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pat thomas - coming home (2cd included) - strut - vinyl

New Copy

Genre: African - Ghana

1. Ogyatanaa Show Band With Pat Thomas - (Super) Yaa Amponsah
2. Pat Thomas & The Black Berets - Obra E Yebo Yi
3. Pat Thomas & The Big 7 - Eye Colo
4. Pat Thomas - Awurade Mpaebo
5. Pat Thomas & The Sweet Beans - Merebre
6. Pat Thomas & The Sweet Beans - Revolution
7. Pat Thomas & Marijata - We Are Coming Home
8. Pat Thomas & Marijata - Let's Think It Over
9. Pat Thomas & The Sweet Beans - Set Me Free
10. Ebo Taylor Feat. Pat Thomas - No Money, No Love
11. Ebo Taylor Feat. Pat Thomas - Sack The Devils
12. Pat Thomas & Ebo Taylor - Ma Huno
13. Pat Thomas - Mewo Akoma
14. Pat Thomas - Gyae Su
15. Pat Thomas - Yamona
16. Pat Thomas And Marijata - I Need More
17. Super Sounds Namba - Who%u2019s Free

Original Ghanaian Highlife & Afrobeat Classics 1967-1981 Ghanaian highlife master and �The Golden Voice Of Africa�, Pat Thomas, returns with his first full career retrospective on Strut this Autumn, covering his late �60s big band highlife recordings through to the �burger highlife� movement of the early �80s.

Growing up with music around him (�my uncle, King Onyina, was an important highlife musician�), Thomas was inspired to become a singer after hearing vocalist Joss Aikins: �He sang with Broadway Dance Band and Decca in Ghana chose him to sing with any group that came into their studios.�
When a new incarnation of Broadway Dance Band was created in �67, led by Ebo Taylor, Thomas received his first big break. �Ebo started to write new songs. I added the lyrics and sang them and it worked well.� The partnership with Taylor would become one of the enduring forces in Ghanaian music during the �70s, creating a fresh, progressive new highlife sound. They played with the Blue Monks band before, in 1974, forming Sweet Beans with the backing of Ghana�s Cocoa Marketing Board: �The album, �False Lover�, was the first under my own name and my first for Gapophone,� Pat reflects. �Reggae was �on� at that time - Jimmy Cliff was the guy - so I tried reggae fusions and brought in some soul.�
The album established Thomas across Ghana. Sweet Beans disbanded but the musicians stayed together as Marijata. �The guys initially used Jewel Ackah as their vocalist but they involved me and I re-vocalled the album. This became the �Pat Thomas Introduces Marijata� LP. At that time, I would go to George Prah at Gapophone to ask for money and he would say, �if you want me to pay you, go and write a song!� So, tracks like �Coming Home� came about that way, written on the spot.� A second Marijata album followed before a damaging coup in Ghana in 1979. �Jerry Rawlings� �house-cleaning� was designed to stop corruption but it seriously damaged our country�s music culture.�
Thomas left for Berlin and stayed true to his highlife roots, becoming the first Ghanaian to record highlife there. �In Ghana, people ex-pats living in Germany called themselves �burgers�, so the scene became �burger highlife�.� Thomas travelled to Togo and London, before settling in Canada: �I ended up there for ten years playing for universities, Ghanaian societies and festivals.�