onurblues: Roland Tchakounté - Nguémé & Smiling Blues (2015)

June 09, 2023

Roland Tchakounté - Nguémé & Smiling Blues (2015)

→ Thanks to my unique partners...

“The DNA of the blues is African”

From the beginning of his career, and his revelation in 1999 at the Blues-sur-Seine Festival near Paris, Roland Tchakounté, the Cameroonian “griot” relocated in France, is taking the American blues to re-encounter its historical African roots. “The DNA of the blues is African”, he affirms.

Converted to blues the day he heard John Lee Hooker in his country, he did with blues what his fellow Cameroonian musician, the late jazz-funk saxophonist Manu Dibango, had done with makossa, a popular rhythmic musical style from Cameroon, that he infused with jazz.

In June 2022, I reviewed here Tchakounté's fourth album, the superb “Blues Menessen” (2010), and dubbed him "African griot" (1).

In his next album “Ndoni” (2012), his blues was a bit less openly colored with the music of his native continent but the result was beautiful all the same.

At left, Tchakounté's long time accomplice Mick Ravassat

Three years later, Tchakounté came back with this really great opus, “Nguémé & Smiling Blues”. “Nguémé” is a word for “hardship” in bamileke, Tchakounté's mother tongue, in which he sings all along the album. In a way it could also be translated by “blues”.

Amar Sundy

He recorded with a team of top musicians from the French blues scene. The guitar parts are as superb as could be expected from a line-up of such fine musicians as his long time partner, the impressive lead guitarist Mick Ravassat; the excellent Hervé Samb, usual guitar man of Bony Fields; Jérôme Cornelis, a good friend and playing partner of Ravassat in several side-bands; the renowned Sahara Tuareg Amar Sundy, affectionately dubbed "the bluesman of the desert", whose own albums' musical approach is similar to Tchakounté's; and the mysterious Tchunn Men.

Jérôme Cornelis

Next to them, Johan Dalghaard and Damien Cornelis (the guitarist's brother) provide appealing piano and organ parts; three drummers, who relay Larry Crockett on a few tracks, and the bassist Kim Yarbrough keeps the beat flawless, except one track where Tchakounté himself is on bass; and Christophe Dupeu appears on harmonica.

Damien Cornelis

“Nguémé & Smiling Blues” is a fine blues album but also a fine example of African-infused world music. When Tchakounté stands on the blues side, with the help of his accomplice Ravassat, it's West-Africa in Chicago or Mississippi. When he enhances the African side, it's Chicago in West-Africa. Or the contrary in both cases. 

The album opens with the particularly appealing “Chubata Africa”, a perfect example of Afro-blues mix, with as much African influence as authentic blues and a proud declaration of love for the Black Continent.

Johan Dalghaard

The next four tracks are deeply African-inspired melodic and moving ballads. Tchakounté's emotional vocals beautifully carry the deep sorrow inherent to a continent crippled by so many “nguémés” on the moving “Nju Bwoh Man”, enlightened by feminine background vocals, on the sumptuously arranged piano-led “Ouba Kih Kamagnam” and “Melena”, and on the reggae “Nguémé & Smiling Blues”.

Africa is the central subject of these tracks. The word itself comes regularly in the lyrics that unfortunately have not been translated on the digipack.

Suddenly B.B. King drops in the studio on “Meden Mbibou” ! Hats off for Ravassat on guitar (and for Damien Cornelis on organ behind him). Tchakounté has jumped over the Atlantic Ocean and embarks us for Chicago or Memphis. His group is worth the best Chicago blues bands and would deserve performing in the most renowned clubs of the Windy City.

For all the next tracks until the end Tchakounté and his accomplices continue in the straight blue style : on “Kane Bwoga Africa”, though the lyrics are obviously entirely devoted to the Black Continent; on “Meba Gangsta”; on the excellent “Tchuite Blues Noum Seou” whose Brazilian style chorus is a nice idea (after all Africa provided a good part of the populations in Brazil too); on the soulful “Immigrés” (“immigrants” in French) featuring again the excellent Damien Cornelis on piano; on the reggae-tinged “Hey Hey, Kanen Baby”, in which the African influence is a bit more perceptible; on “Oulen Nefa Fide (Joli Coeur)”; and on the final “Misery”.

This superb Afro-blues album, the work of excellent (blues) musicians, is both moving and rejoicing (the “nguémé” and the smiling blues). Such a blend of African traditional music and American blues is a winner. And Mr Tchakounté, the modern blues griot who gets better with each new opus, is a great man. ■

(1) A “griot” is a West-African tribal musician, storyteller or storysinger, epic poet, a cultural guardian whose original role was to preserve the genealogies and oral traditions of the tribe in times when written language was a rare privilege.

Videos