THE GHANA CONNECTION

Guy Warren. I knew that name from somewhere. That's what I thought when I first shuffled through the used LPs that my younger brother gave me for Christmas. He knows the evolution of my taste and can pretty much guess where it's headed since the last time we saw each other. We still compare notes. So only one selection was familiar to me, a Cal Tjader, mid-sixties vintage. The Guy Warren LP stuck out to me though. Not only was the name familiar, but the album cover was striking. In particular, the juxtaposition of the cheesy "Living Stereo" banner up top, seen on the top of all manners of vinyl cheese of that era, and the photo of a shirtless man, mouth wide open, beating on an African drum with a big ol' savage fire raging behind him. It looked like any number of savage looking LP covers of that time (1959). Les Baxter comes to mind, but there were others, many others.

My brother shot an email to me yesterday asking if I'd listened to any of the albums yet, and I was kind of embarrassed to have to cop to having only listened to the Tjader LP. (I was on a Cal Tjader kick.) So last night I picked up the others and was trying to decide what to listen to next. Let's listen to this Guy Warren, what the hell. I flip the cover over to check the liner notes to see if the guy had any cred. There it was, "Blood Brothers". Ho-ly shit. That's where I'd heard the name before! He was the guy that did "Blood Brothers" with Ginger Baker on Baker's Strativarious LP. The one on this LP was every bit as wild as the one on the Baker LP, but with African drums. I've posted the Baker version many times, but I'd never even looked into the Guy Warren name, so I didn't know his version existed. This answered one question. Which is, how did someone named Guy Warren end up on Baker's LP for the one song, when the rest of the album was done with a bunch of Fela's mob (including drummer Tony Allen if I remember correctly)? Now I kinda see what happened.

So this is all one big fat ass bonus night. I realize the Warren/Baker connection. I dig on the Warren LP. I get to research Warren. And there appears to be a lot written about him. This is just sort of a "Hey, check this!" and now you're on your own.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Guy Warren - Blood Brothers mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Ginger Baker with Guy Warren - Blood Brothers mp3 at Likembe
Guy Warren - Love, The Mystery of mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Art Blakey - Love, The Mystery of (streaming) at YouTube Cover of Warren's original
The full LP:
The Guy Warren Sounds - Themes For African Drums at Beware of the Blog All eight songs in individual mp3s
Visit:
Guy Warren - Themes for African Drums at Night of the Living Vinyl Excellent review and profile.