The definitive reissue of a Zamrock masterpiece, ranging from hard psych to wistful folk. Contains bonus track “Sunday Morning Sunshine,” never before on LP.
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Salty Dog’s solitary Zamrock album, custom-pressed for the band by the South African Teal record company’s Zambezi subsidiary is one of the more difficult Zamrock records to find clean; in our years of searching and friendship with the late Norman Muntemba, the band’s leader, we’ve only come across two. Now, the album has been restored and remastered – and expanded – in this definitive reissue, done in conjunction with the Salt Dog’s bandmembers’ heirs.
Norman Muntemba was a bass player and a graphic designer, and his hand was behind some of Zamrock’s iconic album covers, including many by Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family and Keith Mlevhu. His Salty Dog band was the result of a lifelong friendship with the band’s guitartist Jackie Mumba. Their first band was the Invasions, formed right around the time of Zambia’s independence. Then, with the addition of Alex Mwilwa on drums, and heavily influenced by Hendrix’s psych-rock, they became Way Out Impression.
In the mid 70s, they were all serving in the Zambian National Service, and, as Muntemba remembers, debating life, wanting to “give birth to ideas that would develop and change the lives of people… in a happy way” (from Strawberry Rain’s liner notes to their initial album reissue). Thus, they settled on the name Salty Dog – not a riff on the Procol Harum album, but a suggestion from an American friend, who told them it was slang for sperm back home – and released a self-titled album on Zambezi full of bemusement and wonder, punctuated by Mumba’s searing guitar on songs like “Fast,” and Muntemba’s woeful “See The Storm.”
Zambezi issued two 45s around the album, one of which, “Try A Little Harder,” received heavy airplay, according to Muntemba. This is likely: “Try A Little Harder,” a Humanist plea if there ever was one, which would surely have pleased Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda’s government. Salty Dog recorded a second album in 1980, of which we’ve found the existence of a solitary 45. They played together until the mid-’80s, when Mumba’s death sealed the band’s fate.
This reissue includes the rare track “Sunday Morning Sunshine,” previously unavailable in any format outside of its original press on a Zambezi 7″ single.