International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 10 • No. 1 • January 2020 doi:10.30845/ijhss.v10n1p11 85 Remembering Kwadwo Donkoh and Stan Plange: Ghanaian Dance Band Highlife Music Composer and Arranger Mark Millas Coffie Edwin E. A. Ferguson Stephen Ayesu Nyanteh Department of Music Education University of Education, Winneba Ghana Abstract The purpose of this study is to reflect on the life, music and contributions of Kwadwo Donkoh and Stan Plange to the development of Ghanaian dance band highlife music. It also examines the compositional devices and arranging techniques employed in one of their popular highlife songs, Wobe kume (you will kill me) as a contribution to music theory. Employing document review and interview for data collection, the paper reveals that both Kwadwo Donkoh and Stan Plange composed and arranged for several bands. A formal analysis of the song, Wobe kume also reveals manipulation of sequential interlocking patterns, repetitions, variations and transposition in the vocal melody, while the arrangement employs a technique of ‘double theme brass and vocal alternation’. The study concludes that the song is a contribution to music theory; and therefore, recommends the use of Ghanaian dance band highlife songs for the teaching of composition and ‘big band’ arranging techniques, and musical form and analysis in music institutions. Keywords: arranger; composer; dance band; highlife; songwriter; wobe kume 1. Introduction Kwadwo Donkoh and Stan Plange, arguably two of Ghana's prolific dance band highlife composers and arrangers chalked successes with several bands in Ghana and Nigeria; most notably are Stargazers, Ogyatanaa, Broadway and Uhuru Dance Bands from Ghana, and E.C. Arinze’s Band, Nigeria Broadcasting Orchestra and Ambassador’s Down Beats Band from Nigeria. Interestingly, Kwadwo and Stan have been in the business of one composing the vocal melody and the other arranging for quite long. This is evident in highlife classics such as Skin pain, Time for highlife, Wobe tumi no, Biribi just to mention a few of the many examples, where Kwadwo composed the vocal melody and Stan did the arrangement. It is quite surprising that they are among the least celebrated highlife greats in Ghanaian popular music parlance as compared to their contemporaries such as Ebo Taylor, Teddy Osei, C. K. Mann among others.Wobe kume (you will kill me) is arguably one of Ghana's classic highlife songs composed by Kwadwo Donkoh and arranged by Stan Plange in the dance band highlife style. Sadly, these two Ghanaian dance band highlife greats have passed on. Even though Ghanaians could relate with the song, it appears their popularity, musicality and achievements live in the memory of their contemporaries, a few music pundits and those who encountered them while they were alive. It is the purpose of this study to reflect on the life, music and contributions of Kwadwo Donkoh and Stan Plange to the development of Ghanaian dance band highlife music, and also examines the compositional devices and arranging techniques employed in one of their popular highlife songs, Wobe kume as a contribution to music theory. 2. Literature Review Dance band highlife is one of the distinct forms of Ghanaian highlife music, which evolved out of the pre-World War dance orchestras of the 1900s (Collins, 1994, 2004). It is a synthesis of indigenous Ghanaian music, Western classical music, Afro-Cuban music and jazz. The dance band highlife music was one of the dominant music forms in the musical landscape of Ghana between the late 1940s to the late 1970s. The popularity of dance bands such as Tempos, Black Beats, Stargazers, Broadway, Ramblers, Uhuru among others in and outside Ghana during the above-mentioned period cannot be overemphasised. (Coffie, 2012) posits that no style of highlife has projected Ghana so well on the world music map like the dance band style, which also gives credence to the above statement. Dance band highlife composers and arrangers superimpose Western idiomatic structure and instruments over African thematic sources as observed by (Coffie, 2018).