Description

2LP Vinyl – BBE584ALP

A unique selling point here is the mix of vintage, rootsy ‘palmwine’ blues-style guitar Highlife with quirky keyboard electronics, a sound well-established today but revolutionary in the comparatively conservative world of 70s and 80s Highlife. This comes across beautifully in Dada and Cape Coast Cousin, the latter toasting off guitar licks with bubbling wah wah organ.

We find a similar juxtaposition in Asante Kotoko, a shout-out to Kumasi’s champion soccer team, which also features some sweet ‘village’ drumming, and in Meka A Ensa.

But Atakora doesn’t forget the essential role of brass and woodwind in quality Highlife, as can be heard in Super Otete Impomamu, with its twin-sax punctuating riffs, and in the ‘mambo’ sections of the dancefloor killer Osebo Anyami Ankyemi. Atakora Manu passed away in 2015 but left an abundance of beautiful music. This double-album reissue is a long-overdue tip of the hat to one of Highlife’s more underrated stars-universally respected by fellow musicians but still to be properly rediscovered by a new generation of Highlife fans.