Highlife is Ghana’s national popular dance-music that emerged over one hundred years ago in its ports and harbours as a fusion of African, western and African-American elements. Highlife subsequently spread far and wide in Ghana – and even into Nigeria. Like the word ‘jazz’ the world ‘highlife’ is an umbrella term that embraces a number of distinct Ghanaian sub-styles that have been played by syncopated brass bands, rural acoustic ‘palmwine’ groups, prestigious elite dance orchestras and neo-traditional drumming groups. The tracks on this compilation are made up of the ‘guitar band’ and ‘dance band’ variety of highlife that rose to popularity during the 1950s and 60s and peaked in the 1970s and early 80s – before the introduction of the present wave of local computer generated techno-pop.