albums. All of this was done by a large number of record labels, in a variety of countries in Africa and Europe as well as the United States. In the 1990s, many of the albums were reissued in CD form by various record labels but haphazardly reorganized, often combining various parts of multiple albums onto single CDs. Since 2000, several compilations have been issued collecting aspects of Franco's work, most notably Francophonic, a pair of two-CD sets of highlights issued by Stern's in 2007 and 2009 and spanning Franco's entire career. Through 2020, the Planet Ilunga record label is still able to issue (on vinyl and digitally) compilations that include tracks which had never been reissued since their original release as singles. Musical style, critical evaluations, and significance Franco's guitar playing was unlike that of bluesmen such as Muddy Waters or rock and rollers like Chuck Berry. Instead of raw, single-note lines, Franco built his band's style around crisp open chords, often of only two notes, which "bounced around the beat." Major thirds and sixths and other consonant intervals are said to play the same role in Franco's style that blues notes fill in rock and roll. Franco's music often relied on huge ensembles, with as many as six vocalists and several guitarists. According to a description, "horns might engage in an upbeat dialogue with the guitar, or set up hypnotic vamps that carried the song forward as on the crest of a wave," while percussion parts are "a cushion supporting the band, rather than a prod to raise the energy level." Franco was a member for 33 years, from its founding in 1956 until his death in 1989, of TPOK Jazz, which has been called "arguably the most influential African band of the second half of the 20th century," and he was its co-leader or sole leader for most of that period. Franco is commonly described as the preeminent African musical figure of the 20th century. For example, world-music expert Alistair Johnston calls him "the giant of 20th century African music." A reviewer in The Guardian wrote that Franco "was widely recognised as the continent's greatest musician, back in the years before Ali Farka Touré or Toumani Diabaté." Ronnie Graham wrote, in his encyclopedic 1988 Da Capo Guide to Contemporary African Music, that "Franco is beyond doubt Africa's most popular and influential musician." This is in addition to listing