Ebo Taylor: Ebo Taylor [STRUT]

Why you'll love it

Strut has this self-titled Ebo Taylor album back on vinyl, six long, deep grooves of Ghanaian highlife and Afro-funk. It includes "Heaven," a track hip hop producers have kept coming back to for years.

This edition

• Strut reissue (cat# STRUT355LP)
• Six tracks, three per side
• The original running order

About the album

Ebo Taylor was one of the great architects of Ghanaian music, a guitarist, arranger and bandleader who spent the 1960s playing highlife with the big dance bands of Accra and then spent time in London, where he crossed paths with a young Fela Kuti. He came home with jazz and funk in his ears and folded them into highlife, writing horn arrangements that punch and guitar lines that loop and lock. Through the 1970s he made records for Essiebons and others that were barely heard outside West Africa at the time and are now treasured all over the world.

This album shows why. "Saana" and "Ntsir A" roll out slowly, letting the band settle into the groove before the horns arrive, "Bra" leans further into funk, and "Heaven" is a gorgeous, soulful piece that producers have sampled for years. "Amponsah" closes things in high spirits. Strut has done a lot to bring his music to new listeners, and this one sits proudly next to their earlier Ebo Taylor sets. Fair warning: it is very difficult to play just one side.

Tracklist

Listen

On Strut (cat# STRUT355LP), a reissue.