Born Emmanuel Teteh Mensah, 31 May 1919, Accra, Ghana, d. 19 July 1996. Known throughout West Africa as "the King of Highlife", Mensah was the single greatest influence on the development of the style, in a career which stretched back to the mid-30s.
His father was a keen guitarist and encouraged his son to seek out formal musical training. At primary school, he studied fife and flute, and was a key player in the school's marching band, going on to serve his apprenticeship with the Accra Rhythmic Orchestra between 1936 and 1944, employed first as a roadie, then as a saxophonist.
In 1945, he joined the legendary Black And White Spots, before switching to the Tempos Band in 1947, succeeding Guy Warren as its leader a year later. The Tempos inaugurated a new era in Ghanaian highlife, downplaying the role of jazz-based reed and brass soloing, and expanding the traditional drum and percussion section to give more prominence to folk-based rhythm patterns.
At the same time, the band incorporated Afro-Cuban rumbas and cha chas into its repertoire. The resultant style became known as big band highlife. In 1952, the Tempos were signed to West African Decca Records and quickly established themselves as Ghana's top highlife band with a string of hit singles, including "Sunday Mirror", "School Girl", "Cherry Red" and "You Call Me Roko".
Mensah's reputation spread throughout West Africa. From the late 40s onwards, he regularly toured throughout the region, inspiring local bands who until then had played largely imported jazz or Latin music, and encouraging them to include a far greater proportion of roots rhythms and song structures in their output.
Alongside his stylistic innovations, Mensah did much to improve the lot of Ghanaian musicians in the 50s and early 60s - raising the wages of his sidemen to a level which permitted them to buy their own instruments (as opposed to the prevailing system of hiring them from the bandleader, to whom they were then effectively in a feudal relationship), and helping found the Ghana Musicians Union (at a time when royalty payments were practically unheard of).
Under his leadership, the Tempos also served as finishing school to a large number of talented musicians, who went on to form important highlife bands under their own names - notable examples include the Red Spots and the Rhythm Aces. In the late 60s, big band highlife began to be perceived as outmoded, and - despite the 1969 release of one of his greatest ever albums, The King Of African Highlife Rhythm - Mensah went on to spend much of the 70s and early 80s employed as a pharmacist.
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