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various artistsGhana Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues (Soundway) Two CD set with 33 essential tracks from the golden years of Ghanaian roots-pop.
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Froots says: Compiler Miles Cleret spent ten years knocking on Ghanaian doors to assemble this – 33 tracks, a broad musical portrait of pop Ghana between 1968 and 1981, consisting of “modern highlife, Afro-sounds and Ghanaian blues”. This, in retrospect was a golden age, a period of shifting styles, exploration and experiment. The old big dance bands, opulent and optimistic, were losing their smiles in the face of faster, harder small bands. Rhythms, a mix of imported and local, were ramped up to a new urgency. No-nonsense riffs took the place of melody. Horns were nudged sideways by guitars fuelled with rip-saw distortion and wahwah. Percussion got tougher. Not so different from what was happening in funky circles in the UK and USA. More of a surprise is the considerable influence here of military music in the drumming and horn playing. Anecdote and personality emerge: charmers like the Sweet Talks, organising figures like the remarkable John Collins, the gusto of African Brothers International Band, Eric Agyeman – and even Fela, who, hearing Basa Basa Sounds in the studio in Lagos, offered to guest on their Dr Solutsu track. The best track of an unexpectedly varied lot is Pagadeja’s Tamale, which starts in overdrive and then builds – it sounds like men at the end of their tether, frenzied desperado rhapsody. Interesting to see that the sax player in the group, Ray Allen, went on to play with Steve Winwood and cohorts in London, but that brings unfortunate and opposite memories – one of the very few times I fell asleep at a gig was chez Traffic, who I thought I liked, at the Rainbow in the early ‘70s. Their funky riffing and noodling was cool, circular, and inescapably narcotic. Some of the tracks here do indeed inhabit that particular swamp of funk muso euphoria. Heads down, two chords, no vocals, bubbling Hammond, here we go again… but persistence advised: there’s always something following to lift matters. Great collection. - Rick Sanders
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