Ernest Ranglin (credit: UrbanImage.tv)
In 1998, Ernest Ranglin, Caribbean guitar wizard, released the extraordinary In Search of the Lost Riddim. If you come to this record expecting the gentle sounds of the West Indies a la Joseph Spence, what you hear will shock you. This is an African record through and through. It was recorded in Baaba Maal’s home with his musical compatriots shaping and influencing everything in it. And it is a magnificent album, full of the graceful, gentle rhythms of Maal’s Senegalese style.
In the 1970s, Ranglin toured Senegal with Jimmy Cliff’s band and met the young Baaba Maal. For the next 25 years, Ranglin’s musical dream was to return and record an album with African musicians. Here he got his wish and produced something truly lovely to the heart and the ear.
Our MP3 is Minuit (“Midnight”) (hear it), which I chose for its soothing, gently rollicking rhythms. When you listen to it you’ll feel that all is right with the world.
Precious little music criticism exists on the web for this recording. But these are two good short pieces containing background about the recording and Ranglin himself: Richard Gehr’s Utne review and a Groovesite.com review
WARNING: This mp3 blog exists to spread the wonder and genius that is traditional music. It does NOT exist to enhance your private mp3 collection. So by all means come, listen, enjoy, then follow the links to buy the music. If you come, listen, download, then leave—you’re violating the spirit behind this blog and doing nothing to support the artists featured here. And if you link to my mp3 file at your own site, then you’re stealing my bandwidth and being pretty uncool. So please don’t do it.
Bravo for your site. Glad to see that there’s someone aside from RLR carrying the torch. I wish I had the time to do it myself, but between myriad projects here and there, I’m afraid I’m tapped. Even still, I’m glad to see this site up.