BBC Review
There's a trebly criss-cross of juju percussion, some bright vibraphone ripples, a...
Martin Longley2002
Campbell was born in Lagos, but came to London during WW2. By the 1950s, he'd developed a vibrant Afro-jazz club scene in Soho. Most of the singer's 10-inch Melodisc 78s were recorded under the name of the West African Rhythm Brothers, but there are also four sides included here by the Nigerian Union Rhythm Group.
Campbell made an attractively rickety sound: it's hard to divorce these short ditties from their golden era, evoking as they do potent memories, or even a fantasy imagining of those freshly-integrated times. There's a trebly criss-cross of juju percussion, some bright vibraphone ripples, a bustling interplay of horns (jazz trumpeter Harry Beckett provides some impressively crisp solos), and Brewster Hughes's guitar becomes increasingly amplified throughout the bubbling course of these 23 tracks.
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