African Acoustic vol. 1 (side A)

The liner notes are self-effacing enough to say "the sound quality of some of tracks is no better than adequate." The humility really goes too far—the typical field recording quality is to be expected on such a reissue. The performances are good, and sometimes great. Both the music and the performances of acoustic guitar-based folk songs, sound s like Folkways recordings of American blues as any African record I own. The language is the only obvious clue that the music is from Tanzania, Zambia, and Zaire. It's a nice collection from 1988.