Never have I heard such a bass line before — so round, perfect and solid. A slowly creeping groove, sultry and mysterious, that rises and falls at odd, ear-teasing intervals. Self-assurance plays in the bass player’s smile, as two saxophones twist his rhythm with a swing all of their own. He knows the game is won. This is one of those moments, where a performer clutches his audience with a tight grip, lifts them up and leaves them there, suspended in mid-air, where nothing matters except this bass loop, this graceful chord, and this limping rhythm.

Take the energy of a James Brown in his best years, the smoothness of an Otis Redding, wrap them tightly in dazzling cross-rhythms and bounce them off a sophisticated oriental horn section, and you won’t get close to the gentle power that is Mahmoud Ahmed on stage

It’s Friday the 29th July and I’m at Womad, squeezed into the growing crowd that has come to be intoxicated by the Ethiopian soul of Mahmoud Ahmed. And right now, I’m making my way to the front of the stage, where Francis Falceto, the eminent editor of the inexhaustible Ethiopiques CD series, nods his head to Ahmed’s beat. “What’s this song called,” I ask breathlessly, and get a knowing smile as a reply. “‘Bèmen Sèbèb Letlash’,” he says, “third song on Ethiopiques 7. The bassline? Incredible, I know. The credit for this goes to Giovanni Rico Bonsignori, an Italian-Ethiopian bassist who used to play with Mahmoud Ahmed in the ’70s.” Plenty of information to digest on a festival site, and there’s more. I learn that Susheela Raman has been equally lured into the seductive harmonic spiderweb of this song, and has based both the music and lyrics of ‘Love Trap’, the title track of her second album, on the piece.

This song, its bass and Mahmoud Ahmed’s performance become recurring topics of many Womad conversations. The Ethiopian star is the revelation of this year’s festival. Even though Mahmoud Ahmed is established world music royalty, rather than a hotly-tipped newcomer, it took this concert for people to rediscover this ludicrously talented singer.

He is one of Ethiopia’s greatest and most influential performers, the leading voice of the country’s ‘Golden Age’ in the ’60s and ’70s, when a thriving indigenous jazz and funk scene swept the nation. And yet, despite his status and talent, despite creating music that is as original as it is accessible, he has never become a household name of world music. This might however be about to change, if his phenomenal two sets at Womad and the reactions of the crowd are anything to go by.

Ethiopia’s borders were closed while the country suffered under the ‘Red Terror’, the oppressive dictatorship of Mengistu. The vibrant, modern music scene that had flourished in the Ethiopia of the ’70s had crumbled like a civilisation destroyed by conquering forces

His Friday night concert at the Siam Tent had the audience rooted to the spot. It was a show so tight, so engaging and so moving that everything that followed paled into insignificance. Take the energy of a James Brown in his best years, the smoothness of an Otis Redding, wrap them tightly in dazzling cross-rhythms and bounce them off a sophisticated oriental horn section, and you won’t get close to the gentle power that is Mahmoud Ahmed on stage. Unbelievably, this was Mahmoud Ahmed’s first ever performance in the UK. And that’s what gave his show that extra edge that made the thought of festival-style ‘stage-hopping’ impossible. Anyone who came to see him stayed to the last note. A couple of young Ethiopians jumped wildly, mouthing every word he said. Couples hugged a little more tenderly and swayed softly, and even the group of local Reading boys that looked as though they’d only come to cause mischief, stayed transfixed, eyes locked on the stage. Excitement fed from the stage into the crowd and back — an upwards spiral of pure musical bliss. The band looked quietly pleased, and coolly wove their nets of eerie harmonies, intricate rhythms and soulful grooves. Ahmed himself jumped, danced, waved and seemed genuinely thrilled to be here.

The next day, when his name was whispered all across the festival site, he still smiled at the thought of the show. “I was so surprised that I couldn’t sleep last night because I had to think of the audience. It has stayed in my mind, you know. But I’ve always dreamt that one day, I would play for a big audience, so, my wish has been granted.” Then he breaks into infectious laughter, “I am so very happy. I’ve played in many places in Europe, but you know yesterday, I was so shocked, because the [audience] gave me a good groove, and then I went crazy for playing again and again and again.”

It seems strange, and unjust, that such a gifted vocalist and unique performer, someone who helped transform the sound of an entire nation in his youth, should have to wait until his hair turns white before he starts earning the recognition he deserves abroad. But sometimes, that’s the story life has written, just ask Cesaria Evora.

For Mahmoud Ahmed, Western interest in African music came simply at the wrong time. In the ’80s, when Salif Keita, Mory Kante and Youssou N’Dour climbed to global stardom, Ethiopia’s borders were closed while the country suffered under the ‘Red Terror’, the oppressive dictatorship of Mengistu. The vibrant, modern music scene that had flourished in the Ethiopia of the ’70s had crumbled like a civilisation destroyed by conquering forces. Even so, Mahmoud Ahmed came to brief international attention, when the legendary label Crammed Discs unearthed his 1975 recording ‘Erè Mèla Mèla’, and released it in Europe. Its intense love songs sounded unlike anything that had been heard before. Based on eerie Ethiopian pentatonic modes, their harmonies float in mid-air, building a sweet suspense that is never quite released. Rhythms combine like a complex jigsaw, and Ahmed’s declamatory voice conveys all the pain of a doomed love affair. This was bated-breath listening. Copies were snapped up quickly and publications ranging from the New York Times to the NME graced it with rave reviews. Rotating endlessly on the taste-making Parisian station Radio Nova, it became an instant hit. The world woke up to the modern music of Ethiopia — but only for a brief moment.

Rather than clutching to power by force, Haile Selassie tried to woo his people into voluntary obedience by loosening entertainment laws and supporting the process that turned Addis Ababa into a hip-swinging seductress of a metropolis. The city went into a 14-year period of creative overdrive

Under the Mengistu regime (also known as the Derg), the country was largely closed off, and Mahmoud Ahmed was inaccessible, unable to tour abroad or to record future releases. Public interest gradually faded, and though the stunning album continued to exist as a treasured cult classic in the record collection of many devotees, Mahmoud Ahmed’s worldwide career was halted before it had properly begun. Following Mengistu’s fall in 1991, too much time had passed to carry on where he had left off. He resumed busy international touring activities, but rarely performed outside the Ethiopian circuit. It’s only now, 20 years on, that the world is once again waking up to him, that ears are opening to the sound of 1970s’ Ethiopia, the years of ‘Addis Swing’, ‘Ethio-Jazz’ and ‘Abyssinian Soul’.

The ’60s and ’70s were a period of dramatic artistic innovation all over the world. Adolescents claimed their right to challenge old ways and values, and replace them with confident, sensual and confrontational new ones. Economic prosperity and youthful rebellion fuelled America’s musical revolution. In many of the newly independent nations of sub-Saharan Africa, youth culture was consciously developed through state sponsorship, as the countries tried to forge a proud, modern national identity. Ethiopia had as ever its particular set of references that were, in true Ethiopian style, completely idiosyncratic, placed somewhere between the developments in Africa and the Western world.

Ethiopia is the only African country that had successfully fought against colonial expansionism. Still, it participated alongside the young neighbouring nations in the celebrations of independence as it now found itself at the centre of the Afro-centric imagination. Addis Ababa was the chosen seat for the newly founded Organisation Of African Unity (OAU), and Emperor Haile Selassie rose to the challenge and made efforts to turn Addis into a sparkling centre of modernity. The feverish construction and lavish spending on infrastructure that ensued were part of the spirit that also allowed for musical creation to flourish.

By 1960, Haile Selassie, who had reigned over Ethiopia since 1930 (with a five year interruption from 1936 to 1941, when Ethiopia was annexed by fascist Italian forces), could feel that his power had begun slipping away. Though he survived a failed coup d’état in 1960, his supremacy did not emerge unscathed, and so the ‘enlightened Emperor’ made attempts to boost his popularity. Rather than clutching to power by force, he tried to woo his people into voluntary obedience by loosening entertainment laws and supporting the process that turned Addis Ababa into a hip-swinging seductress of a metropolis. The city went into a 14-year period of creative overdrive. Nightclubs sprang from fertile artistic soil like flowers after the rainy season. Afro hairdos and miniskirts, polished shoes and tailored shirts were the proud emblems of a generation that populated the lively streets of Addis’ party district, Dedjaz Woube Sefer (dubbed Woube Bereha — the Woube Desert), night after night. Ethiopia’s youth danced feverishly into the demise of the Selassie dynasty. Like a slowly weakening patient given a dose of oxygen, Ethiopia was lifted into a heady giddiness before its tragic descent into the Derg era.

The owner came, and was surprised to see me on stage. ‘Allah!’ he said. ‘Are you going to sing? From this day, I’ll buy good clothes for you. A shirt with tie and shoes.’ And from that day, I was playing on the stage in the Arizona club with the Imperial Bodyguard Band

The music of the time was a startling combination of funk, soul and jazz with Ethiopian grooves, a thorough Orientalisation of American cool. What makes it so strikingly original is the odd marriage of bold beats and Ethiopia’s unique pentatonic modes, and the sensitive, but powerful use of brass instruments.

The Ibex Band (later renamed Roha Band), whom Mahmoud Ahmed played and recorded with at the time, used just two saxophones (he still plays with the same line-up today), but placed them prominently in the arrangements. Other bands featured much bulkier brass sections. This heavy reliance on brass instruments is deeply rooted in Ethiopian culture. In 1924, Western-style brass bands were added to Ethiopia’s traditional wind instruments, when Emperor Menelik ‘imported’ an entire Armenian brass orchestra after hearing them on a visit to Jerusalem. Haile Selassie continued to develop ‘big band culture’ by lavishing much of his royal attention on mighty institutional brass ensembles, such as the Police Orchestra and the Imperial Bodyguard Band. Having performed in stately military style throughout the ’40s and ’50s, the developments of the ‘Golden Age’ inspired them to add slick jazz and boogie sections that outdid one another with elegance and swinging perfection. The Imperial Bodyguard Band was one of the most successful of these groups, and it became the stepping stone to national fame for Mahmoud Ahmed.

Bored of school and eager to earn his own money, the young Mahmoud scraped together a living as a shoeshine boy on the streets of Addis Ababa. Sitting on his shoeshine box at the Greek Olympiakos Club where his father worked, he soaked up the music broadcasts of Tèquali Radio, the Imperial Bodyguard station, that drifted from the bar. “Every Tuesday and Thursday they had a programme,” he recounts. “There were many singers in the Bodyguard band. I listened to their music during the daytime. In the morning, I’d be playing in school, and then I’d develop that.” Little did he know, that he would soon get a chance to become one of the band’s many singers. When yet another disco, the Arizona Club, was opened near his parents’ home in 1962, his mother found the 18-year-old Mahmoud employment there. “I started with carpentry,” he says, “afterwards I went on to painting. Then, once I had renovated the house, I became a cook. The [Imperial Bodyguard] band was playing there, and one day, the government needed the singers elsewhere, so the musicians were left to their own devices. They had two famous songs which I knew, and they played them. I came from the kitchen and asked ‘Shall I try to sing this song?’ ‘What?’ they replied. ‘Yes, let me try to be on stage.’ ‘OK come on,’ they said, and I sang. The audience in the nightclub applauded. The owner came, and was surprised to see me on stage. ‘Allah!’ he said. ‘Are you going to sing? From this day, I’ll buy good clothes for you. A shirt with tie and shoes.’ And from that day, I was playing on the stage in the Arizona club with the Imperial Bodyguard Band.”

“I’ve seen him perform hundreds of times, in different contexts, in Ethiopia as well as abroad, and I’ve also seen many TV and film recordings of his performances. I would say that as he gets older he just seems to get stronger. He still jumps, sings and dances, and I’ve never heard him sing out of tune.”

It wasn’t long before his irresistible combination of outstanding vocal talent and charisma attracted the attention of the public. Once he left the state band and started fronting the popular dance groups of the time, such as the Ibex and Dahlack band, he quickly joined the cream of ‘Swinging Addis’ — musicians such as jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatqé and the ‘Abyssinian Elvis’ Alèmayèhu Eshèté. Though it was the latter who charmed the ladies with his good looks, dapper rock ‘n’ roll style and heart-rending R&B ballads, Mahmoud Ahmed also claimed a bit of Elvis affinity: “This was the time of Elvis Presley, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Pat Bone, Ray Charles — the big singers. LPs and 45s came to Ethiopia. We were observing and playing, and watching the films. Elvis was shaking his leg, and I was the one who did this in Ethiopia.”

His first single ‘Nafqot New Yegodagn’ with the Venus Band ushered in his most creative phase. A steady stream of singles followed with a number of different bands, most of them released on Amha Records, Ethiopia’s first independent label, and on Ali Tango’s Kaifa Records, which continued to produce albums well into the ’80s. In 1973, Amha Eshèté, the luminous owner of Amha Records, put out Almaz Men Eda New, Mahmoud Ahmed’s first LP with the Ibex Band. The brilliant Erè Mèla Mèla, released on Kaifa Records a couple of years later, was the last radiant spark that saw out the ‘Golden Era’.

Mahmoud Ahmed continued performing during the years that followed, though under very different circumstances. Censorship placed heavy constraints on artists, reducing their lyrical expressions to dumbed-down praises of the regime and love songs (which often contained well-disguised political messages), while tight curfews meant that the concert scene was reduced to hotel lock-ins. “We played in hotels, such as the Hilton, and between 11.30pm and midnight, everyone would come into the club. We would continue playing until around 5am, when everyone could go home,” Ahmed remembers.

If the ‘hotel years’ stifled some of his spark, and staled his performance, none of that shows today. Quite the contrary. His voice has gained in strength and warmth, and the old arrangements of his ’70s’ hits have been polished to a new shine. Francis Falceto agrees. “I’ve seen him perform hundreds of times, in different contexts, in Ethiopia as well as abroad, and I’ve also seen many TV and film recordings of his performances. I would say that as he gets older he just seems to get stronger. He still jumps, sings and dances, and I’ve never heard him sing out of tune.” Falceto has already dedicated three albums on Ethiopiques to Ahmed’s works, re-releasing his two Ethiopian LPs, several singles and a few live recordings. And apparently, there’s more to come. “I’ve still got material of his that is waiting to be published, Falceto says, and adds mischievously, “but you’ll have to wait for a while. You don’t think that I’ll put out all my best material at once, do you?” Falceto is likely to ease the wait with a few releases by other artists (most the albums on the ever-growing 20-piece series are wonderful), and if touring agents and promoters have taken the hint at Womad, Mahmoud Ahmed should grace many of the big festival stages over the next few years.

The Ethiopiques series on France’s Buda label is available in the UK via Discovery.

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine October 2005. From Anglo trad to Zanzibar pop, via the great mixing desk in the sky. (Pronounce it “eff-Roots”). http://www.frootsmag.com

There are also more pictures of Mahmoud Ahmed’s performance at WOMAD on our sister site Flykr

Image by Damian Rafferty