Exuma's second album is perhaps a little less strange and a little more sedate than his debut (also released in 1970) -- but only a little. It's another combination of folk music from the Bahamas with voodoo-esque ritual not far removed from some of the more extreme New Orleans music influenced by that practice. In places (like "Fire in the Hole," probably the most accessible cut), there's a spiritual lilt to the vocals that might remind some listeners, if only faintly, of some of the Rasta-fired reggae recorded by Bob Marley and others in the '70s. It's hardly just another day at the office for Mercury Records, though, when one of the first lyrics of an album blithely states, "you thought you married a woman, you married a big black bird." Too, "Paul Simon Nontooth" might even be further out (and creepier) than anything on the first album, being more a zombie revival ritual than a conventional song. There are more tuneful items, too, though, like "Baal," where Exuma's raw, scratchy vocals approximate an exotic soul-gospel feel. And even on the more laid-back tracks, there are all sorts of weird, spontaneous-sounding interjections of percussion, yells, and chanting voices, "We Got to Go" even sounding something like a 19th-century group trying to play like War, only lacking the modern technology to make the transition complete. Plenty of albums based in folk traditions, and plenty of albums that are very odd, have little variety from cut to cut. That, refreshingly, is something that most definitely cannot be said of Exuma, Vol. 2, where you're never quite sure what's around the corner. Overall, however, it's similar enough to the first album that it sounds almost as if it could have been overspill from the same sessions. While it might not be quite as striking as his previous album, certainly anyone who likes that debut will like this as well (and vice versa), and its reissue on CD in 2003 made it more available than it had been for decades.
--
One of the most unique and hard to classify artists of the 1970s, Exuma was a singular talent. Mixing the infectious rhythms and folkloric qualities of Bahamian music with rock, country, and other U.S. influences and adding a sharply satiric element of social commentary, Exuma's music aimed for the heart and the feet at the same time.
Exuma was born McFarlane Anthony McKay on Cat Island in the Bahamas sometime in the early '40s (no one seems to know exactly when). Raised on traditional Bahamian folk songs and the popular music known as junkanoo, a West African-based Bahamian version of calypso or samba named after a Boxing Day festival that's the local equivalent of Mardi Gras or Carnival, McKay nevertheless planned a career as an architect and fell into life as a performer almost by accident. Moving to New York in the early '60s to attend architecture school, McKay soon found himself living in the state of near-penury that's the urban college student's life. Noting the popularity of Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence's records in the Greenwich Village folk scene, McKay began playing venues like the Bitter End and Cafe Wha?, bringing traditional Bahamian folk music to the city, first as a solo artist but quickly forming a group called Tony McKay and the Islanders.
Tony McKay and the Islanders were a popular club band, opening for artists like Richie Havens or Peter, Paul and Mary through the mid-'60s. McKay began undergoing a personal transformation by the end of the decade, absorbing political influences from the black power movement and musical influences from acts like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Sly and the Family Stone. McKay translated this political and artistic excitement through the traditions of his homeland and re-emerged by decade's end as Exuma, the Obeah Man. (Exuma, besides being the name of one of the Bahamas' largest islands, was a spirit balanced between the worlds of the living and the dead; Obeah is an Afro-Caribbean tradition of sorcery, like Santeria in Cuba or Vodun in Haiti.)
Signed to Mercury Records in 1969, Exuma quickly released two albums, Exuma the Obeah Man and Exuma II (both 1970). Mixing powerful Afro-Caribbean rhythms with Exuma's shamanistic exhortations and vividly Obeah-inspired lyrics, these albums were conceptually similar to what Nigeria's Fela Kuti was beginning to do around the same time. Like Fela, however, Exuma was largely ignored by American press, radio, and consumers, and Mercury quickly dropped him.
|
