Effective period / Period of releases: 1959

Members: Joss Aikins, Spike Anyankor

Builders Brigade Band is a ten-piece dance band that performed highlife music at parades, marches, and other public events. Overtime, the band became one of the CPP's primary vehicles for exposing young people to the merits of Ghana's national music. Band members sported brand new instruments, wore matching outfits, and performed behind bandstands painted with the black star, Ghana's distinctive national emblem. Spike Anyankor, a professional alto sax player who had been a member of the Tempos and Accra's Rhythm Aces, directed the band. The band also had a musical director, who carefully comprised the group's repertoire oflocal musical styles, popular standards, and acceptable modern songs. In 1959, the ensemble was a finalist in the National Dance Band Competition, miraculously (and rather suspiciously) advancing further than manywell established groups. Over the next few years, the band made numerous recordings, provided entertainment at government functions, and became a regular feature of Accra's nightlife scene. The government established a branch of the Brigade Band in each administrative region, so that wide audiences could witness its carefully screened repertoire of highlife and pro-government tunes. Many nightclubs in Accra and elsewhere booked the group because the government allowed them to rack up shocking levels of debt.