Live!

Africa 70 in a London studio with Ginger Baker on drums, while Wings recorded next door.
Fela Kuti, 1971

Released
1971
Recorded
25 July 1971
Studio
EMI Studios, London
Label
EMI
Type
live

Live! is a live in-studio album by Africa '70 with the former Cream drummer Ginger Baker added on two songs. It was recorded on 25 July 1971 at EMI Studios in London, now Abbey Road, while Wings were recording Wild Life in the adjacent studio. EMI released it in Africa and Europe and Capitol/EMI in the United States and Canada.

Baker had travelled with Fela into Africa by Land Rover, a trip documented in Tony Palmer's film Ginger Baker in Africa (1971). Celluloid reissued the album on CD in 1987. The Barclay CD adds a 16:21 drum duet between Baker and Tony Allen recorded at the 1978 Berlin Jazz Festival. The album is on Rolling Stone's list of the 50 greatest live albums of all time and in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Track listing

  1. Let's Start8:06
  2. Black Man's Cry12:12
  3. Ye Ye De Smell13:55
  4. Egbe Mi O (Carry Me I Want to Die)12:37

Personnel

More from Fela Kuti

Gentleman (1973), Expensive Shit (1975), Zombie (1976)

Sources

  1. Live! (Fela Kuti album), Wikipedia