Born Oladipupo Adekoya Campbell in Lagos, Nigeria, on August 19, 1919, Ambr… Read Full Bio ↴Born Oladipupo Adekoya Campbell in Lagos, Nigeria, on August 19, 1919, Ambrose Campbell was the leader of Britain's first-ever black band, The West African Rhythm Brothers
The group made its first public appearance in London at the May 1945 celebrations in honor of VE Day, performing in Piccadilly Circus as their fellow Londoners celebrated the Nazis' defeat. IIn 1946 the West African Rhythm Brothers toured the U.K. in support of Les Ballets Nègres, Britain's first black ballet company.
Around 1952, the West African Rhythm Brothers were named the regular headliner of the Nigerian-owned Soho nightclub the Abalabi and signed to Emil Shalit's proto-world music label Melodisc to cut a series of 10" 78-rpm discs that document the birth of a new African music forged and shaped by the immigrant experience. Their fame grew when the Abalabi relocated to the more upmarket Wardour Street area and reopened under the name Club Afrique. Following creative dissension with Brewster Hughes, Campbell formed a new band in 1961 and toured Italy, returning to London to form a production company with lawyer and political advisor Lord Arnold Goodman. He also released his lone major-label effort, Highlife Today, on Columbia in 1968. But in 1972 Campbell abruptly relocated to the U.S. at the invitation of record producer Denny Cordell -- in Los Angeles, he befriended the blue-eyed soul man Leon Russell, who installed him as a percussionist in his touring band. Campbell and Russell (who dubbed the Nigerian his "spiritual adviser") remained collaborators long after both cut ties with Cordell, touring Australia and the Far East before Campbell settled in Nashville in 1982 in the wake of his contributions to 1979's million-selling Russell/Willie Nelson project, One for the Road, remarrying and starting a new family.
Aged 84, Campbell finally returned to the U.K. in 2004, settling in Plymouth and recording new music in a home studio built by his grandson. A year later, the Honest Jon's label compiled Melodisc's vintage West African Rhythm Brothers recordings as the third volume in its London Is the Place for Me reissue series, which charts the emergence of Britain's native black music traditions. Campbell died on June 22, 2006.