When Hailu Mergia made Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument in the mid-1980s, he was no longer leading the Walias Band through the long nightclub sets that had made him well known in Ethiopia. He had remained in the United States after the band toured there and began working alone. On the cassette, accordion, electric piano, synthesizer and drum machine allow one musician to occupy the space of an ensemble.
That change in scale can be heard in the arrangements. The drum machine establishes a plain, dependable frame while Mergia moves between sustained keyboard colour, melodic ornament and the breathing pulse of the accordion. The electronics do not erase the Ethiopian modes in the music. They give Mergia a compact way to voice several musical roles without pretending that a machine is a full band.
The cassette later slipped out of circulation. After a copy was found in an Ethiopian record shop, Awesome Tapes From Africa reissued it in 2013 and Mergia returned to international performance. The rediscovery is often told as a dramatic career reversal, but the quieter detail stays with me: during his years driving a taxi in Washington, D.C., he kept a keyboard in the trunk and practised between fares. Public attention stopped for a time. His relationship with the instrument did not.
Hailu Mergia on Walias Band, Dahlak Band, and Fleeing Ethiopia
