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Palm-wine music[1][2] (known as maringa in Sierra Leone) is a West African musical genre. It evolved among the Kru people of Liberia and Sierra Leone, who used Portuguese guitars brought by sailors, combining local melodies and rhythms with Trinidadian calypso to create a "light, easy, lilting style".[3][4] It would initially work its way inland where it would adopt a more traditional style than what was played in coastal areas.[5]
This music was created from a fusion of local and foreign sailors, dock workers, and local working-class people who would go to palm-wine bars to drink and listen to music. Portable instruments and local string and percussion merged to create this style. It was out of this genre that the traditional two-finger plucking of a guitar came when musicians played it similarly to how they played the local lute or harp. This style was typically played in a syncopated 4/4 metre.[5]
In the 1920s, a Kru taught Ghanaian highlife guitarist Kwame Asare (or Jacob Sam). His Kumasi Trio made their first highlife recordings for Zonophone in London in 1928.[7] As the music spread from the coast into the hinterland, the sound of the traditional Akan harp lute seperewa was infused and this evolved into the odonson or Akan blues and was called the "Native Blues".[5] HMV Records and Parlophone Records distributed albums of the Akan blues in southern Ghana. This was in the 1930s and 1940s and featured artists like Jacob Sam, Kwesi Pepera, Appianing, Kwame, Mireku, Osei Bonsu, Kwesi Menu, Kamkan and Appiah Adjekum.[8] At its peak of popularity in the 1930s, there would be about 200,000 Native Blues records sold per year before production was stopped due to World War II.[5]
Palm-wine music was first popularized by Sierra Leone Creole musician Ebenezer Calendar & His Maringa Band, who recorded many popular songs in the 1950s and early 1960s. Soukous and highlife were influenced by palm-wine music. Though still somewhat popular, the genre is no longer as renowned as it once was. Other renowned palm-wine musicians include Koo Nimo (a.k.a. Daniel Amponsah),[6] S. E. Rogie, Abdul Tee-Jay and Super Combo.
Agya Koo Nimo is another renowned Ghanaian singer who is popularly referred to as the "King of Palm-wine music". The "Grandfather of Highlife", as he's often called, uses his music to tell life stories which has greatly influenced the Ghanaian and other West African music scenes. He was awarded the lifetime achievers award at the University of Education Winneba in Ghana.
A few musicians of a younger generation also play in the palm wine mode, such as the Kwahu guitarist and singer Kwadwo Tawia (see the Highlife Allstars CD, p.134) and the group of guitarist Papa Baah and seprewa player Kyerematen Baffour.
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Taking its name from the drink enjoyed by its first audiences, Palmwine Guitar is a distinctive hybrid folk sound that originated in West Africa at the turn of the 20th century and remains an important part of the heritage of the entire region, the common musical currency of its entire people.
The Palmwine Guitar sound is a distinctive hybrid folk sound that originated in West Africa at the turn of the 20th century. The exact location from which it originated is still unclear, however what is certain is that it was prevalent along the West African coast. Portuguese, Spanish and Caribbean sailors whose merchant ships docked at the ports of Freetown (Sierra Leone), Lagos (Nigeria), Monrovia (Liberia) and Accra or Tema (Ghana) lent their guitars and style to their African shipmates, who formulated a unique new style that fused native rhythms with the Latin styles bequeathed by their benefactors - the result being an expressive, melodious guitar fusion.
As time went on, the guitar moved away from being the exclusive domain of African sailors and the more adventurous musicians in port cities, and into the hands of the general populace. Until then, West African musicians had generally played traditional forms of music (using traditional instruments) at funerals, weddings and religious festivals and to entertain royalty in court. Western music had also already been played in West Africa, especially by Europeans and educated West Africans. This was largely in form of classical music. For instance, Lagos hosted a Handel Festival in 1888, organised by the Yoruba musicologist Professor R.A. Coker, while nationalist figure Herbert Macaulay organised classical concerts in the late 1890s. However, by the early 1920s, with the popular usage of the guitar by indigenous musicians, a new form of musical expression emerged in urban centres, occupying a social space that merged both western musical forms and indigenous traditional music. These guitarists played at social functions for the new urban elite (the native professional class of lawyers, doctors, engineers and businessmen), who demanded the best musical entertainment, ranging from classical pianists to this emerging group of modern musicians.
Palmwine, by the way, is a sweet, tangy, mildly intoxicating drink that has been popular in West Africa (as well as Asia) for many generations. It tapped from the bark of the palm tree, yeast-fermented for a few days and served straight from the tree in calabashes (gourds). The particular musical style that emerged in the bars where the drink was enjoyed became known as the Palmwine Guitar.
The Palmwine Guitar style evolved over the years and fused with various other musical forms, specifically West African vocals and rhythms and Latin and Calypso melodies. The explosion of the Palmwine Guitar into popular culture was heralded by the first series of recordings of West African popular music, between 1925 and 1928, by RCA-Victor Records, under its specialist Zonophone sub-label. The genesis for these recordings was that immediately after the First World War (1914-1918), a significant African immigrant community had settled in the port cities of Britain, especially London, Liverpool and Bristol. These were mostly former dockworkers and labourers who had served the colonial War effort and remained behind afterwards. The Zonophone label therefore sought to service the entertainment needs of this potential market with recordings by West African musicians.
In Nigeria, two exceptional guitarists emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s, playing a pure form of classic Palmwine Guitar. Ambrose Adekoya Campbell and Julius Araba gained superstar status - at least in the old Colony of Lagos. Campbell was a member of the legendary Lagos Jolly Orchestra, a multi-ethnic band consisting of Yoruba, Ghanaian and Kru (Liberian) musicians, including the legendary piccolo player known as Piccolo Pete. Also in Nigeria, the Three Night Wizards, led by Israel Njemanze, recorded hit after hit using a Calypso-influenced style of Palmwine Guitar and singing in Igbo and English.
The advanced template of this hybrid became popularly known as Highlife, in turn an alloy of Big Band Jazz and the Palmwine Guitar fusion, typically boasting large brass and rhythm sections and clearly targeted to an elite African audience. One of the earliest superstars of this genre was the Ghanaian tenor saxman, E.T. Mensah and his Tempos Band, formed in the 1930s, whose popularity stretched far beyond Ghana. Highlife Music erupted all over West Africa, with bands emerging all over the sub-continent, including the likes of Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya, Stephen Amaechi, E.C. Arinze, The Nigeria Police Band, Duke Onyina and his band, King Bruce, the Ramblers Dance Band and many more. Over the years highlife bands have evolved in many different directions. However, the guitar element remains constant, with the rudimentary influence of the Palmwine Guitar still recognisable, an enduring reminder of this melodic style of music.
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Join them to celebrate the final installment of Palmwine Music Palmwine Music 3, their latest album which features global stars Tems, Oxlade, Lojay and more.
Onyeka: My parents are Nigerian, and when I was ten years old, my older brother, my older sister, and my dad moved to Nigeria for a year because my parents wanted me to get a better understanding of where we were from. They grew up in Nigeria, and me and my siblings were born in the United States. I was ten years old and my dad handed me a styrofoam cup with a bit of froth on top and some dead fruit flies, and he said just blow off the flies and take a sip. That was my first experience with palm wine.
Onyeka: The first time I remember trying wine was when I had an opportunity after graduating college to do some work in South Africa. We visited a winery in Stellenbosch where I tried wine. I remember on the plane ride home from South Africa, I ordered a glass of wine and that's the first time I had a Pinotage. It was fantastic to me. I thought oh, I think I might like wine.
Outside of that, it wasn't until 2020 when my good friends and I went to Barcelona for a week. We had a really interesting experience and by the time we got to this one nice hotel we stayed at at the end of the trip, it was COVID lockdown. We were quarantining inside the Casa Bonay hotel for three days, and they specialize in natural wine. So for three days, we're just ordering room service, trying natural wine. When we came back, my friend and I ended up splitting a natural wine subscription.
We just started drinking and drinking and drinking, and really enjoying the playfulness of the beverage, the playfulness of the labeling. We would meet up once a month, pick twelve bottles and we would do a draft. That's how I started to research the wines. We would sit down, have all the twelve bottles laid out and I would read a little bit about each one and then try to pick the one I liked the most.
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