Pick of the Week - Wells Fargo (Zimbabwe)

Some Zimrock to go with your Zamrock? Here's a collection of mid-Seventies singles from Zimbabwe's Wells Fargo.

It doesn't seem that the term Zimrock has caught on to the extent that Zamrock (rock music from Zambia) did. I'm not quite up to speed on either category, but I ran across a song by Wells Fargo recently and one thing led to another. It turns out that there's an 11-song collection of their singles from the mid-Seventies at Bandcamp.

To my ear, their music is kind of in the vein of late-Sixties heavy psychedelia, for lack of a better term. Closer to Iron Butterfly and that sort, although Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, The Who, and Ten Years After are groups cited as influences.

Most lyrics are in English, with the exception of "Bwanane," embedded below. It opens with (if I'm not mistaken) the guitarist playing a snip from "Norweigan Wood."

Here's the Bandcamp blurb:

Wells Fargo were a heavy rock band from Zimbabwe who rose to national prominence in the mid-'70s during their country's civil war. Formed by drummer Ebba Chitambo, the band took their name from an American cowboy comic book after seeing the name printed on the side of a wagon.

Just as the hippie era came to an end in America, a second 60s was beginning. In what is now Zimbabwe, young people created a rock and roll counterculture that drew inspiration from hippie ideals and the sounds of Hendrix and Deep Purple. The kids in the scene called their music “heavy,” because they could feel its impact, and it resonated from Zambia to Nigeria.

At its peak in the mid-70s, the heavy rock scene united tens of thousands of young progressives of all racial and social backgrounds. The country was called Rhodesia then, one of the last bastions of white rule in Africa, and heavy rockers defied segregation laws and secret police to make a stand for democratic change.

Wells Fargo was at the forefront of the scene, and the title track of this album, Watch Out, was the anthem of the counterculture. This is the first time their music has been issued outside of Zimbabwe. Matthew Shechmeister tells the story of Wells Fargo drawing on interviews with the band’s remaining members and numerous trips to Zimbabwe to investigate the genesis of the heavy rock scene under Ian Smith’s oppressive government, and its dissipation after Zimbabwe’s liberation. Never-before-published photographs and rare ephemera color the vibrant era of which this band was part.