By- Mag Reeves
The story behind the Tekle releases on Amha:
As the Derg regime took over in 1974, business became increasingly difficult for Amha Records. The National Bank was not letting Amha get loans for production costs as they had for years before, and importing records was becoming harder. Amha experimented with cheaper alternatives such as cassettes, the first being one with Alemayehu Eshete and Girma Beyene. Amha also had the idea to fly to Greece (where most Amha releases were pressed) to buy a used record-pressing machine from EMI and bring it back to Ethiopia so records could be produced in the country. (All Ethiopian records were pressed in outside countries – usually Greece, India, and Kenya.)
Amha was in Athens trying to buy a pressing machine when he was contacted by his family and told not to return home. His father and the producer (name unknown) for the sessions for the Tesfazghi records in Tigray had been jailed, Tesfazghi was under investigation, and Harambee Music Shop had been shut down.
The Derg had already cleared these recordings for release despite the Tigray region being the main source of armed resistance against them, and production had already begun. However, as the situation became more tense in that region, the government decided to suppress the recordings. When the records did arrive, Amha was long gone, living out his early days in exile with his sister in the UK. Most were presumably destroyed by the government.
No copies of either 45 seemed to appear until this year, when a copy or two of AE 1000 “Abadit / Ab Kesri Berhana” surfaced.
The same original copy that had disappeared for so long and created controversy was sold for a large sum of up to $200 in different marketplaces, including eBay, Amazon, and Discogs.
Now you can find this masterpiece on Liktera too:
