Ebo Taylor rocks Accra on Saturday, January 13

One of Ghana’s living highlife music legends, Ebo Taylor, will on Saturday, January 13 stage a live musical performance at the outdoor theatre at the Alliance Française in Accra.

Ebo Taylor, who is noted for his exceptional skills in composition and arrangement, will perform with his Saltpond City Band, a unique group that plays a dramatic blend of highlife, Afrobeat and jazz.

The ace guitarist, who has performed on a number of international platforms in Europe and America, has had an outstanding career as a guitarist, composer and arranger for over 50 years.

His music and style have shaped and influenced Ghanaian popular highlife music over the last few decades.

He is expected to perform most of his popular classic highlife and Afrobeat compositions which include ‘Sika Enyiber’, ‘Odo Ye Wu’, ‘Ghana Be Ye Yie’, ‘Dofo’, ‘Twer Nyame’, ‘Come Along’, among others, at the event.

Born in 1936, the acclaimed guitarist has been a vital figure on the Ghanaian music scene for over six decades.

In the late 1950s, he was active in the influential highlife bands, The Stargazers and Broadway Dance Band.

In 1962, Taylor took his own group, the Black Star Highlife Band, to London, which led to collaborations with Nigerian Afrobeat star Fela Kuti as well as other African musicians in Britain at the time.

In returning to Ghana, he worked as a producer, crafting recordings for Pat Thomas, C.K. Mann and others, as well as exploring his own projects, combining traditional Ghanaian material with Afrobeat, jazz and funk rhythms to create his own recognisable sound in the 70s.

Indeed, Taylor’s work became popular internationally with hip-hop producers in the 21st century.

In 2008, he met the Berlin-based musicians of the Afrobeat Academy Band, including saxophonist Ben Abarbanel-Wolff, which led to the release of the album ‘Love & Death’ with Strut Records.