From Ghana To Italy - Mack Porter :: “Peace On You”
Ghana based musician and renegade of feverish funk fusion, Mack Porter, created some of the most publicly psychedelic, serenading soul music during his short, yet profound career throughout the late 60s and well into the mid 70s. With a number of iconic Italian singles such as “M.P. Blues”, “Mary Grace (Mary Of Grace)” and countless others all cycling through the sorcery of the bountiful soundscape he left behind, his musical legacy is both organic and well diverse in the electric economics of human expression. Being the first grandson of the former Queen of Ghana, Affipong II, Porter’s father was a man of diplomacy, especially during the independency of Ghana in the late 50s, which would inspire his son to take his education seriously. He eventually relocated to the Netherlands and then to Foligno, Italy in the mid 60s where he completed his studies at the university before fully dedicating his life to music and its revolutionary vibrations of holy healing properties.
Joining forces with Ezio Ranaldi, who would go on to sing all the musician’s productions as co-author, Porter launched his very first group as well, signed to the label Fans, while simultaneously winning a competition in Lugano with his song “Dove Sei Felicità” towards the end of the decade. With the steady success of his humble beginnings, Porter was known to shape-shift the genre-bending costumes he occupied so effortlessly via the blues, fundamental funk, prog, or flat out rock. He wore each of these hats with an energized ease and comfort, while blazing towards the complicated landscape of the 1970s with an iron fist of artistic integrity and eager to explore like no other. With a steady stream of singles hitting the airwaves, it was time for a full length album and 1972’s “Peace On You” was the answer to any questions, or concerns about the artist’s melodic mediation on material in its most potent format.
Debuting on the Italian-based label Rifi, “Peace On You” roars out as this heroic explosion into the ritualistic realm of riff and the valuable elements of volume and seismic proportions that it eagerly lays upon its listeners from start to finish. Choosing to get the message across in English for the first time on record, Porter manifests the already sleeping souls of Hendrix, Blind Owl and countless others from the fatal fables of rock to help guide him through the various sounds and textures of what most would consider the magnum opus of his career. Cross-dressing in the cosmic closet of music, Porter declares a radical remedy to melody and that’s to express what you have and experience what you get.
