As Trevor made very clear last week we lost a very special person when Ebo Taylor passed away on February 7th at the age of 89. A musician from Ghana who had an innate ability to spin completely new musical tapestries from traditional sources, Ebo Taylor was an innovator and creator whose fusions of Ghanian highlife and american inspired soul and funk are masterpieces of contemporary African music. (Highlife is an immensely popular style of music in Africa that combines the instrumentation and experimentation of jazz with the indigenous sound motifs of West Africa and Ghana in particular). Ebo Taylor’s style is so instantly recognizable that you know a song was written by him before checking the song credits on other people albums, as is the case with the C.K. Mann track that sits near the top of today’s edition of Friday drive. From this show I’ve decided to explore the music of the region playing songs that I think Ebo would have dug. He was a deeply inspired and highly skilled guitarist and loved the cross pollination of musical ideas, so today we’ll travel from Ghana to Senegal to Mali to Nigeria and beyond chasing songs that swim in the same currents Ebo Taylor traveled through so well.