African Party

He died in Lagos 40 years ago and his heyday on London's music scene is a good 50 years in the past, but George Folorunsho ‘Ginger’ Johnson's presence is felt to this day. He had a crucial influence on UK rock, jazz and upon West African musicians in the UK – including his young student friend of the 60s, Fela Kuti. His appearances on Honest Jon's London is the Place for Me compilations of London's post-war African and Caribbean music scene were stellar. But hopefully this reissue of Johnson's only album is going to spread the message about his joyful music even wider. He started with Ronnie Scott and Soho beboppers in the late 1940s, flourished through the 50s with the Edmundo Ros Orchestra and his own African Messengers, and then became a ubiquitous 60s presence – he played with Georgie Fame, Brian Auger, and even onstage in Hyde Park with the Stones on ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.

His celebratory, percussion-based, jazz-inflected music makes African Party the kind of album you can’t stop listening to again and again: from the Latin soul track ‘I Jool Omo’, through the revelatory Caribbean jazz of ‘Talking Drum’, to the album's final tune, the infectious ‘Hi Life’.