Fela LPs?

[rave0035]

Just starting to discover F.K. Looks like most of his releases on vinyl are $$$$, and were mostly African releases.

Anybody know of any plans to reissue any of his stuff on LP? It looks like Knitting Factory Records has the license?

Mike

 

[bjlefebvre]

Knitting Factory is about it for now. But they've got good stuff. I was on a serious Fela buying spree for the previous year or two. Not all his albums are great, but quite a few are phenomenal. Try Gentleman, Rofofo Fight and Confusion on Knitting Factory. Also good are Zombie (Celluloid has editions that can be found at decent prices), and He Miss Road.

 

[Brett a]

Considering the volume of his output, the availability if it on vinyl is very limited in the states regardless of price tag. Although I love everything leading up to his Egypt 80 era, once he put that group together, it was hit or miss, and/but some of my absolute favorites were with Egypt 80. "Beasts of No Nation" and "Just Like That" are two of my favorite Fela recordings. It's good we have the internet now. When i was collecting, it was a crap shoot.

 

[El Pee]

The Knitting Factory stuff is all high quality stuff, shop around as prices vary here and there... my biggest complaint is that they are essentially 12"s rather than what we would consider a full-length LPs, and still cost around $20. Over the years I found a few older releases here on Barter Town... sometimes you get lucky.

And in looking for Fela Kuti records, I got turned on to some awesome African music I never would have found otherwise.

 

[Mystic]

The Knitting Factory stuff is all high quality stuff, shop around as prices vary here and there... my biggest complaint is that they are essentially 12"s rather than what we would consider a full-length LPs, and still cost around $20. Over the years I found a few older releases here on Barter Town... sometimes you get lucky.

And in looking for Fela Kuti records, I got turned on to some awesome African music I never would have found otherwise.

Seconded. You cannot go wrong w/ Kuti LPs. A master African (sorta) Jazzman IMO.

 

[Mystic]

If African "blues" is also yer thing, yo might wanna seek out LPs by Ali Farka Toure (pardone, there's supposed to be an accent @ the final letter 'e" of his name but my thoroughly American keyboard ain' gonna gibe it up).

I like Kuti and Farka, probably givin' the edge to Farka 'cuz I'm more into BLUES and JAZZ. Only reason though cuz Kuti's work is brilliant.

 

[Mystic]

As aside: there is also a pretty decent documentary film about Kuti entitled:

Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon (1982).

I rather enjoyed it. There are 2-3 other docufilms either about him exclusively or including Fela as a featured performer.

 

[bjlefebvre]

As aside: there is also a pretty decent documentary film about Kuti entitled:

Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon (1982).

I rather enjoyed it. There are 2-3 other docufilms either about him exclusively or including Fela as a featured performer.

Plus one on the documentary. If you don't know his life story, you're missing how dangerous a bunch of his albums actually were.

 

[IPADave]

Thanks for heads up on the documentaries. I plan on checking them out.

-Dave