V.A. - Ghana Soundz, Afro-Beat, Funk And Fusion In 70's Ghana (2002) {SNDWCD001}
Christina Roden wrote:
VA - Ghana Soundz: Afro-Beat, Funk And Fusion In 70's Ghana ©2002
During the 1960s, Highlife was the reigning musical craze in Ghana, but Western-derived rock and R&B influences were seeping in, creating a daringly experimental jazz-funk scene. Big bands combined home-grown drumming and chanting with cheeky, slapping bass lines, motel-bar organs, and guitars that wah-wahed their way from Muscle Shoals to Haight-shbury. These elements were typically, but not universally, augmented by braying horn sections whose soloists seemed to be channeling Miles and Bird. The closest African equivalent was Fela Anikulapo Kuti's huge, James Brownsian traveling mayhem machine, but even that priapic Nigerian icon's antics seem tame next to some of these tracks. A true historical landmark, this compilation was produced by an Englishman named Miles Cleret, who spent two years in Ghana hunting for rare master tapes and information about a sparsely documented and under-appreciated genre. He not only has fabulous ears but wrote the exhaustively detailed, infectiously enthusiastic liner notes.
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