A life made up of important ‘accidents’ led him deep into Ghanaian culture and music. Passionately involved as a player, and now an authority on styles and the flow of music in both directions across the Atlantic.
Graham Douglas
Born in England, came here at 7 or 8 years old with father Edmund Collins who was setting up the Philosophy Dept at Accra University.
He did his schooling in England and a science degree, and returned to join his father in 1969.
After a degree in sociology and archaeology at the University of Ghana he was already a guitarist in jazz, blues rock bands in the UK. He also set up his own Bokoor Band, in 1975 that played at Fela Kuti’s Shrine Club in Lagos
He describes himself as a socialist and says his views have changed a lot simply by living in Africa: ‘the West is destroying developing nations and hides it with talk about human rights’. He did the first BBC World Service broadcast on African popular music in 1978, toured Scandinavia and the US teaching drumming, African popular guitar and musical history on such topics as ‘freed slaves brought Samba and Calypso to Ghana’. After publishing 5 books, he was invited to do a PhD at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and then became a professor at the University of Accra.
Our conversation moves across topics, as John’s lively mind follows his thoughts.
How did you get started with African music?
Accidentally, my dad knew the leader of the Jaguar Jokers, a guitar band and Concert Party – a group that travelled around doing popular music and theatre.
They grabbed me as a novelty white man, even though then I couldn’t play Ghanaian music.
The fact that my university had rejected my MA proposal to study Highlife as ‘a topic not worthy of academic study’, was my good luck, because it forced me to be more active.
You couldn’t learn about Highlife music it from books because there weren’t any.
Despite the fact that the musicians and actors slept on village floors, and had little formal education, they were very cosmopolitan guys, and gave their own creative interpretations.
They had a comic who wore blackface like an American Minstrel, but it had no racist overtones.
Minstrelsy came into Ghana and South Africa in the early 1900’s as the uniform of Ragtime, which was the first Black-American popular music to hit Africa.
From the South of the US?
The North, as a copy of slave humour, dialect, music and dances. After the American Civil War the minstrel shows run by whites became increasingly racist. But the African-American Minstrels show launched the careers of Bessy Smith, Ida Cos and the other Blues Queens.
Why did they go to Africa ?
Some Black Americans were involved in the Gold and Diamond Rush to South Africa in the 1880’s.
Honky-tonk Piano, Barrelhouse Blues and Minstrel songs came into South Africa, which led to Township Jazz.
In Ghana and Nigeria Black American minstrel artists came in the 1920’s, and went on tour as Concert Parties, which by the 1950’s became Highlife. When I started playing in the 60’s it was like a comic Highlife opera which also played the Soul music of James Brown, and Rumbas, Pachangas and Sambas.
How did Latino music come in?
In the 1930’s, GV records from Argentina was selling music in Ghana. Samba was popularized because freed slaves from Brazil were sent to Ghana, Nigeria and Benin in the1880’s.
Then the British brought 5-7,000 Caribbean soldiers to Ghana to help fight the Ashanti war of 1873-1901, because they survived Malaria better. With them came Calypso rhythms which you can still hear in Highlife music.
There was a 2-way exchange between the Americas and Africa all the time, through these groups and black sailors.
In1983 I did a radio programme in Monrovia, about the contribution of Liberian sailors and fishermen to West African guitar music, and the next day the Minister of Culture visited me: He was flabbergasted, all this had been forgotten because the ruling Liberian elites thought fishermen and sailors had nothing to offer besides catching fish.
And Cuban soldiers in Angola in the 1970’s.
Yes, Cuba is an amazing country it produces about 20,000 doctors a year – and when African doctors are sucked out to Europe and the US by high salaries, it is ironically, a poor Communist country that compensates. This brain drain of talented Africans abroad is all part of what Fanon and others meant about the way the West underdeveloped Africa. Supposing there had been a superpower during the 19th century sucking out England’s brains – Britain’s industrial revolution would never have happened.
China will be next?
They had a massive fleet in the 12th Century but they didn’t try to conquer the world.
They never had a slave trade, and they were colonized themselves. China doesn’t interfere in the internal affairs of African countries.
They don’t care about human rights either.
The West is destroying developing nations, and they hide it with talk about human rights. The concentration of wealth is increasing worldwide, which is what capitalism does.
The West used the Cold War to destroy so many African nations and now it’s the war on terrorism. Despite being a tyrant Gaddafi was an important figure for Africa.
When mobile phones came in 15-20 years ago only the very rich could afford them because calls were routed through Europe, until Gaddafi provided the seed money to the African Union to buy a Chinese satellite.
The African mobile phone revolution was triggered by Gaddafi.
Shall we get back to your biography ?
In 1969 I played with a band called Deep Blues Feelings and I was the 2nd person to bring a Wah-Wah pedal, and the first to bring a Fuzz Box to Ghana, which meant they could get the sound of Jimi Hendrix – this caused a sensation. Then I set up my own Bokoor Band, in 1975.
What does Bokoor mean ?
Coolness or Daddy Cool. I began playing at the Napoleon Club in Accra, run by a Lebanese guy called Faisal Helwanii, and Fela Ransome Kuti also used to play there sometimes. We were the first band to play for prisoners in Ghana, and we also played at Fela’s Shrine Club in Lagos.
Then in 1980 I took some of my Bokoor Band to the UK for a year (working with unemployed West Indian youth in Wolverhampton) and brought back new recording and band equipment with me. Then Rawlings’ military government took over in 1981 , and there was 2 ½ yrs of curfew, which made it dangerous to play at night, and many Ghanaian musicians left the country.
An armoured car came to our house one night because people had been dancing outside, and threatened to blow the house up. We were only saved because there was a detachment of soldiers living nearby who often slept at our house for protection, because 16 of them had been killed by anti-Rawlings forces one night. We were in the house and ran off into the bush, but those who had been dancing were put into 2 lines and the soldiers fired their machine guns between them to frighten them. If the local soldiers hadn’t spoken to them they would have killed everyone.
A few days later the driver of the armoured car came to apologise to my father, he was related to my father’s Ghanaian wife, – they were so drunk they didn’t know what they were doing.
It was a civil war?
There was a group who wanted to go much further and kill all the senior army officers, which would have led to a bloodbath. Luckily Rawlings stopped them.
(Next Week: Part 2)
(Photos supplied by the interviewee and authorised for publication.)
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