BOKOOR BEATS
THE STORY OF BOKOOR BAND, BOKOOR HOUSE AND BOKOOR RECORDING STUDIO
Bokoor (Coolness) was first formed by myself and the Ghanaian guitarist Robert Beckley in 1971 as the second band to the Uhurus highlife dance-band. Bokoor then played the music of Jimmy Hendrix, Carlos Santana, James Brown as well as local highlifes. The group folded when myself and fellow British student and musician Peter Wilks had to take exams at the University of Ghana. For a number of year I then played guitar, harmonica and percussion with a number of Accra groups. There was F. Kenya’s guitar band in whose house in Madina I was staying in 1972. Then there was Szaabu Sounds, the sister band of Sawaaba sounds both managed by Aunty Naomi. Szaabu Sounds was located in 1973 at the Kyekyeku Club in Central Accra (E.T. Mensah’s old Paramont Club) and was co-run by myself and Bob Pinado and included Bob Fischian, Nat Osamanu, Afro Davis, Leslie Tex, Tom-Tom and Animado. I also played were the Army Recce Brigade Black Berets dance band led by Bossman, Mr. Kwei’s Abladei ‘Ga cultural group’ based I Osu and Koo Nimo’s ‘palmwine’ guitar group, with whom I played the ‘asratoa’ or ‘televi’ percussion instrument for four recordings in 1973 released on the Phillips label. Then in 1974/5 I played with the Bunzus (led by Cliff Eck), the resident band at Faisal Helwani’s Napoleon Club during which time we jointly composed two of the Afro-beats on the CD ‘Onukpa Shwarpo’ and ‘Yeah Yeah Ku Yeah’. I recorded these two songs with the Bunzus at the EMI studio in Lagos in 1974 and also performed them at Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Afrika Shrine where were lodged.
In 1975 I re-formed Bokoor when I was living at Temple House in James Town Accra: initially as a ‘cultural’ band with guitar as well as plenty of percussion, including the giant bass gome (or goombay) frame-drum. By 1977 it had expanded to a full guitar band with the addition of rhythm and bass guitars, and on occasions trap-drums. The music played was highlifes, Congo jazz (soukous and bouche), Afro-beats, Afro-rock Afro-reggae, agbadaza’s and adowa’s.
With me on guitar and harmonica, Bokoor become a 12-14 piece group and many musicians played with the band between 1975 and 1979. These include Jones Attuqueyefio and Sammy Brown (originally gome player and guitarist with the Agbafoi ‘Ga cultural group’), the Ewe master-drummer Dan Banini, conga players Jerry James Lartey (who later formed Saka Saka), Bob ‘Ajanka’ Tawia ( a fisherman and brother of dancer Francis Nii Yartey), the bass players George ‘Junior’ Quarcoo, Joe Kelly Junior (son of the famous 1950’s highlife trumpeter), rhythm guitarists James Nanka-Bruce and James Antwi, and percussionists John Odartey Lamptey, Isaac Aban Amarteifio, Foster, Kalala, B. Peters, Kpakpo Allotey and John ‘Jeano’ Othman. Two other Bokoor percussionists were Kpani ‘Gasper’ and Emmanuel who both belonged to the important Ga drumming ‘Addy’ family (includes Mustapha Tetteh Addy, Obo Addy and Yacob Addy). Two Americans also briefly passed through Bokoor: trap-drummer Big Joe Galeota and guitarist Tony Green. The band’s show also included a floor-show of comic acts by the Kpani Gasper and fire-eating and snake-dancing by the band’s two lady singers, Gifty Naa Dodowa and Brown Sugar.Bokoor became affiliated to Ghana Arts Council, the Ghana Co-operative Indigenous Musicians Society (that catered for guitar bands and concert parties) and the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) of which I was an Executive member of in 1979.
Between 1977 and late 1979 Bokoor played extensively in the Greater Accra Area, the Volta Region and Togo. In 1977 we played at a private party for the African American heavy-weight champion Floyd Paterson, arranged by the Ghanaian boxing promoter Sammy Captan. As Sammy’s family ran some local cinemas we also played at these, with the concert party stage magician Professor De Ago. The same year we also performed at the Tip Toe Gardens alongside Kwaa Mensah, Uhuru, E.T. Mensah and Basa Basa at the ‘Afrodisia Nights’ organised by Decca and Faisal Helwani’s ‘F’ Promotions. We also did regular shows in Accra at the Labadi Tourist Rendez-vous, Fair Gardens, Penthouse, Sea-View Hotel (round the corner from Temple House), Royal Cinema, Achimota Staff Club, Dome Spot and Ghana International School . Moreover, we often played at Sunday afternoon shows (alongside the Ga cultural groups Wulomei and Suku Troupe) organised by Castle Santana Promotions for Ga fishermen and their families in James Town and La.
Sometimes we met problems. At a club in the Togolese town of Kpalome there was no earth wire and the amplifier humming was so great that so I had to stick the wire into my belt and act as a human earth. On onother occasion when we were on a Christmas tour of the Volta Region with Kris Bediako’s Afro-rock band, the audience in the Ewe town of Deinu rioted when their was a technical hitch and our band faltered. Fortunately the problem was solved, despite dancers having jumped on stage threatening us. Afterwards some of the rioters, including military personnel, apologized and explained it was just a spontaneous reaction to their dance groove being interrupted. At the Ga fishing village of Botiano our bass player ‘Junior’ didn’t turn up and we tried to cover up by getting our rhythm guitarist James to play only bass notes, which didn’t satisfy the local fishermen who were expecting a dance-band a not a ‘cultural’ show. Some even produced knives. But our quick thinking snake-dancer, Gifty, saved the situation when she threw our two pythons at the advancing crowd of men, who instantly scattered to the sides of the venue. Gifty then jumped off stage and did an impromptu dance and went around shaking the snakes in front of the noses of the young fishermen, particularly those whose eyes had gone red with anger. This burnt-out the crowds aggression and adrenalin so that the show was able to continue and come to a satisfactory conclusion. Later, at the Tabela night-club in Accra we lost one of our pythons which wriggled its way into the bamboo decorations.
In 1978 Bokoor appeared on the Mike Eghan television show and released a record and two commercial cassettes in Ghana that were often played on the radio. A demo-tape was first made in 1977 at the McCarthy Hill recording studio of highlife trumpeter Eddie Quansah (ex leader of Stargazer’s dance band who later settled in Australia), followed by two commercial recordings done at the two-track Ghana Film Corporation studio in Accra in 1978, with ace engineers John Kofi Archer, Bossman and Mr. Kwakye. It is some of these 22 recordings done at Ghana Film that are included in this Bokoor Beats CD, including new versions of the Afro-beats ‘Onukpa Shwarpo’ and ‘Yeah Yeah Ku Yeah’ that I had earlier composed with the Bunzus
Bokoor finally broke up in September 1979, largely due to the economic problems and shortages that had developed during the military government of Colonel Acheampong and Akufo. I remember many times I had to use pumice-stone to scrape of the rust from old guitar strings, as new ones were simply unobtainable. One Thing that his us particularly hard was the devaluation of the currency in 1979. Bokoor together with the Grass Roots Music Company (of John Carmichael and Prince George Annan) had just then invested a lot of money in a series of twelve shows at the Sea-View Hotel in Accra. After the third show there was a sudden withdrawal of some currency notes which finished off the night-life scene in Ghana for many months, and our project with it.
After the 1978 Ghana Film Studio recordings, Bokoor released two commercial cassettes and then (with the assistance of a Lebanese patron Michael Bou-Chedid) paid Ambassador Records in Kumasi to press one thousand record albums. For some reason or other Ambassador Records delayed the pressing, and we only got some action when myself Jones Attuqueyifio (after several wasted trips by night-train) went to the pressing factory with a mat, food, water and a charcoal stove and threatened to camp in the foyer. The company really saw we meant business that day – and we got results. But we had to make do with 1000 E.P. singles instead of albums, as the 1979 currency depreciation had reduced the value of the money we had earlier given Mr. Badu of Ambassador Records. Unfortunately, by then singles were going out of fashion in Ghana and so we lost heavily. Finally in September 1979 Bokoor had to sell its instruments to a local Apostolic Church
By coincidence the British based Ghanaian master drummer, Ben Badoo, was then in Accra looking for a guitar-band to teach contemporary African music to unemployed West Indian youth at the Wolverhampton Council for Community Relations. Ben had already set up a successful traditional drumming group with them called Lanzel (Unity). So myself, Jones and Gifty spent a year in the British Midlands teaching electric guitar to rasta youth, after the initial problem of these youth not believing that their were electric guitars – or even electricity at all - in Africa. We solved this problem by bringing in Wenty of the local Capital Letters reggae band (which uses electric guitars) and my Nigerian friend Rufus Onishayomi, who showed the youth photo-slides of power-stations, sky-scrapers and flyovers in Lagos. These youth then went on to form their own reggae band called the Twelve Tribesman, whilst myself and the two other Bokoor members teamed up with the Nigerian-Brazilian guitarist Theo Pareira and Guyana drummer Dino Washington to form the New Bokoor Band. This performed in London and the Midlands, recorded at Peter Kunzler’s Crow Studio and released ‘Cross-over’ 12 inch single which combined a Jamaican ska music with Ghanaian Highlife, an idea triggered by the Two Tone bands of the times (like the Specials ands Beat ) that were combining ska with rock.
In 1981 I returned to Ghana and bought with me a small portable TEAC 144 (later 244) recording studio with which I planned to record Bokoor Band once we had re-started it in Accra. However on January 1st 1982, Flight Lieutenant J. J. Rawlings overthrew the civilian government and imposed a night curfew (which lasted almost three years). Under these circumstances it was impossible to run a band and so I began experimenting with the porta-studio at my father’s farm-house in Accra (later called Bokoor House) which he had built from his pension after teaching philosophy at University of Ghana for thirty years. I did several test recordings in late 1981, the first being with Bampoe’s Jaguar Jokers, a group I had played with on many occasions from 1969. Then in 1982 I formally opened Bokoor Recording Studio.
From my experience of working in studios in Ghana and Nigeria I made two decisions. One was to provide low-class facilities to musicians, and so I built it as a semi open-air structure made out of local clay that did away with the usual expensive air-conditioning. Secondly, I decided to have no clock on the premises and charged by the album, which could take anything between two to four days to record and mix. This timeless zone, together with the rustic and airy surroundings provided a relaxed recording atmosphere, as music and haste don’t mix.
Bokoor opened up at a time of great hardship in Ghana following the economic collapse of the country in the late 1970’s during the Acheampong/Akufo military regime and then the revolutionary coups of Rawlings in 1979 and 1981. In fact between 1983-5 Bokoor Studio was one of only two studios operating in Ghana (the other was Ghana Films).
During the eighties and nineties Bokoor Studio recorded about 200 bands, of which four appear on this CD. The studio released nine records in the mid ‘80s including the Guitar and Gun I and II compilations for the British Cherry Red Africagram label – and over 60 local commercial cassettes. Some of the bands and artists that recorded at Bokoor Studio between 1981 and the late 1990’s are as follows:- .
HIGHLIFE GUITAR AND CONCERT PARTY BANDS AND ARTISTS.
F..Kenya, Kwesi Menu (with Paa Gyima), Happy Boys, Mokpolawo, Guyayo, Yao Ansah, George Adu, Abebe and the Bantus, Adom Internationals, Yaa Nom (with Okyeremma Asante), Anthony Entsie’s Beach Scorpion, the Warriors, Nii Tei’s Ashikotones, George Adu’s band, Nana Dick’s Osagyefo, Barima Nti Agyeman’s Nsoroma Show Band. Nii Koi’s Ghana Minstrels. Sloopy Mike Gyamfi, Chikinchi, Captain Moro, Kofi Ackah, Abbie Mensah, Waterproof, Super O.D, Ruby Darling, Nkomode, Kojo Brake, Ntoboase, City Kings, Adehyeman. Not forgetting T.O. Jazz, the Mangwana Stars and Oyikwan Internationals which appear on this CD.
HIGHLIFE DANCE BANDS AND ARTISTS
King Bruce’s Black Beats, Wofa Rockson, Sunsum, the John Teye School band, Desmond Ababio, Eric Agyeman (demo tape), Ghana Prison’s ‘Inside Out’ band, Kwadjo Donkor and Teddy Owusu, Prince George's Annan's Grass Roots
LOCAL GOSPEL BANDS AND ARTISTS .
Kwesi Abeka’s Genesis Singers Baptist Disciple Singers, Compassion Inspiration (with Ray Ellis on keyboards), Reverend J.M. Odonkor’s Unipra Church Choir, Advent Heralds, Saint Michaels Choir, Kuntum Thirteen, Reverend Damoah’s Afrikanium Church Choir, King's Stewards, Nungua Minstrel Choir, Golden Gates, Sons and Daughters, Gospel Sowers, James Antwi, Metallic Singers, George Akimenyi’s Ajumako Kromain 12, Blessed Elim Singers, Saint Michael's, George Kankam’s El Shaddai, Osei Ntiamoah’s Living Gospel Band, Moses Dwamena’s Nkwantabisa Gospel Singers, Rebecca Martin’s Glorified Singers, Reverend Stephen Domlevo’s Catholic Joyful Singers, Chris Amoah’s Christian Messengers, Javes (Jonathon) Addo and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Band, the AWUSCO School Choir, the Vakpo Choir, the Anfoega Djana E.P. Church Choir and Kofi Yegbe's Gospel Band.
TRADITIONAL DRUMMING, FOLK AND CULTURAL GROUPS
I did two analytical recordings of the Ghana Legon Dance Ensemble for Professor J.H.K. Nketia and for Dr. Willie Anku and other analytical recordings of the master drummers Michael Kojo Ganyoh and Dan Banini. I recorded the folk guitarists Koo Nimo and Kwaa Mensah.. Traditional groups were Nii Tetteh’s gome group, the Guna Efee Noko Ga cultural troupe, the Ewe Tegbe Dodovee drumming group, the Nyemoaniwaa kpanlogo group of Ofankor, the Ebaahi children’s group, Mustapha Tettey Addy’s Royal Obonu Drummers and the Dagari xylophone player Aaron Bebe Sukura. from the Volta Region there were the Agbeyeye borborbor group of Tsito, the Trinita Traditional Choir, Ahegbebu’s Nobody's Drumming Group and Foster Nkami’s Eleme borborbor group
AFRO- FUSION MUSIC AND LOCAL REGGAE
Amartey Hedzolleh (Lash Laryea and Jagga Botchway ), Nii Noi Nortey’s Mau Mau Musiki, Saka Saka, Kojo Dadson’s Talents, Smart Arpeh’s Nokoko, Nana Danso and the Pan African Orchestra, Salaam’s Cultural Imani group, Kindred (some of whom later formed Kente), B. B. Sheriff’s and Lloyd Mamphey On the reggae side was Felix Bell, Shasha Marley, the Classic Vibes (Kwadwo Antwi and Ayi Soloman) and Yaw Ansah and the Vas Angels (as session musicians) who in 1985 recoded in my studio with Alpha Blondy of neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire. Not forgetting the Afro-rock of Blekete and the Big Beats which appears on this CD
REVOFEST 1986
In November 1986, Bokoor Studio teamed up with Ghana Films and Sammy Helwani to record the twelve-hour government sponsored REVOFEST at the Accra Sports Stadium at which many of the countries top musicians and bands played. Highlife bands and artists included the African Brothers, A. B. Crentsil's Ahenfo, Koo Nimo, Onyina, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, Alhadji K. Frempong, Paa Bobo, Joe Mensah, Abebe, Papa Yankson, the Kumapim Royals, Safohene Djeni, Sidiku Buari and Pozo Hayes. Also recorded was the Ga cultural music of Wulomei, Naa Amanua's Suku group and Kyirem, and the local gospel of Ola Williams and Professor Abraham. The army and government sponsored bands that appeared were the Pink Five, the Police Band, the Prisons Band, the Sweet Beans, the Beautiful Creations and the Sappers. Female singers who performed were Lady Talata and Lady Lartey, and at the other extreme the blind northern street minstrel Onipa Nua sang in his usual deep gravely voice. Many of these artists were featured on the American public radio AFRO POP program (No. 20) that dealt exclusively with this festival.
BOKOOR GOES MOBILE
As more and more recording studios began to appear in Accra Bokoor studio went increasingly mobile, particularly from 1994 when the studio began working in Ghana’s eastern Volta Region where there were no recording studios. This was at the invitation of the Volta Region branch of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) when two of its organizers, Dela Fumador and Edinam Ansah (Musical Director of the Supreme Canon’s army band), arranged for Bokoor to record Ewe borborbor recreational music, akpalu funeral songs, agbadza drumming groups, acappella vernacular church choral groups and local gospel bands in the Tsito, Ho and Hohoe area. In recognition of Bokoor’s pioneering work in the Volta Region I was given an award at the Volta Region MUSIGA show held at the Ho Pleasure Gardens in July 1998, graced by the Ho District Executive Captain George Njodzo and the Member of Parliament Mr. Kofi Attor.
BOKOOR STUDIO AND FILMS
Bokoor Studio recording sessions have appeared in two international films. One was ‘Repercussions’ (Third Eye/BBC 1983 Channel 4 production) featuring Sloopy Mike Gyamfi and the other was ‘Brass Unbound’ (Dutch IDTV 1992 production) featuring E.T. Mensah’s trumpeter son Edmund. In 1987 (and arranged by the late Beattie Casely-Hayford) Bokoor Studio recorded Koo Nimo’s ‘palmwine’ guitar band as background music for John Powel‘s UNICEF financed film on intermediate technology called ‘The Secret of Wealth’. And i 1995 the Adehyeman Group (formerly called Kusum Agoromma) concert party also did a session at Bokoor Studio some of which appears in for the educational ‘Stage Shakers' film on local popular theatre, directed by Kwame Braun.
(For further details on Bokoor Band and Studio see my Chapter 25 of ‘West African Pop Roots’ published by Temple University Press, USA in 1992, and Chapter 50 of ‘Highlife Time’ published by Anansesem Press, Accra 1996)
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BOKOOR BAND ‘Maya Gari’ is an Afro-beat in Ga by John Collins and Jones Attuqueyifio, about how inflation is affecting the price of food.
BOKOOR BAND ‘Yeah Yeah Ku Yeah’ is an Afrobeat in Ga and Hausa about elders who want to loose their clothes so they can dance freely, but still keep their northern hats on. It was composed by John Collins and the Bunzus band in 1974
BOKOOR BAND ‘There is Time’ is an Afro-rock by John Collins and Kpani Gasper Tettey Addy
MANGWANA STARS ‘Atiadele’ (Deceiver) This song recorded in 1986 and sung in the Nzima language is about a man who complains that his wife has betrayed him by bringing her lover to the house under the guise that him being her brother. The Mangwana Stars was led by the ex F. Kenya musician Emmanuel C.B. Gyamfi, both of whom are from Ghana’s Nzima speaking Western Region. Eben Amoakho is on guitar with the other musicians being session-men coming from Kris Bediako’s Third Eye band
BLEKETE & THE BIG BEATS ‘Egbe Enyo’ (Bad and Good) This Afro-rock song uses the traditional Ewe agbadza rhythm ands says whether life is good or bad we just have to take it as it is. It was recorded in August 1992 by Jigga Murphy (Mofi)Ativi’s Blekete group that teamed up with the keyboard player Lord Lindon. In the late 1960’s Lord Lindon had been with the Triffis band that relocated in Nigeria as the Plastic Jims, the resident band in the Kano hotel of the Sierra Leonian soul musician Geraldo Pino (of Heartbeats fame). On returning to Ghana the Plastic Jims re-named themselves the Big Beats and in 1971 had a big hit with their Ga Afro-beat ‘Kyen Kyema Osi Akwan’ (the old are blocking the path of the young). Sadly, shortly after the Bokoor recording, Lord Lindon and the Blekete trap-drummer Eddie Cee were killed in a car accident.
NB in March 2006 Jigga Mofy released a CD of some of these songs in re-mixed from (done at Agyemangs Digital Studio 3 in Accra) CD entitled 'No Condition is Permanent'
OYIKWAN INTERNATIONALS ‘Anoma Franoas’. This song, recorded in 1986, is about family problems forcing a person to leave home, expressed through a traditional Akan proverb about the dove-like like ‘Franoas’ bird having to leave its native forest for a desert where it is harassed by an eagle. A small ‘Brobe’ bird hears Fanoas crying and consoles it by revealing that Franoas’ own mother also experienced the very same problems in life.. The Oyikwan Internationals was led by Opoku Bismark Tawia who employed session-men from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Band. Opoku Tawia (like Emmanuel Gyamfi) was also an ex-member of Francis Kenya’s band that had earlier recorded in Bokoor Studio. Kenya himself formed his Riches Big Sound guitar band and concert party in 1956 and many important artists passed through it over the years, including Frempong Manso (Osofo Dadzie), Waterproof, Santo, Kofi Sammy, the lady impersonator Nartey, the guitarist Agyekum (leader of the Simple Seven), Samuel Paa Gyimah and Kojo Menu of T.O. Jazz
BOKOOR BAND ‘Onukpa Shwarpo’ (Bigman’s Shop) is an Afrobeat in Ga composed by John Collins and the Bunzus in 1974
T. O JAZZ ‘Onam Bebi Basa’ (Walking Astray). This was recorded in April 1986 with singers Kojo Menu and Korkorkor and with T.O. and Adoko on guitars. This composition by T.O. says ‘some people use money and some people use greediness in search of love. But love is a gift from God, without which there can be no happiness. So stop wandering about and come back to me’. As mentioned more fully in the sleeve notes of the Vintage Palmwine CD, T.O. formed his Ampoumah’s guitar band in 1952 and in 1957/8, when the band was touring Burkino Fasso, they met the Congolese Bantus Africana, who invited T.O.’s group to the D.R. Congo. T.O’s guitar band taught the Bantus highlife numbers, who in turn taught the Ghanaians to play local ‘Congo jazz’ (i.e. soukous). T.O. also met Franco, the leader of the Congo’s top band, O.K. Jazz, and as result changed the name of his Ampoumah’s guitar band to ‘T.O. Jazz’. After almost seven years in the D.R. Congo T.O. Jazz returned to Ghana and in 1970 received the first ever Phillips West Africa Golden Disc award for their song ‘Aware Bone’ (Bad Marriage). In the late 1990’s I asked T.O. and Kojo Menu to join the Local Dimension highlife band that I co-run with Aaron Bebe Sukura, and also got T.O. a job teaching palmwine guitar at the Music Department of the University of Ghana where I work. T.O died in 2001 and is survived by his wife Lydia and daughter Grace.
BOKOOR BAND ‘Now Comes Another Day’ is a Highlife in English by John Collins that includes Ga children’s playtime refrain)
BOKOOR BAND ‘Been To’ is a highlife in English by John Collins
BOKOOR BAND ‘Money in Bed’ is a Ga song about not wanting to be disturbed with money matters before rising from one’s bed in the morning. It is based on a Central African ‘Soukous rhythm and was composed by John Collins and Kpani Gasper Tettey Addy
BOKOOR BAND ‘Trouble Man’ is a soukous sung is Ga and composed by John Collins and Kpani Gasper Tettey Addy
