I'm on top of the world, filled with greatness

Continuing my trip back through the 1971 album charts.

11/07/71 : Osibisa - Osibisa

Our first ever mention for Osibisa and I must confess I've never heard of them, which is a shocking state of affairs because they've been going since '69 and have released 16 studio (and, amusingly, 25 compilation) albums - let me remedy my ignorance immediately!

This is an interesting one - it wouldn't surprise me if it's the earliest "African" album we've seen. I use quotes because they were all based in London and half of them were actually Caribbean, but it has a strong African vibe to the whole thing. I can't say I loved it but it pootled along nicely and does feature some very fine guitar playing, so it was pleasant enough - unlike the creatures on the album cover.

We're at a surprisingly high #11 on the last week of a seven week run with this being as high as it got, which makes me wonder why it dropped out of the chart in the following week. The top five this week were Simon & Garfunkel, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Paul & Linda McCartney, The Rolling Stones and Motown Chartbusters Vol 5, with the highest new entry being The Strawbs (#39).

Wikipedia has two whole sentences on the album - it's their debut, was released in '71 and re-released in '04. Some very interesting names pop up in the production section though - it was produced by Tony Visconti, engineered by John Punter and Martin Rushent (both of whom went on to produce quite a few albums in the 80s) and the artwork was done by Roger Dean, who went on to be very well known for his work with Yes (which isn't a surprise based on this cover). I'm intrigued as to how they all got involved - the band's entry gives no clues but it does tell me they're nominally still going, although half of the original members are no longer with us. Critically, it was pretty well received with even our old mate Robert Christgau being nice enough about it, but commercially, it far exceeded my expectations, getting to #21 in Norway, #13 in Australia, #6 in The Netherlands and a very decent #55 in the US.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent copy for £4, but if you want a mint copy then it's going to set you back £50. This really isn't my kind of thing, but it was an enjoyable educational experience about a band that I really feel I should have known about - they feel like proper pioneers in their genre and they had a very decent longevity to them.

18/08/71 - Intriguing, if not exactly interesting

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