Toomba!

[Rick Aiello]

Well after getting the 2 Dick McIntire and 2 Andy Iona CD's from Bruce Clarke I thought I was pretty set for Early Electric Steel music. I was wrong - again!

Today I got to open and listen to Augie Goupil's compilation - Toomba. I wasn't prepared for this one. Made me feel like I was witnessin' some kinda' Polynesian ritual celebration. No umbrella's in your Mai Tai here. These guys sound TOUGH. Lots of grunts, chest slappin', fast tempo music with incredibly TASTEFUL steel work.

From the liner notes it appears that Augie was a master Tahitian musician that used steel players like Andy Iona, Bobby Nichols, Danny Stewart and Sol Bright to embellish his assortment of Tahitian songs.

It seems like the steel players were feedin' off the "rhythmic frenzy" cause there is alot of energized playin' on this one.

I'm not sure this CD is for everyone but I'm glad I got it. I must admit it wore me out listenin' to it all day.

I also got the mp3 CD that Brad pointed to a few weeks ago. An incredible collection of 188 78's. It was well done but it REALLY made me appreciate the restoration work that Mr. Clarke is doin' (it had some of the same Andy Iona songs) - what a HUGE difference in audio quality.

He said Toomba was his favorite out of his entire collection. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 25 December 2001 at 08:20 PM.]</p></FONT>