Life Stories

by Ebo Taylor

This album is sub-titled 'Highlife & Afrobeat Classics 1973-1980', and it brings together, on two discs, sixteen classics from this early pioneer of the Afrobeat movement.

Taylor, a guitarist, worked with a number of different bands over the years, and this release has worked to find some of the common threads of his music across a number of different projects.  What we return to time and again is his desire to marry contemporary jazz with the sounds of highlife, creating music that was often ahead of its time, and therefore not too popular in his native Ghana or in the rest of West Africa.

Many of these songs retell local legends, making them allegories that comment on greed and the desire of the ruling class to profit on the backs of the people.  He also tells stories about his own problems with marriage ('Love and Death'), and a local man who committed incest ('Egya Edu').  The pieces collected here range in length from a radio-friendly few minutes to pieces that top 7, 8, 10, or even 15 minutes.

This is an essential piece of a good music library.