Form of West African guitar band Highlife music from Sierra Leone. Palm wine music (known in Sierra Leone as maringa) takes its name from the alcoholic beverage made from fermented palm sap served in coastal bars, a fairly cheap alternative to bottled beer. Palm wine was first made famous by Ebenezer Calender and his Maringar Band, who were known for their calypso-influenced style that drew heavily on the music of freed Caribbean slaves who had returned to Sierra Leone. Calender recorded extensively in the 1950s and 1960s, singing in the Krio language. The Kru-speaking sailors of Liberia who traded all along the west coast of Africa were accomplished guitarists, and their music may have influenced both Trinidadian calypso and Freetown maringa (Ashcroft and Trillo, 634). S.E. Rogie (d 1994) helped to popularize a form of palm wine internationally, and bands of expatriate musicians in London continued to maintain the palm wine music tradition.
Sierra Leone Music: West African Gramophone Records Recorded at Freetown in the 1950s and early 60s, Zensor Musikproduktion ZS 41 (1988) [incl. notes by W. Bender]
African Elegant: Sierra Leone's Kru/Krio Calypso Connection, Original Music OMCDO15 (1992)
Dead Men Don't Smoke Marijuana, perf. S.E. Rogie, RealWorld 8 39639 2 (1994)
E. Ashcroft and R. Trillo: ‘Palm-Wine Sounds’, The Rough Guide to World Music, i (London, 1999), 634–7
GREGORY F. BARZ