In 1950s Accra, a band in white suits played trumpets and saxophones for couples in a ballroom. Meanwhile, in a town elsewhere in Ghana, a guitar band performed at a concert party for a crowd sitting on benches. Both were playing highlife. Understanding the difference between dance band and guitar band highlife helps explain how Ghana’s most famous music grew.
The name and dance bands
“Highlife” is said to come from the name given to music played at exclusive clubs in coastal towns, where people outside saw the dancers as living the “high life”. Dance band highlife grew from brass bands and colonial orchestras. Bands used horns, drums and sometimes strings, playing for dances at clubs and hotels. They also played ballroom music, jazz and calypso.
E.T. Mensah and guitar bands
E.T. Mensah and his Tempos band became the most famous dance band in West Africa in the 1950s, earning him the title “King of Highlife”. They toured Nigeria and influenced musicians there.
Guitar band highlife grew from palm wine guitar music. Bands used guitars, percussion and later bass. The music was rooted in Akan rhythms and proverbs and was popular in rural towns.
Concert parties and burger highlife
E.K. Nyame’s Akan Trio combined guitar band highlife with concert party theatre, touring the country with plays and music. He recorded hundreds of songs. Concert party shows combined comedy, drama and music. Guitar bands provided the music, and the shows spread highlife across Ghana. Over time, the two traditions mixed. Bands such as the African Brothers and Nana Kwame Ampadu’s group, and musicians such as C.K. Mann and Ebo Taylor, blended guitar and horn sounds.
In the 1980s, Ghanaian musicians in Germany created burger highlife, using synthesisers and drum machines. It changed the sound of highlife again.
Records and radio
Both branches fed modern Ghanaian music, including hiplife and Afrobeats. Many current artists borrow from guitar band melodies and dance band horns. Recording companies such as Decca West Africa recorded both dance bands and guitar bands from the 1950s, and radio spread their music across West Africa. Records allowed songs from rural guitar bands to reach city audiences and the other way round.
Highlife began as two kinds of music for two kinds of audiences. Over time, the ballroom and the bench crowd ended up dancing to the same records.
