Highlife Saturday Night

Nathan Plageman

Description

One of Africa's most vibrant styles of popular music

View accompanying audiovisual materials for the book at Ethnomusicology Multimedia

Highlife Saturday Night captures the vibrancy of Saturday nights in Ghana—when musicians took to the stage and dancers took to the floor—in this penetrating look at musical leisure during a time of social, political, and cultural change. Framing dance band "highlife" music as a central medium through which Ghanaians negotiated gendered and generational social relations, Nate Plageman shows how popular music was central to the rhythm of daily life in a West African nation. He traces the history of highlife in urban Ghana during much of the 20th century and documents a range of figures that fueled the music's emergence, evolution, and explosive popularity. This book is generously enhanced by audiovisual material on the Ethnomusicology Multimedia website.

Acknowledgements
Ethnomusicology Multimedia Series Preface
Introduction: The Historical Importance of Urban Ghana's Saturday Nights
1. Popular Music, Political Authority, and Social Possibilities in the Southern Gold Coast, 1890-1940
2. The Making of a Middle Class: Urban Social Clubs and the Evolution of Highlife Music, 1915-1940
3. The Friction on the Floor: Negotiating Nightlife in Accra, 1940-1960
4. "The Highlife was Born in Ghana": Politics, Culture, and the Making of a National Music, 1950-1965
5. "We Were the Ones Who Composed the Songs": The Promises and Pitfalls of Being a Bandsman, 1945-1970
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes
Discography
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• MUSIC
• África
• Multiple signal classification
• Ethnomusicology
• History of Africa
• Anthropology
• West
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 19 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253007339
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Highlife Saturday Night
AFRICAN EXPRESSIVE CULTURES
Patrick McNaughton, editor
Associate editors
Catherine M. Cole
Barbara G. Hoffman
Eileen Julien
Kassim Kon
D. A. Masolo
Elisha Renne
Zo Strother

Ethnomusicology Multimedia (EM) is a collaborative publishing program, developed with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to identify and publish first books in ethnomusicology, accompanied by supplemental audiovisual materials online at www.ethnomultimedia.org .
A collaboration of the presses at Indiana and Temple universities, EM is an innovative, entrepreneurial, and cooperative effort to expand publishing opportunities for emerging scholars in ethnomusicology and to increase audience reach by using common resources available to the presses through support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each press acquires and develops EM books according to its own profile and editorial criteria.
EM s most innovative features are its dual web-based components, the first of which is a password-protected Annotation Management System (AMS) where authors can upload peer-reviewed audio, video, and static image content for editing and annotation and key the selections to corresponding references in their texts. Second is a public site for viewing the web content, www.ethnomultimedia.org , with links to publishers websites for information about the accompanying books. The AMS and website were designed and built by the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities at Indiana University. The Indiana University Digital Library Program (DLP) hosts the website and the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music (ATM) provides archiving and preservation services for the EM online content.
Highlife SATURDAY Night
POPULAR MUSIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN URBAN GHANA
NATE PLAGEMAN
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2013 by Nathan Plageman
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Plageman, Nate, [date]
Highlife Saturday night : popular music and social change in urban Ghana / Nate Plageman.
p. cm. - (African expressive cultures) (Ethnomusicology multimedia)
Includes bibliographical references, discography, and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00725-4 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00729-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00733-9 (e-book) 1. Dance music-Social aspects-Ghana. 2. Highlife (Music)-Ghana-History and criticism. 3. Ghana-Social conditions. I. Title. II. Series: African expressive cultures. III. Series: Ethnomusicology multimedia.
ML 3917. G 43 P 53 2013
306.4 8409667-dc23
2012026045
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
FOR JOHN HANSON
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY MULTIMEDIA SERIES PREFACE
Introduction: The Historical Importance of Urban Ghana s Saturday Nights
1 Popular Music, Political Authority, and Social Possibilities in the Southern Gold Coast, 1890-1940
2 The Making of a Middle Class: Urban Social Clubs and the Evolution of Highlife Music, 1915-1940
3 The Friction on the Floor: Negotiating Nightlife in Accra, 1940-1960
4 The Highlife Was Born in Ghana : Politics, Culture, and the Making of a National Music, 1950-1965
5 We Were the Ones Who Composed the Songs : The Promises and Pitfalls of Being a Bandsman, 1945-1970
Epilogue
GLOSSARY
NOTES
DISCOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Acknowledgments
This book, like every other, has a history. As I remember, it was born alongside a pair of speakers playing highlife music at a funeral in Ghana in 1998, gained salience in a library cafeteria in Bloomington, Indiana, and then began to travel-in words, thoughts, and computer hard drives-with me over many years and countless miles. To tell its full story here would be difficult and tedious. I also wouldn t blame those who didn t read it. At the same time, there are elements of this project s evolution that deserve notice and recognition. Writing a book is an endeavor that requires much more than a lonely academic, a stack of notes and documents, and a dimly lit computer screen. This particular one is the product of many thought-provoking conversations, invaluable advice, practical assistance, and unending encouragement, all of which came at the hands of other people. To acknowledge the enormous role that they had in its conceptualization and making, I want to mention them briefly and offer a word of thanks.
One of my largest debts is to the many individuals and institutions that helped transform a somewhat na ve young man from Lincoln, Nebraska, into a historian of Africa. My engagement with the historical discipline, Ghana, and the broader confines of African studies started at both Saint Olaf College and the University of Ghana, where I benefited from the tutelage of Joseph Mbele, Joan Hepburn, Michael Fitzgerald, Michael Williams, and Kofi Agyekum. A fortunate string of events led me to Bloomington, where I began my graduate studies at Indiana University. While there, I grew as both a person and a scholar at the hands of John Hanson, Phyllis Martin, George Brooks, Marissa Moorman, Daniel Reed, Claude Clegg, and many others. I owe a considerable debt to John and Phyllis, both of whom placed considerable faith in my project and helped orient it in the right directions, as well as my African studies cohort, who helped me expand my knowledge and satiate my intellectual curiosity. Perhaps one day I ll get to gather around a table with Cyprian Adupa, Ebenezer Ayesu, Katie Boswell, Jeremy Brooke, Matt Carotenuto, R. David Goodman, Muzi Hadebe, Jennifer Hart, Liz McMahon, Peter Mwesige, Hannington Ochwada, Elizabeth Perrill, Paul Schauert, Kate Schroeder, Cullen Strawn, Richard Wafula, and Craig Waite not simply to reminisce, but to again benefit from their collective acumen. The administrators and staff of the African Studies Program and History Department at Indiana University helped me jump many hurdles en route to my PhD. Support for my graduate work and writing of the PhD came from the Indiana University Graduate School, History Department, Office of International Programs, and U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship program. The U.S. Department of Education Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program and Indiana University History Department funded the research that informs much of this book.
I also have accumulated many debts in Ghana, the largest of which undoubtedly go to the many men and women who spoke with me about their daily lives, their engagement with popular music, and the connections that existed between them. Their names are listed in the notes as well as the bibliography, but I owe particular appreciation to those who were instrumental to its progression: Jerry Hansen, Kofi Lindsay, Koo Nimo, Stan Plange, and Ebo Taylor. John Collins deserves special mention for all that he did to make this book a reality. During the last decade, John invited me for innumerable chats, offered access to his writings and materials housed in his Bookor African Popular Musical Archives Foundation, provided contact information for several musicians, and patiently considered my many questions. I consider him a great colleague and friend. Apetsi Amenumey spent countless hours at my side, tirelessly arranging visits, helping me conduct interviews, and scouring out records and other source materials. I owe him a great deal. Much of what I ve learned about Ghanaian music over the last fourteen years is due to the efforts of Francis Akotua, and his stamp is on these pages. I m grateful to Eddie Bruce, Miles Cleret, Peter Marfo, Edmund Mensah, and Stan Plange for supporting the inclusion of the songs on the website that accompanies this book. In Bloomington and Legon, Seth Ofori, Kofi Saah, and Kofi Agyekum helped me (with great patience) improve my Twi. At the University of Ghana, I benefited from the assistance of Kofi Baku, Takyiwaa Manuh, Owusu Brempong, Willie Anku, Judith Botchwey, Edward Apenteng-Sackey, Christopher Frimpong, Baning Peprah, Seth Allotey, and Kafui Ofori, as well as the staff of the Balme Library, the Institute of African Studies Library, and the International Center for African Music and Dance. The staff at the Public Records and Archives Administration Department in Accra, Cape Coast, Sekondi, and Kumasi offered great aid and insight, as did the staff at the Information Services Department Photograph Library. The kindness and hospitality of Gavin and Comfort Webb, Michael Williams, Nana and Mercy Sekyere, Sarpei Nunoo, Mutala Karim, Sam Bathrick, Isaac Hirt-Manheimer and Gloria Manheimer, Yaw Gyamfi, Elikem Nyamuame, Nii Okai Aryeetey, and Gidi Agbeko, made Accra truly feel like my home away from home.
I now live in Winston Salem, North Carolina, a place that has become home only on account of another set of people. Many of my colleagues at Wake Forest University, including Lisa Blee, Simon Caron, Monique O Connell, E