This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
Editor's note: This is a guest preview from Sean Maloney (aka Bawston Sean), a frequent contributor to both the Nashville Scene and Nashville Cream. Sean can be reached via email at [email protected].
I will not claim to be an expert on African music. I listen to a lot of it, I buy a ton of comps from across the continent but when it comes on the stereo all of my critical faculties melt away, bliss sets in and I just drift away. I stop being a music critic and just become a fan, ya know, like normal people. It's really fucking weird and nobody quite elicits that reaction like the King of Juju, Nigeria's own King Sunny Adé.
Seriously, this review is almost impossible to write – I've got Gems from the Classic Years (1967-1974) on the stereo and every two seconds I get distracted by a sweet guitar lick or wild multi-drummer drum fill and totally lose track of what I'm doing. I find myself singing along to words I don't understand. I find myself staring at my stereo trying to anticipate the moment where I can break free, but that moment never comes. New sounds and new rhythms bubble up and boil out, like someone is playing ping pong with the ADD-addled neurons in my brain. And then the guitar solo hits. I'm fortunate enough to live in a town where the world-class guitar picker to average person ratio is way off. I've seen shredders from every genre, from country to metal to funk; I've seen them in stadiums and shitty bars, and see them all so often that I sometimes I'm immune such sweet riffage. With that in mind, I feel pretty confident when I say that King Sunny Adé is the world's greatest living guitarist. I'd like to think that if Wes Montgomery had lived long enough to have a psychedelic phase, or if Hendrix had stayed off the psychedelics and stuck to clean tones, they would have sounded like Adé.
Oh, wait...hold on a minute...Sorry, it was another guitar solo. They demand your attention, but without every being overbearing or in your face – it's amazing, really. King Sunny Adé is not to be missed.
King Sunny Adé and his African Beats play the Other Tent on Friday at from 5:15-6:30 p.m., which just happens to overlap with Santigold and Al Green. Damn you Bonnaroo and your excess of awesomeness! If my head explodes I'm holding you responsible! Check out the Full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
Recent Comments