THE SPREAD OF HIGHLIFE THROUGHOUT WEST AFRICA

This page focuses on how the Tempos and their leader, E.T. Mensah, began to spread Highlife music through West Africa.

The Tempos made many trips to Nigeria.  The first time was a one-week trip to Lagos in 1950 with Joe Kelly and Guy Warren.  Then in 1953 the band drove to Lagos and stayed for two weeks, living at the house of the brother of the famous Nigerian dance band leader Bobby Benson.  E.T. found that on both these trips his band received a tremendous welcome.  The reason for this was that although highlife was beginning to become popular in Nigeria through records there were no dance bands in Nigeria playing this type of music. From this time on, the Tempos began to make regular trips to Nigeria, travelling once or twice a year by station wagon, usually stopping off along the way at Lome in Togo, and Cotonou and Porto Novo in Dahomy (now Benin). They stayed for up to three months at a time, limited by the 90 days they could spend in the country without breaking Nigerian immigration laws.  These trips proved very successful financially for E.T.  In fact, it was these Nigerian trips which enabled the band to turn professional in 1953, and because of the frequency of these trips E.T. decided to set up his second band in 1954, the Star Rockets, to carry on at home while he was away

When E.T. first went to Nigeria in 1950, highlife was hardly known outside the boundaries of Ghana and even by 1953, although Nigerians were developing an interest in this Ghanaian music, there were no bands playing it there. At that time, Nigerian dance bands such as Sammy Akpabot's Band, the Empire Band  and Bobby Benson's Band were playing mostly swing and ballroom music.  By the mid-1950s the Tempos continual touring in Nigeria was beginning to influence dance orchestras there and they started to incorporate highlife into their repertoire. Victor Olaiya, originally a trumpeter with Bobby Benson, was one of the first Nigerian musicians to play highlife when he formed his Cool Cats.  Eddie Okunta, also formerly with Bobby Benson, followed suit when he formed the Lido Band. Rex Lawson and E.C. Arinze both split from the Empire Band to form their own bands. On occasion, Nigerian musicians would come to the Tempos for instruction and Dan told me that Agu Norris, leading the Empire Band, always used to visit them to take lessons from E.T. on the trumpet. And in Benin city Victor Uwaifo, then a school boy, would rush to watch and study the Tempos guitarist Dizzy Acquaye. Other Nigerian musicians influenced by the Tempos include Charles lwegbue, Victor Chukwu, Chief Billy Friday, Enyang Henshaw, King Kennytone and Roy Chicago.

However, the relationship between the Tempos and the Nigerian dance bands was not entirely one way and when the Nigerian bands started to write their own highlifes, E.T. brought some of them back to Ghana; for instance the Yoruba highlifes 'Nike Nike' and 'Okamo'.

With the Tempos jazzy blend of highlife becoming all the rage in Nigeria and Ghana and signing a recording contract with Decca that  during the 1950's E. T. was acclaimed the 'King of Highlife' ( i.e dance-band highlife) throughout West Africa. During the 1950's E.T. even ran his Paramount Night-club in Accra for a while - at which he jammed with Louis Armstrong, when this famous African-American musician and his All Stars visited Ghana  in 1956.

The Tempos also spread their music to other West African countries. In 1955 the band travelled to Abidjan and in 1958 and 1959 they travelled to Guinea, Sierra Leone  and Liberia. Infact Liberia's President Tubman was so impressed by them that he called them back for the inaugeration ceremonies of his second term of office

Many important Ghanaian musicians passed through the tutelage of the Tempos - Joe Kelly, Guy Warren ( now called Kofi Ghanaba),  Tommy Gripman ( formed the  Red Spots), Saka Acquaye ( helped form the Blackbeats), Spike Anyankor ( formed the Rhythm Aces), Ray Ellis, Dan Tackie and the country's first female vocalist Juliana Okine. Two important Nigerians who played in the Tempos were Zeal Onyia and Babyface Paul Osamade.

E. T. Mensah's Tempos and their numerous (mainly Decca) recordings spread highlife far and wide, until E. T. retired in the 1970s. However he had a bit of a comeback in the mid-eighties when he played in Britain and Holland, two CD's were released of his music by the Sterns/Retro-Afric label and  his biography ( written by John Collins) was published in England by Off the Record Press.