Catalogue       Group                                                       A side/B side                                                        Year

Number

HT 7-005     Hodi Boys Band                                FC Gormahia/Jaber Rossy

HT 7-006     Hodi Boys Band                                Sisi Wanahodi/Rossy Mama

HT 24          Rabai Boys                                      Leo Nimechoka/Marie

HT 25          Rabai Boys                                      Nimengi Mnayosema/Mapesa

HIT 1           Slim Ali and the Famous Hodi Boys    You Can Do It/We Need a Little Time         1976

HIT 2           Sosi Tabu & the Famous Hodi Boys    Tabu Ya Dunia/Sanyu                               1976

HIT 3           Slim Ali and the Famous Hodi Boys    Funky Time Pts 1 & 2                               1976

HIT 4           Slim Ali and the Famous Hodi Boys    Watoto Nyara/Africa Nchi Yetu

The Luo football song. HT 7-005, is from the VoA library and was written by Juma Toto. Unless there were two musicians with the same name, Juma Toto was a busy man, being guitarist with the Hodi Boys, leader of Orch Todi National and also working as a producer. The Hodi Boys first found fame in the 1960s but became even more popular in the 1970s after the arrival of singer Slim Ali.

HT 24 features on Didier’s Mwanasimba site and Flemming Harrev of Denmark supplied details of HT 25. Both date from around 1972 but I can add no further information about the band.

The Kenya Gazette, which lists government activities and debates in parliament, also covers registered trademarks, albeit in a haphazard fashion. The Kenya Gazette for 5 June 1970 reveals that Hodi-Tone was registered as a trademark on 24 April 1970, which suggests that the label’s first releases came in that year.

The gazette lists the partners as being Edward Charles Nginyo, Ibrahim Athumani, Henry Mbagho, Nicholas Ndungu, S. Gilbert Onyango and Geoffrey Ngao, recorders and merchants of PO Box 8714, Nairobi.

Update, September 2011: the four singles with a HIT prefix - all in the University of Mainz collection - all carry a later date than the Kenya Gazette registration suggests. The scan of HIT 1, kindly supplied by Tom Gilks in May 2013, confirms that SAPRA had taken over as publishers for the label.