ANNETTE, The 'Faithful' Songbird

Saturday February 13, 2010
By James Harry Obeng

It remains an age-long statement of fact rather than a hallucination that, the local music industry is on daily basis buzzing with mediocre musical compositions rushed through the tunnels of recording studios onto the marketplace.

Yes, the craze for overnight fame and wealth has not only made music producers and makers colour-blind of the sordid development, but has also rendered music-hungry people poorer buying such works.

This is not a remark made en passant; rather it is an overflogged torn on the flesh of Ghana’s music industry rehashed year after year, to say the least.

However, to jam all music releases and musicians into the mediocrity basket will also be neither here nor there. The reason is simple; by their fruits, they are known.

She may be new, young and unknown on the music radar, but she is blessed with it all. Yes, all that goes into making good music, starting first from the talent to the vocal shrewdness, and the ability to write (or better still compose) good gospel music.

She goes by the name Annette Danso, yet can also be trusted to be the new Cindy Thompson or Esther Amoako on the block.

Why? Because she fits it. Listening to the song Faithfulness, which is also the title of second album, it is everything descriptive of the veteran gospel songstress Mrs Esther Amoako.

And when it comes to track Mefre Onyankopon, the opener on the album, one is prompted to conclude that it is a handiwork of Cindy Thompson, the gospel songbird whose song Mobrohufo Agya captured the country in the year 2000.

However, none of the songs are theirs. In all, there are eight tracks mixed on Highlife, rock, funk, worship, ‘jama’ and ‘anago’ beats, and features some of the accomplished vocalists around.

Consider Adom sombo and Da n’ase tracks on the album, for instance, Annette partner singer Francis Osei of Vine Praise fame to take gospel music to a different level. And she does similarly with Abraham Laryea, keyboardist of the renowned Soul Winners group to do justice to the song Faithful.

Other features on the album are Vida Laiza who appears on the reggae tune Not a slave girl, whereas Nigerian Gift also comes on the song My only friend. Other songs on the album are My faith and Faithfulness, the title track.

If there is anything which testify to Annette’s ingenuity, then it is how her debut Mahooden which had hits soul inspiring songs like Ebesi me yie, Calvary and Mo nto dwom deede did in 2006. The response was simply marvelous.

In an interview with The Times Weekend, Annette whose mentor is Emy Newman says the album Faithfulness “relates to life, and speaks to everyone in the way life simply is; always God rules.

I thank Media Excel, the distributors, and In–house Studios at Tesano for their invaluable contributions to the success of the album”, she said.

By all standards imaginable, Faithfulness which is produced by Rev Gabriel Ansah (of Adom FM) is a definition of gospel music, and since the sweetness or otherwise of the pudding is in the eating, doubters can get a copy and verify.

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