Ghanaian highlife guitar legend Ebo Taylor teams up with Strut for a long overdue definitive compilation of his seminal 1970s recordings, Life Stories. During Ghana’s highlife explosion during the 1950s and ’60s following wartime highlife pioneers like ET Mensah, Ebo Taylor made his name as a prolific composer, arranger and frontman leading two of Ghana’s greatest big bands – stargazers and Broadway dance band. Moving to London to study music in 1962 alongside West African luminaries like Fela Kuti and Peter King, Taylor formed the Black Star highlife band and began incorporating jazz elements into traditional highlife forms. Returning to Ghana, Taylor became an in-house arranger and producer for Dick Essilfie-Bondzie’s Essiebons label, working with other major Ghanaian stars like CK Mann and Pat Thomas. Through the ’70s, he then recorded a number of solo projects, exploring unique fusions and borrowing elements from regional Ghanaian folk music, afrobeat, jazz, soul and funk. This compilation revisits this heyday of Taylor’s work, focusing on his solo albums and some of his lesser known side projects including the dynamite Apagya show band and short-lived Taylor-led combos Assase Ase, Super Sounds Namba and the Pelikans. The selection also touches on his writing and production work for CK Mann and a collaboration recording with fellow member of early ’70s nightclub band Blue Monks, Pat Thomas. tracks include the anthemic Heaven, sampled by Usher on his hit with Ludacris, She Don’t Know, the original version of the poignant Love and Death and the rare 15-minute nugget, Aba Yaa. The package features rare photos, original album artwork and sleeve notes by Soundway records’ Miles Cleret.
