E. T. Mensah

Emmanuel Tettey Mensah, known as E. T. Mensah, was a Ghanaian trumpeter, bandleader and composer called the "King of Highlife". His band, The Tempos, made dance-band highlife popular across West Africa in the 1950s, and his song "Ghana Freedom" became part of the soundtrack of independence.

Early life

He was born on 31 May 1919 in Ussher Town, Accra, and attended a government school and Accra High School. At 12 he learned the flute in the school band, and from 1932 he played piccolo and flute in the Accra Orchestra, a children's band led by the teacher Joe Lamptey, later taking up the alto saxophone and the trumpet. He trained as a pharmacist, and his pharmacy helped fund his music. With his elder brother Yebuah Mensah he formed the Accra Rhythmic Orchestra, which won the Lambeth Walk dance competition in 1939.

The Tempos

The Tempos began in 1946 as a jam-session group of European soldiers in Accra, who were gradually replaced by African musicians under Joe Kelly and then Guy Warren. Mensah joined in 1947 and soon became leader. The band mixed highlife with swing, calypso and Latin rhythms and toured widely in West Africa. In 1953 it toured Britain, and Mensah later played with Louis Armstrong when the American trumpeter visited Accra.

Later career

Dance-band highlife declined in the 1960s, but he kept performing, and in 1983 he recorded Highlife Giants of Africa Vol. 1 with the Nigerian trumpeter Victor Olaiya. His recordings were reissued in the four-CD King of Highlife Anthology in 2015.

Death

He died on 19 July 1996.