Ghana's Highlife Music Collection

C.K. Mann

Biography

C.K. Mann (1936-)

C.K. Mann (Charles Kofi Amankwaa Mann) was born in 1936 in Cape Coast. A former seaman and a member of Kakaiku’s Guitar Band for some time, he joined the Ocean Strings’ which he led until 1965. The band folded up and the owner of Princess Cinema in Takoradi invited C.K. to lead the Carousel 7, a newly formed resident band of the Princess night club. He then came to prominence with a single hit record Edina Benya in 1969.

C.K. has leaped to fame with his captivating revival and modernization of "Osode", the traditional music of the fishermen of Ghana. C.K. Mann explains: "The raw and pure Osode vocal ensemble is unique and can’t be equalled by anyone other than the fishermen folks. I also wanted to play Osode and make it appeal to a much wider audience. So I changed the instrumentation a bit and to the Ashowa, the hand piano or rhythm box that is used to perform Osode, I added two guitars, organ, bass, etc. But I managed to maintain some of the original ingredients such as the hand-claps, and the call and response style of singing." The outcome of this combination was a mildly melancholy sound which was quite popular on the Ghanaian West Coast market. After the success of Osode, C.K. introduced wind instruments: the saxophone and trumpet, into his band, The Carousel 7.

Source: Frank Sam, Party Time With “Ceekay”, C.K. Mann and his Carousel ‘7’, label Dix, Essiebons Enterprises Ltd.; Mike Eghan, C.K. Mann Big Band, Essiebons Enterprises Ltd.