 2-CD volume includes recordings from the 14-year span of 1970 to1983. 2: Mansa includes five tracks with Salif Keita, five with Mory Kanté (including the title track, a 12-minute epic recorded in 1975), and eight others featuring singers Magan Ganessy or Djelimady Sissoko.

Other recordings you might like: African Virtuosos The Classic Guinean Guitar Group Djelimady Tounkara Solon Kono