Various Artists - Ethiopian Hit Parade Volume 1

2021 repress. After releasing around fifty 45 rpm singles and his first 33 rpm album (Ethiopian Modern Instrumental Hits AELP 10, re-released by Heavenly Sweetness HL092VL), Amha Esth�t� set about compiling his best 45s on a series of now legendary albums (the originals are impossible to find) in 1972.

An audacious, funky outlaw, a music lover and an entrepreneur in tune with the baby-boomer generation, young Amha Esth�t� (he was only twenty-four when he launched his label) will be remembered as the instigator of a peaceful revolution thick with soul and rock'n'roll.

The tracks on this first volume celebrate pioneers of modern Ethiopian groove such as Girma B�y�n�, Seyfu Yohannes, T�shom� Meteku, Menelik W�snatch�w, Mulatu Astatq and Muluken Melesse, alongside tradi-modern singers representing Amhara (Essatu T�ss�mma) and Oromo culture, so rich and so long marginalised (Abb�b� T�ss�mma and G�m�tchu Itana).