KHARTOUM: Stepping onto a Khartoum stage and launching into their first song, The Nightingales — Sudan’s best-loved girl band — still raise whoops and cheers from adoring fans, 45 years after their debut.

Sisters Amal, Hadia and Hayat Talsam were known in their 1970s heyday as the “Sudanese Supremes” for their stylish bobs, matching dresses and their soulful ballads, changing the image of female artists in Sudan forever.

Their outfits may have changed a little — at the January concert in Khartoum, the sisters appeared in long robes and loose headscarves — but the audience’s adoration has only increased, with fans dancing and singing in front of the stage.

Their vintage brand of Sudanese pop, songs of longing and youth blending elements of folk music with their driving vocals aim to show the world another side to Sudan.

“We want to travel the globe and offer our art to all the peoples of the world,” Amal said after the concert at the family home, sitting beside her sisters.

“We could show a beautiful side of Sudan to the outside world” said Hadia, the oldest of the sisters, grinning.

Although they haven’t got round to planning their tour, they do have some prior experience.

The Nightingales were formed in 1971, when a family friend came to their home in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, to ask their father if he could pick three of his seven daughters to perform a song he wrote.

The trio performed so well that they made the arrangement permanent and they were picked to tour Sudan with president Jafer Al-Nimeiri.

Neighbours, friends and even some relatives criticized their father for their on-stage and television appearances as their fame grew.

“Our father wasn’t interested in any of that and he used to encourage us a lot,” Hadia said proudly.

The Nightingales kept playing but in 1988, with all three married and other commitments, they played their final concert in Khartoum.

Amal and Hadia left for the Gulf with their families, before moving to the US, while Hayat stayed in Khartoum.

But in 2007, Hadia and Amal performed in New York’s Central Park at a festival of Sudanese music and people urged them to return to Sudan for a full reunion.

Apprehensively, Hadia and Amal returned the next year and organized a concert with Hayat at the officers’ club in central Khartoum, unsure whether their fans would remember them after 20 years.

When they arrived, the streets were jammed with expectant fans.