GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
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Global Routes with Tony Burke: May 20, 2022
Seminal 1970s recordings by Gabon’s Orchestre Massako reissued
Jean-Christian Mboumba Mackaya (aka Mack-Joss) fronted Gabon’s Orchestre Massako from 1971
[Analog Africa]
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
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RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JEAN-CHRISTIAN Mboumba Mackaya (aka Mack-Joss) fronted Gabon’s Orchestre Massako from 1971 — when the armed forces formed their own band.
Aged 17, he was well known on Gabon’s nightlife scene having released the pan-African hit record Le Boucher/The Butcher.
Between 1968 and 1970 Mack-Joss and his Negro-Tropical recorded 45s at an open-air studio. In the late 1970s his Studio Mobile Massako was built and he would fly to France, with the master tapes in his hand luggage, press the records and ship them back to African distributors.
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