Sounding Off Jimmy Katumba's Re-Emergence


The Monitor (Kampala)

January 9, 2005
Posted to the web January 10, 2005

Kampala

Jimmy Katumba's voice is imprinted on the Ugandan music scene. For over decade, between 1979 and 1991, the man dubbed as Uganda's answer to Jim Reeves together with his backup outfit, The Ebonies were all the rage, enthralling audiences with a song repertoire that spanned traditional folktales to patriotic songs.

One of the songs from the latter category was Uganda My African Home, a song Katumba co-wrote in the '80s together with Peter Penfold, the then British High Commissioner to Uganda. The lyrics are a cursory journey to Uganda's major landmarks, people and culture. Katumba hopes to use it to herald his return. His backup outfit this time is a bevy of melodious voices with a fancy name, The Breves, derived from the longest musical staff notation.
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Katumba's voice still has that distinctive range and he occasionally replaces the "African home" phrase with "special home", in acknowledgement of the Nile Special brew whose parent company, Nile Breweries funded the song's production. Katumba's vocal geographical journey takes us climbing the hills of Karamoja and wading in the waters of Kyoga. It is then off to roaming from Kigezi to Kidepo and then cruising across the Owen falls before eating matooke with personable people just after crossing the Equator. After the hearty mashed banana meal, the journey continues to the Mountains of Masaba, the rocks of Tororo, Sesse Island and the Semliki River with Katumba's assurance of a sad goodbye after the picturesque odyssey.

FROM: http://allafrica.com/stories/200501100320.html