City Quads

I uploaded the first side some months back so as a treat here's the second side. Its one I found at Brick Lane flea market many years ago for a few pence. Its on the Polydor label and made in what was Rhodesia and is now a troubled Zimbabwe. Sleeve printed in Germany. No date but imagine it would be late 50's or early 60's.

No info. on the internet so just a little information on the sleeve notes.

" Polydor presents a unique collection of popular African tunes sung ina variety of native languages by one of the best known vocal groups in Rhodesia, The City Quads. The performance you hear on this LP could be called a mixture of African folklore and pop songs of a kind one is always likely to hear wherever people gather together in an African township."

Tracks are as follows -

1. Abazali - The hero of this song has always been "sitting pretty". He was looked after well in childhood and received many presents, and now he is riding from the township to the city of Salisbury on top of the only double decker bus on the route.

2. Zonki Ntsuku - A rather anxious young man sings: "You know that I have always told you how I love you - and now I am worried about you".

3. Mbaravozi - A song of bad omens, of things Africans would not like to find - indeed, are not likely to find:
A monkey sitting in a fireplace.
A large tiger fish turning round and round dodging the fisherman until it looks like a small sardine.
Finding a fish where the kingfisher should be and a bird where the fish lives.

4. Wacitu Mozi - Among the many existing songs about the supernatural, we have chosen this one which describes how a woman destroyed a village by witchcraft and how she herself was later killed by her husband.

5. Ndafuna Funa - A lover's lament.
6. Mai Ndarira - When a African child is ill it always asks to be carried on it's mother's back rather than be put to bed.

7. Chipo - In this song the child is lost. "Where are you? Father and Mother are looking for you in the hills and dales, but you are nowhere to be found".


City Quads - Side Two