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The Guitar and Gun: Highlife Music from Ghana (Earthworks/Sterns) compilation review By Sean Barlow

Back in the mid-1980s, many fans of Ghanaian highlife music fell in love with a two album set entitled The Guitar and Gun. The cover showed a relaxed soldier seated in a courtyard playing a guitar with a gun slung over his back. And the vinyl's grooves poured out soulful singers, playful highlife guitarists, and tasty local percussion. What it lacked in polish (and sometimes tuning), it more than made up in vitality. Good news. The Guitar and Gun has been remastered and reissued by Earthworks as a CD. And it still sounds fresh.

These recordings were made by John Collins at Bakoor Studio at his father's farm outside of the capital Accra in 1981-84 during a period of political change and economic stress in Ghana. Jerry Rawlings had staged a military coup in late 1981 and declared a "revolution." Severe curfews limited people's movements at night, all but killing the commercial music scene. Economic austerity prevailed. Many Ghanaians found solace in the churches, which sponsored gospel highlife bands employing the musicians and training newcomers.

This compilation features several gospel highlife bands, including the opening track by the Genesis Gospel Singers with a simple but catchy melody sung by a plaintive female chorus The Baptist Disciple singers praise "Yesu" (Jesus) with an up tempo song powered by a hot rhythm section. You just know their church boogies on Sundays.

My favorite tracks on "The Guitar and Gun" are by F. Kenya's Guitar Band, representing concert party highlife. This is music that accompanies concert parties, a kind of musical with moral messages that tour the villages and small towns of the country. The band features highlife guitar wizard Samuel Paa Gyimah. Their first song "Nyameco" shows off the rest of the band with a soulful vocal section, melodic bass, and solid drummer. Their song "Oh Papa" changes the pace with a gorgeous sikyi (pronounced "see-chee") highlife tune in a minor key, full of pathos and melancholy.

Another stream of highlife from this era documented on the album is called "cultural highlife." This style favored an acoustic sound, with a single guitar, vocals and traditional percussion. Salaam and His Cultural Imani Group are exceptional exponents of cultural highlife on this compilation. The high male harmonies are emotionally powerful in songs such as "Mama Shile Oga" (the only song with English lyrics) and "Moko Boka".

A special note of thanks to our colleague John Collins for The Guitar and Gun. John is a multi-talented musician, musicologist, teacher, and author. He has also contributed to Afropop Worldwide and Afropop.org over the years. His foresight, good ears and sheer persistence under difficult conditions in recording some 300 groups at Bakoor Studio in the 1980s have left us with an invaluable musical record of the life and times of his adopted country. "The Guitar and Gun" is full of musical gems. Highly recommended.

Contributed by: Sean Barlow