Hello and welcome to the Blog.

Leo Sarkisian

Back in 1963 in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, Leo Sarkisian was offered a job by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. At the time Murrow was the head of the USIA (United States Information Agency) and he had heard enough about Leo’s West African recording trips to want to recruit Leo for the Africa Service of the Voice of America. Leo accepted Murrow’s offer and soon started working for the Voice of America in Monrovia, Liberia. Two years later, in 1965, Leo launched Music Time in Africa a weekly program that features traditional and contemporary music from all of Africa. Almost forty-three years later the program (now the longest running VOA program) is still on the air every weekend, and continues to reach millions of listeners throughout Africa.

Matthew Lavoie

My name is Matthew Lavoie and since 2004 I have been writing, producing and broadcasting the Music Time in Africa. One of the great joys of my job is getting to spend time with Leo going through the VOA African music archive. And it is this pleasure that I want to share with you in this blog.

What is the archive? In short, it is a room in the basement of the Cohen building in downtown Washington DC that is overflowing with audio reels (over 10,000), 45 rpm singles, 33 rpm lps, and cassettes from every country in Africa. Where did all this music come from? The lion’s share is music that over the last fifty years Leo has either recorded himself, been given (by producers, artists and radio stations), or that he received in the mail from listeners. Between the two of us Leo and I have been to every country in Africa and everywhere we’ve gone we’ve brought back music. The archive includes, for example, Leo’s recordings of the Guinean group Beyla Jazz (who became the famous Bembeya Jazz), of Nigerian legends Fela Kuti and Cardinal Rex Lawson (these recordings have never been commercially released), his recordings of traditional music from Niger, Liberia, Sierra Leone, hundreds of Kenyan 45s from the 1970s, and cassettes from Burundi, Mauritania, Malawi.

If you have any requests, particular interests, or questions please let me know.

Enjoy matthew