Ebo Taylor is 78, and at last getting the recognition he deserves in Britain, though back in Ghana he has enjoyed success for six decades.
The singer, guitarist, songwriter and band leader has helped to transform his country’s music scene by blending local highlife styles and the influence of ET Mensah with jazz and Afrobeat.
He visited London in the early 60s with his Black Star Highlife Band and collaborated with Fela Kuti. But only in the past few years has he built up a much younger following outside West Africa, helped by compilations of his old work, new recordings, and celebrity endorsement: Usher used a sample from his song Heaven in She Don’t Know.
He is still in remarkably good form. Playing to an enthusiastic and packed-out Rich Mix, he was backed by a rousing seven-piece band with two brass players.
The drummer had draped a Ghanaian flag across the front of his kit, and Taylor began with Kwame, a praise song to Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He was in compelling voice, and proved to be a versatile guitarist, embellishing the opening with a jazz-influenced solo.
The set veered between highlife and Afrobeat, and he mixed an easy-going party mood with a distinctive style of his own.
Somehow blending Shakespeare and highlife, he intoned “brothers and sisters, lend me your ears, listen to my story of love and death …” as he launched into his best song of the night, the bitter Love and Death, which he first recorded in the 80s.
For the encore, just him and his guitar, he revived a charming Ghanaian song from the 20s, Yaa Amponsah, before leaving the stage to let his band romp through a rap treatment of Heaven.
An impressive, highly entertaining set.
