Ebo Taylor - Love and Death

Much of the story of African popular music since World War II concerns African-rooted musics from the New World coming back to the Mother Land and inspiring Africans to fuse these sounds with their own traditional musics.   The sound of hard funk, as developed by James Brown and Sly Stone in the 1960s, became hugely popular in West Africa.   Afrobeat was essentially created by the great Fela Ransom Kuti, a Highlife band leader from the South West of Nigeria, who spent time in the US in the 1960s absorbing and integrating the Brand New Bag with Highlife.  There exist fascinating recordings from this period that illustrate the sound in embryo.

Afrobeat quickly moved from Nigeria to the neighboring countries of the Benin Republic, Togo, and (especially) Ghana.  Ebo Taylor was one of the first Ghanian artists to popularize and develop Afrobeat in that country, adding to that his own distinctive mix of fusion of Highlife with Funk and Jazz.  He established that sound not only through his own recordings, but through producing many other top Ghanian artists. 

Ebo Taylor is still alive and very much active.  This is his seventh decade of activity!  He was already a working professional musician in the 1950s, and was already leading his own band in the early 60s.  He first came into contact with Fela Kuti in 1962 while residing temporarily with his band in London.   His classic recordings from the 1970s and 1980s were reissued not long ago on a highly recommended package: Life Stories: Highlife & Afrobeat Classics 1973-1980.  

Following this period, Ebo Taylor kept a rather low profile on the music scene for a while, but became active again in the first decade of the new century, culminating in his triumphant Love and Death album, which is posted here.  This is pure Ebo Taylor with a crack band.  Fine music!

Ebo Taylor moved to London a few years ago to pursue his career further there.   When I moved to Nigeria, he was still working and playing the clubs in Accra, Ghana.   I had a chance to see him and meet him there, and the experience was unforgettable.  Enjoy!