E.T. Mensah

With the death of trumpeter, saxophonist, and vocalist Emmanuel Tettey “E.T.” Mensah on July 19, 1996, at age 78, Ghana lost one of its most influential musicians. Widely revered as “the father of modern highlife,” Mensah proved instrumental in reshaping the country’s musical landscape. During the early 1990s he described his overhaul of the genre: “We urgently wanted an indigenous rhythm to replace the fading foreign music of waltz, rhumba, etc. We evolved a music type relying on basic African rhythms, a crisscross African cultural sound.”

Born in the modest settlement of Ussher Town in Accra, Ghana, Mensah began on fife while still in elementary school. He moved to trumpet and saxophone during adolescence and quickly drew notice for his lyrical phrasing. At eighteen he assembled his debut ensemble, the Accra Rhythm Orchestra, which featured five saxophones, guitar, and African drums. Although he briefly performed with Scottish trumpeter Jack Leopard’s group in 1940, he soon left to help found the highlife band the Tempos, assuming leadership shortly afterward. Departing from the large jazz-band format typical of earlier highlife acts, the Tempos became among the first to apply highlife rhythms within a compact lineup. A defining feature of their sound was Mensah’s vocals delivered in multiple indigenous Ghanaian languages.

After the original Tempos lineup dissolved in 1942, Mensah reconstituted the band in 1948. The group enjoyed a successful tour of Great Britain in 1953, scoring hits with “Donkey Calypso,” “School Girl,” and “Sunday Mirror.” Although qualified as a pharmacist, Mensah treated that profession only as occasional supplemental work; music remained his central pursuit. International recognition arrived when he shared the stage with Louis Armstrong at Ghana’s independence festivities in 1957. Two years later he wrote a piece honoring Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the country.

After maintaining a modest presence in the early 1960s, Mensah launched the first of several comebacks in 1969. Confined to a wheelchair, he nevertheless completed a worldwide tour in 1986. That same year musicologist John Collins published the biography E.T. Mensah: King of Highlife through Off the Record Press in London and Ghana State Publishing Company in Accra.