Eddie Quansah

Eddie Quansah played trumpet on Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" and backed acts from Cat Stevens to Bob Marley, a long way from banging pots and pans as a toddler in Kumasi.

Kumasi to London

He grew up in Kumasi, hometown of Osibisa's Teddy Osei. He learned the bugle, then the trumpet, and as a teenager joined the Topspotters, a leading highlife band in the city. At 21 he moved to London, played for a time with Osei's new group Osibisa, then spent three years at the Eric Gilder music school. He later joined Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon before winning a place in Johnny Nash's band.

Session work and records

He recorded with Cat Stevens, Suzi Quatro, Toots and the Maytals, Bryan Ferry and Bob Marley. With Sons of the Jungle, alongside Willie Cheetham, George Lee and Peter Vanderpuije, he opened for Nash at the Apollo Theater in 1972, making them the first Ghanaian band to play there. Island Records released his album Che Che Kulé in 1976. My Star Will Shine came out on Polydor in Nigeria in 1979 and in the US as Awo Awo on Mango, which critic John Storm Roberts rated perhaps the best album he heard that year. In the 1980s he moved to Australia and led a band called King Cobra.