Monday, October 06, 2008

I.K. Dairo & His Blue Spots


A Nigerian Juju LP on Decca from the 60's I imagine found at Brick Lane flea market many years ago. The five tracks on side one are as follows - Eni mi ko sen'nia - Toba ndara f'oko aya ni - Toba rije f'omo ni keji - Ojo ikehin - E huwa rere.

"Considered by many to be the "father of juju" for his many innovations, Isaiah Kehinde Dairo was born in Kwara State, Nigeria, in 1931. One story has it that his lifelong love of music stemmed from a drum that his father, a carpenter, made for him in his youth and that accompanied him wherever he went. In early adulthood, Dairo tried earning a living as a barber, a construction worker, and a cloth merchant, among other jobs. Dairo sat in with early juju bands at night, led by musical pioneers Ojoge Daniel and Oladele Oro. In the mid-'50s he formed his own group, the ten-member Morning Star Orchestra, which gained fame later as the Blue Spots.

Though highlife was the most popular form of band music in West Africa at the time, Dairo and his band released a long succession of influential singles that, by the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, helped establish juju as the premier Nigerian sound. Dairo changed the tenor of juju by introducing the accordion and talking drums to the orchestra and singing in a variety of regional dialects, which widened the rural appeal of the music. When his appeal began to wane at the end of the 70s, he gave up performing, turning first to managing clubs and a hotel in Lagos, then to a ministry in the Cherubim and Seraphim church movement. In 1990 he recorded his first album in 15 years with a re-formed Blue Spots band."

Bob Tarte.

13 comments:

zim said...

hmmm, I can't get this treemo thing to work

Wastedpapiers said...

S'funny, it works for me. Anybody else having problems?

dinko said...

Hi, thanks for this, but how do I download it?

Wastedpapiers said...

Treemo is just a player - no MP3's but you can grab the sound if you really want it using WireTap or similar gizmo.

dinko said...

Same as zim, I can't get it to work - help please.

zim said...

i'm not trying to download, just play 'em, can't do it (not on firefox or ie) just get that little circle going round and round

Wastedpapiers said...

Like I said before it plays perfectly for me. I don't know what to suggest. Its been listened to 17 times according to Treemo and no other complaints.

Tim said...

I, too, can't get the treemo player to work (On firefox or ie). Man, I'd love to hear these tracks. I've got contemporary CDs by IK Dairo and he's great!

Thanks for any advice

dinko said...

It works today, thanks for whatever you did!

Wastedpapiers said...

Thats good. I just clicked the "available to all" button, which is puzzling since all the other Treemo posts are the same and they seem to work o.k.!?

Tim said...

Yup, working great! Thanks for the post!

zim said...

thanks for checking into it, its working for me as well now, and its very nice.

grooVemonzter said...

This is a wonderful piece of music. Thank you for posting it. Is there any way that we could hear side two? That would be great.