Catalogue       Group                                                       A side/B side                                                        Year

Number

LUCY 06        Ambira Boys                                  Sola Pts 1 & 2

LUCY 07        Ambira Boys                                  Ndogo Ndogo Pts 1 & 2

QUE 05         Ambui Brothers                               Sister/Kirimino

CEGE 03       Orch Shika Shika                             Ole Mama Pts 1 & 2

Ambira Boys were a Luo band from Nyanza province, who also recorded for Mlima. It’s hard to tell whether the group were proteges of Sylvester Odhiambo and Peter Owiso, who share the songwriting credit, or whether both men were band members. Certainly both had careers with other groups such as the Blue Shade Band and Orch Sega-Sega and, no doubt, other outfits too.

A post on the Likembe blog links Odhiambo to Gabriel Omolo’s Apollo Komesha, that connection and the LP Likembe blogs about suggests these singles date from the 1980s. The Ambui Brothers don’t feature elsewhere in this discography and it is intriguing that they warrant a different catalogue prefix.

Thanks to Sofiane of Groovy Record in Paris for supplying details of all of these records and the label scan.

In July 2011, Alan Wheeler supplied details of CEGE 03, anothersingle by Jimmy Moni Mambo’s prolific Orch Shika Shika.