King Sunny Ade & his African Beats

Awww, hells yeah! That juju music is some awesome stuff, I tell you what. King Sunny Ade played frequently in Boston when I was living there so I got to see him two or three times in his early 80s heyday. Boston has a large Nigerian population and they easily made up half the crowd, all decked out in their best Nigerian finery. Ade is known for jamming for six or eight hours without a break back home, so his three hour performances in America were amusing. All the white college kids were worn out and panting on the sidelines but the Nigerians felt like they were just getting started. Not needing to dance to prove my hipness, I could see both perspectives.

Juju is just such inherently happy music. There's a lot of great material out there but Ade's records from 1982-83 (Juju Music, Aura and Synchro System) are the cream of the crop, short of bootlegs of his Nigerian performances. But these albums for American consumption are unrepresentative since they break up his pieces into discrete songs. They are fantastic as songs, mind you, but he would've been better served by a Fela Kuti one-song-per-side approach. Juju is all about finding a groove and working it until all the demons are driven out and all have been healed.

Being from Oklahoma, one special treat among the African Beats is Demola Adepoju on the pedal steel. I will always remember that "holy crap!" feeling when I first heard Juju Music and realized that the best pedal steel player in the world was Nigerian and playing this music. That still ranks near the top of my "this world is a strange and beautiful place" moments.