About Me
Let me begin by saying this is a fan page, Muluken has nothing to do with this page as far as answering questions or writing comments back. I started this page to keep his music alive and give new fans a chance to know him better. Furthermore, to document this historic figure of Ethiopian music and to state the facts about his music.Muluken Melesse is the quintessential Ethiopian Orthodox Church trained singer who masterfully applied that training to modern Ethiopian Music. Before him, every male singer was influenced by the great Tilahun Gessese. Today all roads lead back to Muluken Melesse and his gloden bands. He's credited as the Godfather of Modern Ethiopian Music that look to Ethiopia for it's raw material. Muluken Melesse (b. 1954) was an influential singer and a drummer who abandoned his music career in the Early-Eighties to involve himself in the Pentecostal Church.Melesse was born in Gojam, a province in Northern Ethiopia. When he was six, he moved to Addis Ababa with his uncle. In 1966, aged 12, he began his musical career singing at night clubs and in groups founded by night club owners, with his first song to be performed on stage, Enate Sitewoldgne Metchi Amakerchign.His first song to be recorded on vinyl was Hedetch Alu, which was recorded in 1972 by Girma Beyene (piano and arrangements), Tesfa Mariam Kidane (tenor sax), Tekle Adhanonm (guitar), Fekade Amde Meskel (bass), Tesfay Mekonnen (drums) and Melesse himself. In 1975, he recorded his second song, Wetetie Mare and Ete Endenesh Gedawo, with 'Equator Band', and a year later in 1976 he recorded what was to be his last song, Ney Ney Wodaje. While the remained of the band emigrated to the United States of America, Melesse remained to join the Pentecostal Church in the 1980s, having ended his musical career.Muluken is married and resides in Washington DC metropolitan area. He ministers by traveling all over the world.Muluken's music remains as popular as ever with new and upcoming artists, from Teddy Afro to Gossaye Tefaye and even international artist Idan Raichel who re-recorded the hit "Nanu Nanu Ney" which by the way the biggest Ethiopian hit of all the time, Nanu Nanu Ney was also covered extesively and sampled in neighbouring East African countries. His ballads are still sang live at most Ethiopian gatherings or functions by singers and even in concerts. Notably, Teddy Afro is one of those artists who always includes Muluken's music in his sets.Muluken remains the foremost musician's musician, the undisputed favorite singer of all time: from Tilaye Gebre, Dawit Yifru, Abegaz Shiota, Henok Temesgen, and many more. In addition to his operatic singing he was also a proficient drummer who recorded some of his album's drum tracks. Instrumental albums of Ethiopian songs are released every year and in each album you can be sure to hear one or two of Muluken's songs. If there was a Fake book for Ethiopian standards, most of his music would be in there.In term of popular modern music, Ethiopian music was heavily influenced by Jazz and Western music, however, when Muluken Melesse came to the scene, he brought the(Balager Sound) "Ethiopian Roots Music" of the rural villages in Ethiopia to cosmopolitan Addis Ababa and the world, reversing the trend of simply aping the West. Muluken captured that essence and entire feel of the "Real Ethiopia". His music is considered as the true sound of Ethiopia. In Ethiopia's poetic tradition there's something called sam-ennawarq (wax and gold), one can sing about a cruel lover as a way of mocking the government, it's open to so much interpretation that listeners enjoyed arguing all day as to the exact meaning. Tilaye Gebre (sax), Dawit Yifru (keyboard) and Alemtsehay Wedajo among others (lyrics writers) were behind the magic of his music. Tilaye and Dawit were veteran band mates, Tuesday was their only day off, on which day they met young Muluken and took him under their wing where they worked on his music freely with no pressure or deadlines, it was just pure love and joy. They worked on most of his music and when time came to record them, they gave the music its unique modal flavor to accommodate the strength of the bassist. This proved to be a fortunate event by giving the music its strong rhythmic structure that so heavily influenced Ethiopian modern instrumentalists that came after Muluken. That freshness of sound disappeared after Muluken left the scene in the early eighties. Currently, we see a refreshing trend in the direction of resurrecting Muluken's modal music by artists such as:Teddy Tadesse, Teddy Afro, Gossaye Tesfaye, Nathaniel Haile, and many more. Some singers even went as far as to record his music and released. Unfortunately, none of them came close to capturing Muluken's original recordings with his bands. Pss, notes to some of these singers; asking Muluken for his permission to re-record his songs would be a nice thing to do.Muluken's Vol. 1 produced by Abegaz Shiota is the only cd available, everything else is on casettes. Even though the cd was done with huge effort, Abegaz had to take out Muluken's vocals from the old casettes and re-created new music, it didn't exactly capture that essence of his band, example would "Aynemawadajeshe" on the playlist, where the saxaphone intro was replaced by organ, which didn't do justice to the song, there are other examples throughout the album, however, it was an excellent job by Abegaz to keep Muluken's legacy alive, the album remains the top selling Ethiopian album of all time, it will give listeners a glimpse of light into his music, but to get the full picture, you need to dig deep into those old cassettes.
