“The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music”: Ebo Taylor, celebrated Ghanaian guitarist and highlife music pioneer, dies at 90

Ghanaian guitarist and highlife pioneer, Ebo Taylor, has died at 90. His son, Kweku Taylor, announced the news on social media.

“The world has lost a giant,” he wrote. “A colossus of African music. Ebo Taylor passed away yesterday; a day after the launch of Ebo Taylor music festival and exactly a month after his 90th birthday, leaving behind an unmatched artistry legacy. Dad, your light will never fade.”

Born Deroy Taylor in Cape Coast, Ghana, on 6 January 1936, Taylor started his music career in the late ’50s by joining influential highlife bands such as the Stargazers and the Broadway Dance Band, and developing his craft by playing with, and arranging for, several bands in Accra and Cape Coast.

“Fela used to say to me, ‘Why are we Africans always playing jazz?’ He said jazz was for the Americans and we should be doing our own thing,” Taylor recalled in a 2018 interview with Vinyl Factory.

“We also had the desire to become a Miles Davis, a Charlie Christian, or a Kenny Burrell,” Taylor added in a 2025 interview with Post Genre. “So we had the same mood … He was such a playful and lively person.”

And while jazz eventually played a pivotal role in both artists’ extensive repertoire, Taylor also merged funk influences with the forward-facing vision of highlife and distinct West African musical traditions.

Just before returning to Ghana in 1965, Taylor formed the Black Star Highlife Band with his onetime Stargazers bandmates, drummer Sol Amarfio and multi-instrumentalist Teddy Osei.

Their music offered a glimpse into his burgeoning, genre-blending style which continued to evolve over the next two decades – and beyond. He produced for the likes of Pat Thomas and C. K. Mann, worked as an in-house guitarist, arranger, and producer for the pioneering record label Essiebons, and pursued his own solo projects, including the striking debut My Love And Music in 1975, 1977’s Life Stories, Love & Death in 2010, and 2018’s Yen Ara.

Despite suffering a stroke in 2018, Taylor continued performing and recording, even releasing his final album, Jazz Is Dead 022, last year – a collaboration with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

Speaking about the ever-increasing interest in West African music with Vinyl Factory, Taylor commented: “It is still a minority of people who are interested in traditional music. Most young musicians in Ghana are getting their ideas from overseas, and maybe mixing in some highlife or Afrobeat.

“But some people are looking back into earlier forms of music. There’s a new wave that is related to the highlife of the’40s and ’50s. All the older styles got forgotten or ignored during the colonial era, especially in big towns like Accra, where you [listened to] mostly music from Britain in the clubs.

He continued, “That attitude continued even after independence. But in Saltpond City, and all along the Cape Coast, they have never forgotten the traditional music. You can still hear the fishermen singing the songs while they mend their nets on the beach.

“I do believe that it is important for music to progress, otherwise it just becomes something for museums, but you have to know your traditional culture before you start adding things to it.”

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology, and how this is shaping the future of the music industry. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Dream Wife, K.Flay, Yīn Yīn, and Black Honey, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her art-rock/psych-punk band ĠENN.