Bah Samba’s recent double album 4 is chock-a-block of good songs and potential single releases. Julian Bendall, Alice Russell and the rest of Bah Samba already put their magic touch to Teena Marie’s Portuguese Love, which was the first single lifted from the album. Let The Drums Speak, the third single (btw Calma with Isabel Fructuoso was also relased as a 12″ single) is another cover but yet it’s not your average cover version since Bah Samba actually hooked up with Bill Curtis and Johnny Flippen from The Fatback Band, who originally recorded this song.
“I set up an old Ludwig drum kit for Bill, they arrived, we manged to get Bill up the ladder, bearing in mind he’s in his 80’s! and he jammed this wicked Fatback groove for about 2 hours, we jammed downstairs with Johnny on Bass, Mark on Guitar and me on Rhodes, after that we chose the jam we liked and Bill and Johnny did a rap,” says Julian Bendall. “Later Dom (trumpet) turned up and played a similar line to ‘Let the drums Speak’ it was never our intention to do another cover on the album, it was just I had been listening to ‘Yum Yum’ all that week and asked Dom to come up with something on that vibe, the track was originally entitled ‘In a new element’ but with the horn line being too similar we agreed with Fatback’s publisher to go with ‘Let the drums speak’.
Phil Asher, who’ve worked with Bah Samba since their first release on Estereo (Reach Inside), gets involved on Let The Drums Speak as well. His Restless Soul Mix is a driving disco house version that relies on Alice Russell’s harmonies that will work well on the dancefloor. Unfortunately Phil’s version omits the ad-libs of the Fatback Band. Luckily Harvey Lindo includes these ad-libs on his 70s inspired soulful midtempo remix. And if you’ve missed the album 4 (shame on you, you’ve missed one of the albums of the year!) there’s also the great disco funk of the album version.

Tracklisting of Let The Drums Speak: 1. Phil Asher Restless Soul Mix/ 2. Harvey Lindo Edit/ 3. Album Version | released November 14th, 2005 BKO Productions

For more infos visit bahsamba.co.uk.

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