The sidemen syndrome

Backstage players

Paris 

21/01/2011 - 

They are often seen at world music concerts, but hardly anyone knows their names. These often very talented individuals play bass or guitar or sing vocals, accompanying the artists playing on centre stage. Can a sideman activity be combined with a solo career? RFI investigates. 

A sideman (or sidewoman) is a musician hired to perform or record with a group on a temporary basis. They play on the side, out of the limelight, because they are not regular members of the group. This type of independent musician moves from contract to contract and venue to venue, strumming on a bass guitar in one place and singing backing vocals in the next. Sidemen go off on tours, and just like the stars, live an artist’s life. A huge number of musicians started out this way – but how long should you stay in the shadows?

Artist’s touch

There are clearly as many answers to that question as there are sidemen. Some artists who make an appearance on uncountable projects, like Cheik Tidiane Seck and Jean-Philippe Rykiel, can turn their hand to anything. With a reputation for versatility, they are in high demand to add their artistic touch to musical adventures.

Others have carved themselves a niche, like Moriba Koïta. Formerly with the Ensemble Instrumental du Mali, and a musician since the age of four, he has lived in Paris since 1993. Half sideman, half Mandingo music reference point, Koïta is the uncontested ngoni master in France. When a Mandingo artist (e.g. Salif Keïta, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Cheikh Tidiane Seck) wants to hear the crystalline notes of the ngoni interpreting his music, he calls on Moriba. With a reputation extending way beyond West-African circles, the griot is just as capable of settling down on stage with a string quartet as he is with Moriarty’s young folk musicians. Although he has participated on dozens of albums, he has only once launched himself into a solo project, which was in 1997 on the Cobalt label with a little gem called Sorotomou. He appears never to have been inspired to repeat the experience.

The Beninese musician Michel Pinheiro was bandleader for the Ivoirian reggaeman Tiken Jah Fakoly for twelve years, from 1996 to 2008. He chose to delegate his role to another of the group’s members to “free up some mind space”. He has managed to strike his own balance: “When I was in Abidjan, in the early 1990s, I used to perform in studios and hotels. That’s what my life’s about! I do a job I like, I’m free in my head and I can use the money I earn touring with Tiken on my solo projects.” In Benin and Côte d’Ivoire, Michel Pinheiro has self-produced four albums of salsa, the music close to his heart. 

Ambitions

Following a solo career out of the spotlight isn’t for everyone. Another Beninese, the bass-player Patrick Ruffino, has been accompanying the greatest musicians from his country since he was just twelve years old. Outfits like Le Tout Puissant Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, Gnonnas Pédro, Sagbohan Danialou, and stars passing through, like Papa Wemba and Manu Dibango.

In New York, with his long-standing pal, Lionel Loueke, he carried on in the same vein. In Paris, he lends his arranger’s ear to numerous projects. Yet it is with his second album, Salam, still awaiting signature, that Patrick Ruffino hopes to move out of the shadows and into the limelight.

His views on the issue are clear cut: “Even when a musician is capable of being a bandleader, if he remains a sideman for too long, he tends to lose his identity and no longer know how to put himself forward. That’s the trap.”  He’s not the only one to try and avoid the pitfall. Like him, the highly international Senegalese Hervé Samb is now orienting his career towards his own projects. After accompanying Amadou and Mariam, David Murray and the Gwoka Masters, Jacques Schwarz-Bart and Boney Fields, he produced a first, highly skilful album, Crossover in 2009.

Talent spotting

Fatoumata Diawara from Mali has the stuff of a leader too. In just three years, she achieved every backing singer’s dream: to have her talent spotted. After training as an actor, she started her career at a very young age and performed in several films. In 2006, back in Mali after an absence of a few years, she met Cheikh Tidiane Seck, who was working with Dee Dee Bridgewater on Red Earth. He immediately hired her services.

Fatoumata laughingly remembers her first experience: “Cheikh Tidiane Seck asked me to sing quietly to let the lead voice stand out. The backing singer’s role is to be very discreet, which tends to be frustrating.” From 2007, she appeared in scores of Parisian venues and clubs.

With her talent and singing voice, Fatoumata Diawara got herself noticed. After touring with her on several dates, the Wassoulou diva Oumou Sangaré gave Fatoumata the space to emerge from the sidelines. Nick Gold, head of World Circuit, was seduced by her charisma and shortly afterwards signed her up for a first album, due for release on the British label in spring 2011. A lucky break and an exceptional one. Very few sidemen or women under thirty get the chance to see an album come out under their own name.

Eglantine  Chabasseur

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper