Ali received a sad message from Gina Brennan, gf’s wife, yesterday. Attached was an obituary of the man we only knew in the ether, yet who we all – those of us around for some time, anyway – felt we had an understanding of. Here is what Gina sent and maybe you would like to remember gf, Anthony, Tony or T in the comments:
Anthony Brennan 1934 – 2023
Anthony “Tony” Brennan is no longer with us in the physical sense. He was in hospice care for 15 days and departed in his sleep on April 5, 2023 from his home in Sebastopol, CA.
He was born in 1934 in England to the union of John and Olive Brennan. After his parents’ separation in 1936, Tony was raised by his grandparents in Sheffield until the age of 13. He would soon part from his grandmother and the comforts of Sheffield to join his father, his stepmother Alice Mary Davis, and his two siblings in London.
By the age of 14, Tony was obsessed with jazz and listened weekly to the Jazz Club on BBC radio. He would later become obsessed with other music genres including blues,reggae, and classical composer Gustav Mahler. Tony emigrated to the United States in 1958. He received a Bachelor of Arts from California State University Long Beach in 1967 and a Master of Fine Arts from UCLA in 1977.
In the mid 70s he was part of the production team that created Hitler’s Secret Weapon, a WGBH-TV produced documentary about the development of the V2 rocket in WWII. And, in the late 70s, he attended Bob Marley and the Wailers concerts in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
Tony was a photographer, filmmaker, Director of Media Development at CSULB, a woodworker, an avid gardener, and voracious reader. He traveled throughout Mexico, Belize and Guatemala and once shipped his VW camper to Jamaica to explore the island while always carrying a camera or two to document his experiences. His photo collections of children, blues, jazz and reggae musicians were exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Jamaica, and Lusaka, Zambia.
Tony is survived by his wife, Regina Brennan; brother John Brennan (Eva) Worcester, England; sister Tessa Stebbings (Brian-deceased) Algorfa, Spain; and a host of nieces, nephews and in-laws. He was preceded in death by his parents and stepmother. At Tony’s request there will be no funeral or memorial service but a private family celebration of life will be held in the summer. In lieu of flowers or donations please consider donating to a nonprofit of your choice.
There’s one thing that constantly annoys me, a musical celebrity dies and the the Spill and all the the other blogs and music sources go into ‘grief mode’, there’s appreciative columns by the foot and playlists galore but what good does all that do for the artist? How about if we were to appreciate our musical hero’s whilst they were still with us? Let them know just how much they are appreciated?
Today it was announced that Paul Simon was retiring from touring, he’s still looking great but he’s now 76 and maybe that’s a good time to hang it up.
His fame and commercial success began as half of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, which was formed in 1964 with Art Garfunkel, that’s over a half century ago. He was responsible for writing nearly all of the pair’s songs, including three that reached No. 1 on the U.S. singles charts: “The Sound of Silence”, “Mrs. Robinson”, and “Bridge over Troubled Water”.
In 1986, he released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music, which sold 14 million copies worldwide on its release and remains his most popular solo work, to my mind one of the great albums of the century and there were many more, all of which I’ve collected over the years.
So before he departs I’d like to salute one of my musical hero’s, Paul Simon, he’s provided me with more musical joy than most over the years, here’s a playlist of some of my favorite Paul Simon songs.
When I was doing my radio show at KRCB Santa Rosa Ca. the station’s program director decided that we’d do a tribute to Dylan’s 50th. All the DJ’s would do a 2 hour program devoted to Bob, 12 straight hours on the Saturday, 8am ’til 8 pm plus me from midnight ’til 2am. My friend Roland Jacopetti and I decided to do a preview a couple of days before, we jointly put together a 3 hour program of Dylan covers. I engineered it, Roland hosted it.
I came across this tape of the final hour a couple of nights ago, I thought you might enjoy it.
This week I was listening to a cassette of one of my radio shows from about 20 odd years ago, the title of the program was ‘Long Cuts’. I’d previously played a program devoted to the sort of music that was frequently heard here on the West coast in the 60’s/70’s but radio stations were reluctant to play anything longer than 4-5 minutes, the record companies even issued edited short versions to radio stations so the effect was that many listeners often didn’t even know that what they were hearing was an edited version. And of course the long cuts were often the best things on an album but they went unheard except for those who bought the albums. I’ve always had a soft spot for the longer cuts so I decided to devote a 2hr program to them.
Back in the 70’s/80’s I used to enjoy making tape playlists of my various favorite musics, reggae was high up there then. I must have made hundreds, for myself, my car, my friends and many of them wound up in the living room along with all the VHS, the CD’s and the vinyl from whence many had originated. But then several years ago we had the big clean up and since they were not getting played much they were all consigned to the storage room upstairs, at one point I did a quick count and there were over a thousand. In latter years I sleep much less, often lying awake for several hours in the middle of the night, so I set up a cassette player with a pair of earbuds and started playing my cassettes: I’d usually have a dozen or more which were randomly chosen on the headboard. It’s wonderful, I’m re-living my musical tastes of those decades and also playing lots of interviews and musical documentaries and live performance tapes; I look forward to going to bed and I don’t mind a bit when I wake up at 1am. Last night I played a tape labelled ‘African & Jamaican dance music for Nathan” God knows why I have it and not Nathan but it was wonderful, 90 minutes of memorable music. Here’s side one of that cassette, a dozen+ cuts of favorite classic reggae. Let’s dance!
I was recently thinking about my record collection when out of the blue a question popped into my head. I have a fairly sizable collection of both LP’s and CD’s accumulated over 50 odd years and the question was “Which of all these is my favorite album?” I had to think a bit, what did I mean by favorite etc? but it came down to which one had given me the most pleasure, which was the most played, which had affected me the most?
The answer came fairly quickly – “Graceland” of course, and I decided “Yep, that’s the one’.
But then suddenly another thought intruded, “What about Bob? Surely BMW has given me more pleasure and was more life changing than Graceland, That’s true, OK, then it must be “Catch a Fire”, and at exactly the same time in 1973 I also bought “The Harder they Come”,
the movie soundtrack, that one exposed me to many other reggae groups and both got major playing time and both started me off on a life changing path; the music of Jamaica.
And then there was another, Duke Ellington, what about Duke? Can’t have a favorites album without considering at least one by Duke. I have more albums by him than any other artist and “Ellington at Newport 1956” immediately sprang to mind,
I did a post on that album here some time back and moviegoers will recognize it as the key piece of music in the current film American Hustle. I heard it live on shortwave on Voice of America lying in bed in Suffolk in 1956 and dozens of times on vinyl since then.
Suddenly more albums started flooding in and at this point I decided that there’s no way I can pick a single favorite from all those, maybe it has to be a list, but how many?
So lets change the rules, I arbitrarily decided on a dozen and went back to remembering the pleasures of essential LP’s. Dylan was huge in the 60’s but nothing was bigger than “Highway 61”, ditto The Beatles with “Sgt. Pepper”, I clearly remember the excitement when those two were released, everyone was waiting for the new Beatles album and ditto the new Dylan in ways that just don’t happen anymore.
Whoops! what about Mahler? I’ve got ’em all so how about where it all started for me in about 1964, “Mahler’s 1st with Lenny Bernstein and the NY Phil”, I bought that LP at a yard sale on impulse and it rapidly became an endlessly played favorite that led to another lifetime obsession of collecting and playing. Now I regularly start the day with Mahler dvd’s on youtube.
And then there was the “Lionel Hampton All Stars at Pasadena Civic in 1947”, the all time greatest recording of Stardust and I’ve often been tempted to do a post here at the Spill on just that one tune.
I must include Louis. he started me off in the right direction back in 1947, my favorite Louis album is “Louis plays W C Handy” from about 1954 which is about when I saw him twice in London with this band, the high point of my adolescence.
Right from the start Count Basie has been very significant in my collection, maybe second only to Duke numerically, it’s hard to pick only one but it would have to be “The Essential Count Basie vol 2 – 1939”. Goin’ to Chicago, the classic Basie blues with Jimmy Rushing. We’re getting close, the last one could get tough, but it springs to mind quickly, it’s from 1955 “Sarah Vaughn – In the land of Hi Fi”, Sarah with a great jazz group with Cannonball Adderley soloing right behind her.
There you go, I can live with that list, they’re all memorable LP’s that have been played endlessly and have given enormous pleasure over the years. It would be very easy to play the RR guru and to continue with the B list, there’s so many deserving albums that didn’t make the A list, but that’s for another day.
But If I were to think about a B list there’s dozens of names that should be considered: Joni Mitchell, CSNY, Springfield, Astor Piazzolla, Dennis Brown, Toots, Christy Moore, Charlie Parker, Burning Spear. Dozens of African artists, Ella, Lester Young, Billie, Miles, Nina, Bechet, Ray Charles, Tommy! and many, many more.
So this could be the current version of the old EOTWQ, those rules look fairly simple and I know there’s many here who are as musically obsessive as I am, so have at it, your dozen all-time favorite albums with maybe a sentence with each and a favorite cut.
Here’s my list, in no particular order, if I had to choose one it could be any of these.
Graceland – Graceland.
Catch a Fire- No more trouble.
The Harder they come – Rivers of Babylon.
Ellington at Newport – Diminuendo & Crescendo in Blue.
Highway 61- Desolation Row.
Sgt. Pepper – A day in the life.
Mahler 1st – 3rd movement – the hunter’s funeral.
Hamp at Pasadena – Stardust.
Louis plays W C Handy – Yellow Dog Blues
Count Basie – Goin’ to Chicago.
Sarah Vaughn – How high the Moon.
Lately I’ve been poking around at WordPress trying to understand their obscure system for posting multiple photos, I think I’ve finally got it, or at least enough to get started. I’d like to do an occasional post devoted to photography rather than music. I’ve always thought of myself primarily as a photographer, I wore all sorts of other hats but generally speaking, wherever I went I was always carrying a Nikon F or an F3. But not just a Nikon, often/usually I also had my camera bag on the other shoulder, that contained another Nikon with a different lens, plus both of them had motor drives. A Nikon F with a 180mm, f2.8 lens, with a motor drive with 8 AA batteries in it and loaded with a 36 expo roll of Ektachrome 200 weighs about 5.5 – 6 lbs. I carried two of those plus several spare lenses, spare batteries, plus a lot of various misc. photo gear and lots of spare film. I’m not complaining in the slightest, it was a chosen way of life. Generally speaking, wherever I went, that’s what I carried, particularly whenever on ‘holiday’ or at a musical event.
So I was walking along a rural lane in the village of Todos Santos Cuchumatan, It is situated in northeastern Guatemala in the the remote Sierra de los Cuchumatanes mountains at an elevation of about 8,000 ft. My fiend John and I had driven there in the VW camper van when we visited Guatemala in the late 70’s. The population of Todos Santos is predominantly indigenous, of Mayan descent, most of whom still speak the Mayan language of Mam. The town is one of few places in Guatemala where the indigenous population still make and wear their traditional clothing.
As I walked along that lane that morning I glanced up and saw a young boy walking towards me, my Nikon was in my right hand at about thigh level, the lens must have been pointing forward.
When he was about 10-12 ft from me he suddenly bent over from his waist to look directly level into the camera lens, I suspect that he’d never seen a professional camera with a long lens before. Instantly I dropped to one knee to be at his level and fired one quick shot and as I did so I remember saying to myself “That’s probably the best photo I’ve ever taken” but at the same instant I knew that it was out of focus. I straightened up and instantly fired another but the magic had passed, he was no longer looking into the lens. There was no auto-focus in those days, every shot had to be manually focussed. I should mention that the reason for using a motor drive was because the film was instantaneously advanced whenever a shot was made, the camera was always ‘cocked’, always ready to shoot, a huge advantage.
This is the first shot I took that day, to the non-critical eye it might look OK but if you look carefully you’ll see that it is out of focus.
This is the second shot, it’s OK, it’s in focus but something’s missing.
If you click on them they will become larger.
Here’s a selection of photos of people from that village, notice the similarity of their clothes, the women make them on primitive looms in their cottages and every family has a different traditional design. This is not uncommon in Guatemala and you can often tell where a person’s from by the design of his/her clothing. I’ve read that the design of these clothes originates with the Spanish conquistadors who came to Guatemala in the sixteenth century, check out the codpieces, the shoes and the elaborate collars. I started buying examples of their clothes and came home with a large collection. They were not dumb about selling them, I recall at one cottage paying about $440 for several items, a huge amount considering that the men usually worked at seasonal agriculture for less than $1 per day! The women were the only ones who made and sold the clothes and these were not tourist items, there were no tourists, these were the clothes that they wore. They’re absolutely beautiful. I have them hanging in the house.
I very rarely asked permission to shoot photos, had I done so the moment would have been lost, instead if I saw a shot I’d point my camera and smile and a return smile was my OK. I can only ever remember one time where someone was upset at my shooting, it was in this village and I was standing against a wall at the edge of the market shooting with a 300mm lens, suddenly there was a ‘whack’ up the side of my head, a woman had hit me with a stick; I took the hint and quit for the day. Generally speaking most people were happy to have their photos taken.
Today Bob would have had his 69th birthday, I have a hard time imagining Bob being 69. He was always so young and vigorous and he always had so much to say. And what he said touched so many people around the world, everywhere I’ve travelled there was always evidence of Bob Marley, on posters, T shirts, murals on walls, his music coming out of doorways and from radios, he was and is everywhere; the universal man. His music will last forever.
Bob literally changed my life, everything changed when I bought his first album, ‘Catch a Fire’ in 1972. To that point I’d been listening to jazz and pop, I suddenly discovered reggae and it was infectious. I spent the next decade always looking forward to his next album and his next tour. I saw him four times and the highlight was the 1976 Roxy show in LA, a small club packed to the gills and Bob was onstage about 10ft from the table where I was sitting. It was the most amazing and intimate musical performance ever. I’m including the encore of that performance in the playlist, if you haven’t heard it you should listen, I never heard the Wailers play that way again and I have most of his concert aircheck tapes.
Here’s a selection of his music, some spiritual, some Rasta, some love songs, some everyday life songs and a couple of cuts that some might not have heard, first the Roxy encore, ‘Get up, stand up’ and an acoustic set of Bob sitting on a hotel bed in Sweden playing a medley for his own enjoyment with just an acoustic guitar. When I had a radio show I did at least one special every year devoted to Bob, either on his birthday or the anniversary of his death, let’s continue that tradition.
And give thanks to Ari for her tech support.
Here’s the playlist.
1. One Love.
2. I’m hurting’ inside.
3. Waiting in vain.
4. Natural Mystic.
5. Time will Tell.
6. Is this Love.
7. I’ll be forever loving Jah.
8. One Drop.
9. Rastaman live up.
10. Give thanks and praises.
11. Jah would never give the power to a baldheaded.
12. Acoustic Medley.
13. Get up, stand up, Roxy encore.
The photos are of some of the featured artists, they are: Lloyd Parks, Junior Marvin, Bo Peep, Dean Fraser with the Ras Brass, Burning Spear, Pablo Moses, Mutabaruka, Puma Jones, Joe Higgs. They’re supposed to get larger if you click on ’em.
Over the years I’ve been tempted many times to post reggae playlists here but somehow apathy seemed to get in the way. Reggae was an obsession with me for about 20 odd years, basically throughout Bob’s musical career, consequently I accumulated a fairly large collection plus I visited Jamaica regularly, sometimes several times a year. I was always involved with Jamaican culture and music throughout this period. After I retired and moved to northern California I became a DJ on the local NPR radio station, every Saturday night from midnight ’til 2am for 7 years. I had a total free hand to play anything that I wanted and I’d mix it up with jazz, reggae, blues, African etc. I taped every show, labelled ’em and tossed ’em into a box with dozens of others, there was never any attempt to organize them or even to listen to them.
However, I recently got the urge to reorganize the upstairs room where anything and everything had been pushed out of sight over the years, therein I found dozens of boxes of tapes, literally well over a thousand, so I installed about 40 ft of shelves and started organizing them plus all the other media up there. The results have been wonderful! I’m now replaying not only my airchecks but also the results of obsessively having a recorder with a blank tape in it attached to my radio at all times; I’ve got the cultural history of the last half of the 20th century on tape and it’s amazing listening to it all again. I listen on earbuds in the early hours when I can’t sleep, it’s the best time of the day.
Last week I played a cassette of my radio program from the 90’s, my show was called ‘The Heart of Saturday Night’, and this one was a reggae program. I enjoyed it so much that I thought I’d play it here for anyone who’s interested, it’s almost two hours, I edited out a couple of PSA’s that were of no interest and split the program into two sections.
So call it a playlist, a blog or a radio program, take your pick, use it as background while you do the dishes or whatever. I hope you enjoy at least some of it.
Here’s the playlist.
part 1
1. Sharpville by ‘The Reggae Philharmonic’.
2. What a Joy by ‘Black Uhuru’.
3. Iron Sharpeneth Iron by ‘Culture’.
4. Freedom Song by ‘Third World’.
4. A Song by ‘Pablo Moses’.
5. War inna Babylon by ‘Max Romeo’.
6. Country Boy by ‘The Heptones’.
7. Roots Train by ‘Junior Murvin’.
8. Flashing Whip by ‘Jah Lion’.
9. Coming on Strong by Prince Jazzbo’.
10. ‘Skank in Bed by ‘Scotty & Lorna’.
part 2
11. The Existance of Jah by ‘Dennis Brown.
12. Love and Devotion by ‘Jimmy Riley.
13. There’s a reward for me by ‘Joe Higgs.
14. Marcus Garvey by ‘Burning Spear.
15. Peace, Love and Justice by ‘Ras Michael.
16. The Same Song by ‘Israel Vibrations.
17. I am that I am by ‘Peter Tosh.
18. Jump Jump by ‘Bunny Wailer.
19. Redemption Song by ‘Dean Fraser.
20. The System by ‘Mutabaruka.
21. White Man Country by ‘Mutabaruka.
22. When you Remember by ‘Mutabaruka.
There’s only one reference to Jesus in my iTunes folder. that’s Jesus on a Greyhound by Shelby Lynne, whereas there’s 29 where the first word is Jah. Jesus is not of any interest to me musically or otherwise but when I became involved with reggae I quickly realized that it was a socially conscious music with a strong Rasta religious component. I’m very interested in the music and in Rasta but I must say that I have a hard time with the Selassie/Jah reverence but I accept it and I enjoy the music as much as I enjoy a lot of European religious music, in most cases having no idea what the songs are about but appreciating the overall sounds, case in point, Faure’s Requiem.
Having said that let me offer a sample of alternate variations on the theme of Jesus et.al. Jah is Jehovah, Jehovah is Yarwey from the Hebrew old testament, many Rasta believe that Selassie is the second coming of Christ and they accorded him the name Jah Ras Tafari. Here’s some Jamaican songs of praise.
1. Jah Live – Bob Marley
2. Rivers Of Babylon – Ronnie Davis
3. Nyah Bingi – Jimmy Riley
4. Hold On To Jah – Reggae George
5. A Yah Weh De – Barrington Levy
6. Give Thanks – Johnny Clarke
7. Jah Jah Give Us Love – Cornell Campbell
8. Give Thanks And Praise – Bob Marley
9. Have Faith In Jah – Michael Palmer
10. Praise Jah With Love And Affection – Don Carlos
I just came across this excellent short film online, it’s worth seeing. The cities you see are LA and SF, beautifully shot, edited and to the perfect piece of music. Hit play, HD and full screen, raise the volume.
Lloyd Parks, one of Jamaica’s hottest bass players and leader of ‘We the People’, the onstage group backing many of the artists in this playlist. I became obsessed with reggae in 1972 with the release of Bob Marley’s first album, ‘Catch a Fire’ and the almost simultaneous release of the Jimmy Cliff film, The Harder they Come. It was not easy to find reggae in California in those days but the audience slowly built so that by the early 80’s there was a decent sized group of us that had become friends as we’d regularly met at the various reggae events. Tom, one of that group ran a travel service and he had the brilliant idea of offering a group price for those of us that would like to go to Jamaica for the new event there, ‘Reggae Sunsplash’ in Montego Bay. The price included airfare and hotel plus a 2 day stay at a luxury beach resort in Negril, we grabbed at it so fast that he had a planeful in no time. It became an annual event. Sunsplash was a four day event, it ran from Wednesday through Saturday, theoretically from 8pm ’til midnight at Jarrett Park, a cricket ground. On my first day there I was walking in town and I saw a sign over the door of an outer office at a hotel, the sign said ‘Sunsplash Media Office’; I decided to take a look. I’d always photographed every reggae event and I gave my friends who ran a small LA based magazine called ‘The Reggae Beat’ free access to any they wanted plus I wrote an occasional piece for them. There was a lady sitting at a desk in the media office, when she saw my Nikon plus my camera bag she asked ‘Who are you shooting for?’ I said ‘The Reggae Beat’ in LA and that was all it took, she filled out a form, added my name to her list and handed me one of those ‘All Access’ passes that you hang round your neck plus a dozen free tickets! The best part of all was that I was now on their books and known and for the next 10 years I always had an ‘All Access’ pass without even asking! And I returned every year through the ’80’s. As I mentioned Sunsplash ran four nights, never from 8-12 but usually from 11-12 until past dawn, usually about 7-8am! With six to eight acts per night times four, that equals approx 50 per year, times ten, well you figure it out, but what it came down to was that over the decade I probably saw 99% of all of Jamaica’s reggae artists and as a result of all that back stage access I got to know many of them! And I have literally thousands of photos to show for it. I started out to do this as a podcast with a narrative track but the way I edited the music it would be intrusive so instead I’ll treat it as one long playlist.
There’s quite a few videos of Sunsplash ’82 at youtube, if you go to the one of Toots and pause it at 28 seconds, the handsome chap with the red, gold and green cap slapping hands with Toots, that’s me!
There has long been a tradition in Jamaica of three part vocal harmony trios, particularly during the classic era and before. The Wailers started out this way as did Burning Spear and Israel Vibration plus many more but the traditional groups include such names as Culture, the Congos, the Abyssinians, Black Uhuru, the Wailing Souls, the Meditations, the Paragons and of course, the Mighty Diamonds.
The Diamonds comprise Tabby [Donald Sharp], Bunny [Fitzroy Simmons] and Judge [LLoyd Ferguson]. They sing frequently of militant topics set to sweet musical reggae tunes always using the best musicians on the island. One of their first hit singles in about 1974 was ‘Shame and Pride’ and then the following year they hit with another, ‘Right Time’. Bob had legitimized rasta and Right Time’s message appealed to the youth; ‘Natty Dread will never run away’ registered with the chosen. Their repertoire ranges from love songs to militant to silly pop, Pass the Kutchie was a huge pop hit in 1981, the ‘kutchie’ was a bit of patois for ‘pass the bong’, they probably made more money off that one than some entire albums. That beautiful voice that you hear singing lead on every cut is Tabby, he’s a really nice handsome guy, open and easy to talk to with lots to say. The backup is by Judge and Bunny and they have figured out exactly where and when to come in. I sorted through my six vinyl Diamond’s albums and made the following selections, I even discovered a second one with my pictures on the cover that I’d forgotten about. My career shooting reggae started before I met the Diamonds but they were the first to ask if I had any decent photos for their upcoming album, of course I did and through that connection I met many groups and musicians. I shall be eternally thankful to the Mighty Diamonds.
This drawing was by a close friend and Diamonds fan, Donna George, she is an artist who loved the Diamonds.
Sakura’s posting the Mighty Diamonds on Earworms sent me looking for them on youtube, sure enough they are there plus lots more artists from that era. There was one guy, Oku Onuora, he’s a Jamaican poet who initiated the dub poetry concept, poetry performed with reggae; the forerunner of Linton and Benjamin Zephaniah and Muta and many more. He and I were good friends back then, we usually spent some time together whenever I visited. One day we were sitting in his house in Kingston chatting about this and that and he mentioned that he’d been in jail, that was news to me and perked my interest so asked him ‘for what and when?’ His answer made my jaw drop. ” I was so angry with the oppression and the poverty and the system that I took up a gun!’ he said. ‘I took up a gun’, that phrase has been locked into my memory ever since, ‘To do what’ I asked him, ‘to rob banks to finance the revolution’ he said! Jesus, this was serious revolutionary shit. ‘Give me the details’ I asked , so he did, he told me the story of buying a rifle and holding up banks and living the life of a wanted man on the run, living in the hills, but of course he was caught and tried and sentenced to 15 years in 1970. He was confined in the harshest prison in Jamaica, Fort Augustus, from where he tried to escape twice and where he was shot five times by the warders. He began writing poetry in prison and came up with the dub concept when Cedric Brooks and his band visited the prison and Oku performed with them. His poetry was published and in 1977 the attorney general of Jamaica, a poet himself, pardoned Oku.
He told me of a specific poem he’d written titled ‘Last Night’: he was confined in a single windowless cell in solitary for three years and when he was eventually transferred to a cell with a window he saw the moon for the first time and he wrote this poem, I’d recorded all of our conversations and when I recently played the tape it made me weep.
This week is the anniversary of Jamaican independence plus it’s the week of track and field at the Olympics and Jamaica is expected to do disproportionately well, consequently there’s several major articles about Jamaica on the front page of Sunday’s Guardian. I had very mixed reactions reading them and they caused me to to reflect on some of my own experiences there, most of which took place in the ’70’s and ’80’s. In 1982 I took my VW camper there and travelled throughout the island for 3 months, as I reflected on that trip this morning I found myself thinking of a man I met in the north coast parish of St Anne, he was just a very simple young rasta fisherman.
The Blue Mountains rise from the caribbean up to about 7500ft on the north shore, they are generally covered with what might simply be described as rain forest and are typically inaccessible. You know what a sheet of plywood looks like, it’s 4ft by 8ft; the man I’d met wanted to show me the house that he’d built and where he lived, I followed him up a trail through the woods. We came to a leveled area where he’d placed a sheet of plywood, it wasn’t new, it was well worn and when I asked him where he’d got it and how he’d transported up there I didn’t understand his patois answer, I don’t think he wanted me to. He’d cut and trimmed 4 slim trees and used their trunks for his corner posts and then cut more similar trees for the cross pieces which were lashed into position. When he had a sturdy box frame he then started covering the walls and the roof with ferns until he had an impervious layer. He’d framed a doorway which he’d covered with a piece of fabric and he had a ‘mattress’ against the back wall and a simple chair; that was his home.
Up the hill from his house was a small spring of water bubbling up out of the ground, he’d created a pool about 2ft diameter which the spring filled, he’d then ‘acquired’ about 150ft of half inch garden hose and inserted it into the pool and on the other end at his house he had a stopcock; running water on tap! He was so proud of that, he told me that this was the purest drinking water anywhere in Jamaica. We went for a walk and it started to rain, with his ever present machete he cut two stems from a plant, the stems were about 2ft long and each opened to a single leaf that was about 24″ wide; natural umbrellas! As we walked he pointed out numerous plants and described how they were used for common ailments and others that were commonly eaten. He also had a small vegetable garden at his house. The only clothes he had were a pair of cut-off levy shorts, he went barefoot.
I met him because I was living in my van on the beach in that part of Jamaica, another person that I met there and became friends with was an old rasta woman called Sister Mommy, she was probably in her 70’s, she had waist length dreadlocks and she ran a roadside stand on a country road where she sold cigarettes [individually] soft drinks, and some vegetables, plus she always had ganja. Sister Mommy used to tell me stories of how it was as a rasta under British rule and about country life during the 30’s and 40’s. Times were always hard, the small amount of money that she made at her stand was all she ever had and I always saw several small children hanging around her, I never discovered who they were; grandchildren perhaps? One night I was at her house, a pathetic structure, it was a tiny two room concrete block house and it looked as though it had survived an earthquake. There was a large crack which was in places about 4″ wide running from floor to ceiling. She sat across a table from me with her back to the wall, no electricity just a candle on the table as we sat chatting. Suddenly I heard a voice, Sister Mommy motioned me to be quiet and she said ‘who’s dat?’ the voice responded and sister Mommy said ‘Show yer hand’. A hand appeared through the crack with a Jamaican dollar bill in it, she took the money and replaced it with a small amount of ganja pre-wrapped in newspaper, that’s how she made her living.
With Sister Mommy and a Redstripe.
A short distance along the coast road there was a curve with a wide spot on the ocean side of the highway, many years earlier another rastaman who’s name was Bongo Sylly and who made his living as a basket weaver had set up a stall there to sell his baskets to passers by. The edge of the road was a cliff that dropped about 60+ feet down to a pure white beach where there was a very de-luxe hotel. I don’t know the details of how, but over a period of years Bongo built a house at the top of that cliff looking down at the hotel! He told me the story several times and the only thing that remains in my memory is ‘squatter’s rights!’ Apparently, possibly from the British rule era, there existed in law a rule that if someone occupied a place that wasn’t being used then after a period he was able to claim ownership, and that’s what Bongo did! Much to the consternation of the hotel owners who hadn’t noticed what was happening up above their heads.
What Bongo did was amazing, he created a large 2-3 bedroom house, bathrooms, kitchen, living rooms, everything ENTIRELY woven out of bamboo and basket canes! plus there are carved wooden sculptures throughout, he even has hanging armchairs suspended from the roof. It’s an amazing structure, nothing cheap or insubstantial about it, it’s first class all the way. Being obviously aware of the significance of the lion in rasta culture he called his house ‘the lions den.’
I met Bongo when I pulled over to take a look at this fantasy and we hit it off, he like to talk and I liked to listen so I’d usually stop in whenever I was passing. One day he told me a tale about this rich French woman that he knew, she wanted to take him to Europe and show him all the sights and he really wanted to go but he was afraid that if he left his house something terrible would happen, he didn’t trust the government nor the owners of the hotel so he was stuck. That is until one day he came up with a solution, he proposed that I should take over the house and move in thereby maintaining occupancy, I had to tell him no, it wasn’t possible, I’d come to explore Jamaica and I couldn’t be tied to one spot no matter how beautiful it happened to be.
On impulse I just Googled Bongo Sylly and found the following item:
“The Lion’s Den is a fascinating bar and restaurant embellished with elaborate wickerwork and intricately carved columns created by the former proprietor, the late Bongo Sylly.”
Bongo’s gone and his house is now a bar. So it goes.
Here’s a song written to celebrate independence in 1962, unfortunately it was written by a Trinidadian calypso singer, but still, it’s a good and appropriate song.
And then there’s Briggy, a favorite of mine from years ago, here he takes you on a tour of all the Jamaican parishes.
In 1956 I was living in Suffolk; I had subscriptions to both the MM and the NME and one of them reviewed an LP by Joe Turner, it was titled ‘The Boss of the Blues’ on the Atlantic label. It was such a rave review that I immediately bought a copy and it was indeed as good/great as the reviewer said it was. If I had to choose a top 10 from my entire collection of records this one would definitely be in there.
A little background: When the ban on American musicians performing in England was lifted in the early 50’s the Count Basie band was a regular visitor, they probably came at least once a year, sometimes twice. I loved the Basie band and went to see them whenever possible, consequently I was familiar with all of the musicians. It turned out that the backing band on the Joe Turner album were almost all Basie-ites so for me that was a double treat, the king of Kansas City blues plus all those guys I’d come to love.
Just a word re. Kansas City; when the US Navy shut down the brothels in Storyville in New Orleans in 1917 they eliminated the places where all the jazz musicians worked, hence they all hit the road, highway 61 heading north for NY, Chicago, LA and Kansas City. Each city absorbed them and there they evolved different styles of jazz in each, Kansas City being perhaps the most unique. Kansas City jazz is more blues based and more swing oriented than any of the others and it has the longest list of superstar musicians who started life there; they include, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Count Basie, Jimmy Lunceford, Pete Johnson, Ben Webster and dozens more, it was the most fertile jazz source in the country and in 1936 Columbia record producer John H. Hammond launched his career by discovering Kansas City talent starting with Count Basie who he heard on a radio broadcast from a KC club.
Another side note, Robert Altman was a fierce Kansas City jazz fan, in 1996 he produced and directed a great film which is totally based on the KC jazz scene of the 30’s, well worth seeing, it’s title, ‘Kansas City’. It was nominated for a Palme d’Or. Plus In 1979 there was a documentary film starring Basie and Big Joe Turner, and featuring many performers from the original era. It’s titled ‘The Last of the Blue Devils’. If you haven’t guessed by now, Kansas City jazz is the style I’m most addicted to and what much of my vinyl jazz is comprised of.
So when I departed England for Los Angeles in 1958 I packed just a few personal belongings, my LP’s and about a dozen books on the subject of jazz plus whatever clothes I had. Boss of the Blues was absolutely included and it’s still played fairly regularly and the books are still on my bookshelf. Many years later, possibly in the early 80’s, I met Joe Turner and I asked him to autograph my album, he did so with a black felt tip, right across the cover BIG JOE TURNER FROM KC. He died in LA in 1985 and I went to his funeral as did several thousand others.
It came as a huge surprise to recently find several cuts from the album on youtube, though as the poster commented it is very rare and almost impossible to find so rather than my usual post of one cut I’ll post three.
Here’s Joe Turner, The Boss of the Blues and here he sings Kansas City Jazz.
Back in the early ’60’s jazz was my music of choice and had been for near twenty years but as that decade progressed I found myself ignoring jazz which was becoming stilted and repetitive in favor of the newly emerging ‘pop’. There was so much creativity in so many of the new pop groups that I wound up becoming seriously addicted and spending a lot of time in the various LA clubs that featured all the top groups; it was a brand new music compared to the rock’n roll of the earlier Bill Haley era. That pattern continued ’til the early ’70’s. Throughout that period I was a grad student at the UCLA film school and consequently I was regularly seeing just about every foreign film that was released, French, German, Swedish, Italian, English, Spanish, the lot! Until one day my local Art theater advertised that the following week there’d be a Jamaican film, hell, I didn’t even know that they made films in Jamaica but of course I went to see it.
It was ‘The Harder they Come’, a film by Perry Henzel and featuring Jimmy Cliff; I absolutely loved it, I thought it was the best film in recent history! And on top of all that it had a fabulous musical soundtrack, something new to my ears, Reggae!
I became an instant obsessive, not just of the music but the whole culture. I found LA’s Jamaican community and started buying my records in their shops and eating in their restaurants and I also started visiting Jamaica, in short, I was hooked!
And then six months later the Wailers released their first album, ‘Catch a Fire’, that did it, my days of listening to jazz and pop were basically over, or at least substantially reduced, from here on and for the next twenty odd years my life changed, I became a total obsessive regarding all aspects of Jamaican culture, frequently visiting there, photographing and writing about every aspect of it, the music, the art, the literature, the language, the history, everything! The majority of the creative people that I met were either full on Rasta’s or were very sympathetic, Bob had made Rasta acceptable and apart from the religious component I found myself very much in agreement with their philosophy, several of my Jamaican friends used to call me Tony, [Toe-en-ee] Him a baldhead rasta!
So 1972 was a very dramatic fork in the road for me and this week I have two youtube musical choices, the first is from the film The Harder they Come, it’s ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ by the Melodians and the second is the Wailers, the original Wailers, Bob, Peter, Bunny, the Barrett Bros and Wya, all assembled in the BBC studio to record a clip for ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, the song is from their then new album Catch a Fire, it’s Concrete Jungle. A classic piece of film, look how young Familyman is, I saw him last year, he looks like me now.
In later years I was to meet and spend time with both Perry Henzel and the Wailers in Kingston, some years ago I wrote a piece here about my relationship with Basil Keane who played the roll of Preacher-man in the film, very interesting times and this music’s bringing it all back home. Such happy and interesting days.
If anyone hasn’t seen the film I noticed that youtube has it, it’s well worth a look and Spotify has both the soundtrack album for ‘The Harder they Come’ plus the Wailer’s album ‘Catch a Fire’, also both worth a listen.
Here’s another from my 1960’s vinyl collection, I assume that everyone has heard this perhaps dozens of time as I have but I wanted a cut that was representative of that period Dylan. Like a Rolling Stone and Desolation Row were both first choices but there are dozens/hundreds more, all wonderful so I poked around with ‘Freewheelin’, ‘ a Changin’, ‘Bringing it all Back Home’ and ultimately I settled on ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. If you were not there you can’t imagine the effect that the release of this album had, it was unlike anything that you see today, the times were indeed a changin’. It contains so many great songs, all recorded right after the fiasco at the Newport Folk Festival where he ‘went electric’, it contains both of my initial choices, it starts with ‘Stone’ and finishes with ‘Desolation’ but I decided to choose another favorite, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”, a real slow country blues that relates directly to the album’s title, Highway 61. That’s the highway that runs from Minnesota to New Orleans running parallel to the Mississippi much of the way; there’s a lot of blues connections on Highway 61, it’s also the route that many black Americans took to escape the poverty of the Delta and how jazz migrated from New Orleans to Chicago.
Musically, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh” has a lazy tempo driven by session drummer Bobby Gregg, a barrelhouse piano part played by Paul Griffin, a raunchy bass part played by Harvey Brooks, an electric guitar part played by Mike Bloomfield and a harmonica part by Dylan.
By 1965 Dylan was into his sixth album, a huge archive of great music but here I wanted to select just one cut to epitomize that era, an impossible task: which cut would you have chosen?
A few years ago I did occasional posts of some of my favorite albums from my vinyl collection, generally they were from the 1960’s/70’s. The advent of so much great music on YouTube prompts me to try again, this time with a single YouTube selection which will hopefully point you towards more offerings at YouTube or to Spottify if you want more. I have several on my desktop so if this works I’ll keep it going with a rather diverse set of selections, all favorites from long ago.
The first is a showcase for one of my all-time favorite guitarists who sadly didn’t stay very long, another victim of the needle at an early age, his name, Michael Bloomfield, he’s joined by Elvin Bishop and the the album is East West by the Paul Butterfield Blues band.
The title cut East-West is a remarkable oddity. On the one hand, it was a ’60s pop-music hybrid, combining the disparate musical styles of blues, jazz, modal and Eastern musics in a way that appealed to rock listeners. On the other, it was a virtuoso display that challenged the very notion of “popular” and pushed the limits of how pop music was heard. In some ways it bears comparison to the Miles Davis album, Kinda Blue and Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, both of which challenged standard musical ideas.
The piece was recorded in the summer of 1966 in Chicago at Chess Studios, the personnel were:
Is anyone else looking at the morning star, it’s Venus and she’s very visible in the eastern sky before dawn. I often wake up between 3 and 4am and there she is right above the foot of my bed. Double click on the picture for a better view or better yet, set the alarm clock if the forecast is for clear skies.
Venus was known to ancient civilizations both as the “morning star” and as the “evening star”, names that reflect the early understanding that these were two separate objects. The Greeks thought of the two as separate stars, Phosphorus and Hesperus, until the time of Pythagoras in the sixth century BC. The Romans designated the morning aspect of Venus as Lucifer, literally “Light-Bringer”, and the evening aspect as Vesper. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, dated 1581 BC, shows that the Babylonians understood that the two were a single object, referred to in the tablet as the “bright queen of the sky,” The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky,
Venus is one of the four solar terrestrial planets, meaning that, like the Earth, it is a rocky body. In size and mass, it is very similar to the Earth, and is often described as Earth’s “sister” or “twin”. The diameter of Venus is only 650 km less than the Earth’s, and its mass is 81.5% of the Earth’s.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic reaction to my recent blues post here, during which there was some discussion of a follow up with female blues singers. This weekend I started scanning my female blues vinyl for suitable cuts and I came across this album, I haven’t played it years, I’d forgotten that I had it but you can tell from the surface noise that it once got lots of play, I’ve had it for over 50 years. At the 1960 Monterey Jazz Festival Jon Hendrix put on a Sunday afternoon performance that was a history of blues music and it was directed towards a young audience, it was performed onstage as shown in the album cover, with Jon addressing a group of children who sat around him. So before we proceed with the female blues I thought this might be of interest, I’m sure it’s no longer in print so possibly most of you have never heard of it. On the album cover Jon wrote about how the piece came about, here’s what he wrote:
“It was Jimmy Lyon’s idea that we do something extended for a Sunday afternoon at Monterey and that it be about the blues. Ever since composer George Russell had kindly invited me to write some words and speak them on his “New York, New York” album I have been waiting for the opportunity to do something within that format just talking and letting the music speak for itself, following the advice of my mentor, Professor Milton Marx, of the English department, of the University of Toledo, Ohio: “Write about what you know.”
So I wrote about my people, about my great-grandmother who came from Guinea, Gold Coast, West Africa, about my father, Alexander Brooks Hendricks who ran away from the master who sold his father, mother and sister separately, came into West Virginia, married my mother, Willie “Sweet Will” Carrington, and moved to Ohio by covered wagon, where he became a minister, known as a circuit rider.
“Write about what you know.” So I wrote about the music they sang all through their lives, the spirituals, which they gave freely to America and the world. I didn’t stop there, because the spirituals didn’t stop there, but went outside the church to become the blues, and through horns to become jazz.
“Write about what you know.” So I wrote about the sun, the source of all light, heat and life in this universe, about all men on earth being the same man, all light the same light, all life the same life.
“Write about what you know.” So, buried deep in this story, yet never given word, is the heartfelt lament that some who play jazz have forgotten the spirituals that gave them their music, as they have forgotten the Lord who gave our ancestors the spirituals, have become corrupted by the surroundings to which jazz has been relegated, have become arch,, worldly, spiritualless, intellectual, demoralized, material, wealthy – and lost.
“Write about what you know.” I know that children are born into this earthly life with all knowledge, that the devil is an adult, that children are corrupted by adults too adult to realize that childhood is the kingdom of heaven, so I wrote my history for children, because they will understand. Above all, thank you children everywhere, and blessings on you all”
The album comprises both sides of a disc and runs about 44 mins. so I’ve added it in two parts.
A couple of weeks ago I asked in another post ‘Who in music had made the most important contributions to pop culture’, I was looking for personalities but Amylee suggested that it might not be a person but rather a musical form; the blues. I hadn’t considered that but when I thought about it I realized that it was a significant thought.
The blues, an American twentieth century contribution has played such a significant role in much of the world’s pop music especially since the introduction of international music distribution and radio/TV post WW2. So I started creating a playlist of blues artists from my vinyl collection but it wasn’t working, what I was creating was a list of only classic delta blues, basically fairly primitive voice/guitar songs. I know that’s how it all started and that those are the roots but my interest in the blues extends a long way beyond there and so I started re-shuffling the list and adding some examples of other styles. Suddenly it was getting out of hand and I saw that following Maki’s flamenco lead might be the answer, a multi part series that dealt with all aspects of the blues but I wasn’t sure if there was enough interest for that so I condensed it back to a reasonable size and included a selection of my favorites to create a fairly comprehensive list. One form that I didn’t include but that might be the subject for a separate post was female blues artists, another was instrumental blues, jazz is in large part based in the blues and there’s thousands of wonderful examples so that might be another, and a third is the commercial ‘pop’ style, Bing Crosby sings the blues etc, what I chose are all pretty close to the roots. Here’s just a bit of background on some of the artists and the tunes.
Joe Turner, Boss of the Kansas City blues, a distinct style unique to that city, heard here on Piney Brown with an all star backing group from 1956, I brought this album with me from England when I came to California and I got Joe to autograph it for me. Joe Turner’s the guy who introduced ‘Shake Rattle and Roll’ in the 50’s, a forerunner of rock ‘n roll. Big Bill, one of the all time greats, a pioneer of delta blues who also in the early 50’s spread the influence of the blues to Europe, I saw him several times in England and he was one of the most imposing men I’ve ever seen, a musical giant. Taj, a farmer as a young man with a talent for music, he quit farming and moved to southern California where he formed a group with a young friend, Ry Cooder, another great bluesman. Taj, perhaps more than anyone has kept the blues in the public eye since the 60’s. Basie; of all the popular big bands Basie’s was always the one most strongly blues based, he always had one or more blues singers in the band, Helen Humes, Jimmy Rushing, Joe Williams, Joe Turner et al. Google Wiki for the interesting story on Harvard Blues and check the delicate Lester Young solo on the into. John Lee, the Hook, One of the most recognizable sounds in the blues, the Hook is unique. The Hook abides! Lambert, Hendrix and Ross – [Dave, Jon and Annie] An imaginative vocal trio that in this case took the arrangement and the instrumental solos from a Basie classic, Going to Chicago and wrote and sang lyrics to it; the entire album ‘Sing along with Basie’ is in this format.
As an afterthought I thought it would be fun to include the Basie original of Goin’ to Chicago with Jimmy Rushing doing the vocal for comparison purposes, it’s the classic Basie band from April 1941. Duke Ellington often strongly blues influenced but rarely full on vocal blues, here it’s with Al Hibbler from 1949. T Bone, A Texas blues pioneer who influenced BB King’s and Chuck Berry’s guitar styles. Mose Allison, Mose started playing blues piano and singing the blues while he was still in school in Tippo Mississippi in the ’30’s, this is from his debut album ‘Back Country Suite’ from 1957. Jimmy Witherspoon: AKA ‘Spoon’, A guy who always performed with a jazz backing, often with the big names of jazz, here he’s accompanied by Gerry Mulligan and Ben Webster from 1959 and it doesn’t get much better than that. Muddy Waters, this one’s from very early in his career, 1948, he already had that strong guitar style. Keb Mo, another contemporary artist, he started out playing with Papa John Creach in the Jefferson Airplane days but went on to a solo career, a strong Robert Johnson style player. Memphis Slim, A blues pianist who early in his career, 1940, wrote a song that went on to be recorded by all the great blues singers, ‘Everyday I have the Blues’, it’s on this playlist by Joe Turner. John Hammond, his father was John Hammond Snr. the well known producer at Columbia who signed Billie Holiday, Basie, Aretha, Springsteen and Dylan to that label. He was raised by his mother and began playing blues guitar in the 60’s as a part of the folk revival in NY, he’s still going strong.
And we finish with another Taj song from the same album, Sweet home Chicago, this time with backup singers the Pointer Sisters. Jimi‘s a bonus track, what’s there to say about Jimi except this is the track that drew me to him way back then.
In the edit there were many names deleted who should still be here: Buddy Guy, BB King, Jimmy Reed, Albert King, Albert Collins, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Lowell Fulson, Robert Johnson, Josh White, John Mayall and more, they were in the initial list but I felt it was too Delta/Urban and needed to be broadened.
Please feel free to add to the comments via the magic of youtube any favorites that you have. Enjoy.
From the top the photos are: BB King, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Albert King, John Hammond and Taj Mahal, Willy Dixon and BB King.
The cuts in order are:
1. Taj Mahal – Corina
2. Joe Turner – Piney Brown Blues
3. Muddy Waters – I’m Ready .
4. Allman Bros – Statesboro Blues.
5. Big Bill Broonzy – In the Evening
6. Basie/Rushing – Harvard Blues
7. Elmore James – Dust my Broom
8. John Lee Hooker – I’m in the mood
9. Lambert, Hendrix and Ross- Goin’ to Chicago
9a. Jimmy Rushing – Goin’ to Chicago.
10. Sonny Boy Williamson – Frogs for Snakes
11. Basie/Turner – Everyday I have the blues
12. Duke Ellington – Good Woman Blues
13. Bo Diddley – I’m a man
14. Jimmy Rushing – Good Morning Blues
15. T Bone Walker – So Low Down
16. Basie/Williams – Key to the Hwy.
17. Mose Allison – Blues
18. Jimmy Witherspoon – Every Day
19. Muddy Waters -Rolling and Tumbling
20. Keb Mo -Perpetual Blues Machine .
21. Little Walter – Key to the Highway
22. Memphis Slim – Havin’ Fun
23. Joe Turner – Stormy Monday
24. John Hammond – Two trains running
25. Taj Mahal – Sweet home Chicago
26. Jimi Hendrix – Red House.
Bob will be 70 this week, he’s catching up on me.
Some time ago I toyed with the idea of a post here that was based on the question of ‘who’s the greatest contributor to pop music of the 20th century’, when I posed the question to my wife she instantly said ‘Bob Marley’ and I had to agree with her but Dylan also came strongly to mind. I’ve enjoyed his music right from the start though I did miss out on some of his middle period. I titled this piece ‘Alternate Bob’ because the music playlist is comprised of alternate takes of some of his best known songs. I didn’t keep track of the titles as I assembled them so let it come as a surprise.
Question: If Dylan is not the ‘greatest contributor, who is and second, what’s the best song Dylan ever wrote.
Don’t miss the article by Stephen Moss on page one today and also scan the comments.
Happy Birthday Bob.
It’s pretty widely known that reggae is a male dominated medium, sure there’s well known women artists but numerically they represent a fairly small percentage of the whole genre, though I suppose that’s not unusual in music generally. Anyhow over the years there’s been a small group that I’ve enjoyed and listened to regularly since back in the ’70’s.
Probably the best known women artists are the iThrees, Bob’s back-up singers, they all had musical careers before and after the Wailers and they’ve all recorded independently. They are, Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffith and Bob’s wife Rita.
Judy, also a successful songwriter had a hit with her 1980 album ‘Black Woman’.
Marcia who in the ’60’s teamed up with Bob Andy for a worldwide hit with ‘Young Gifted and Black’ released a steady stream through the 80’s.
Another female group who had some early success were Althea and Donna who’s 1978 single ‘Uptown Top Rankin’ was featured by John Peel and went to #1; the tune started out in 1967 as ‘I still love you’ by Alton Ellis, was then co-opted my Marcia Aitken in ’70 for ‘I’m still in love with you boy’ and it wound up as Uptown Top Rankin, you can’t keep a good tune down.
Bob discovered and encouraged a 12 year old girl who he thought had talent, Nadine Sutherland, she cut her first singles in Bob’s Tough Gong studio within her first year; I have photos of her there in her school uniform.
A singer who I liked a lot was Sophie George, she was a real ‘roots’ girl, she was from the ghetto and she sang about it.
There was a young woman in LA who I thought was a great reggae talent, her name was Barbara Paige, she had a 1981 album ‘Hear me now’ that was recorded at Tuff Gong with the best of the Jamaican talent.
Carlene Davis is another Jamaican artist, she had an early success with ‘Stealing Love on the side’ but that conflicted with her ‘christian’ values and she ultimately rejected reggae and became a gospel singer; she’s married to Tommy Cowan, a very successful producer and DJ and has since earned a PhD.
When I first met J.C.Lodge she was a beautiful young woman living with her boyfriend Errol in a small apartment in Kingston, she made her living as an artist. Joe Gibbs heard her sing and asked her to sing ‘Someone loves you honey’ a big hit for Charlie Pride in Memphis, she did and he liked it so well that he recorded her and released it and it went to number one in Jamaica and in Europe. She’s since gone on to much bigger and better things.
Hortense Ellis is the sister of Alton Ellis, she started singing professionally in the Ska era with her brother for Coxone Dodds, she’s on his ‘I still love you’ cut. She had several successes through the ‘lovers rock’ era in the 80’s.
Sister Carol is a Jamaican who emigrated to NY, Brigadier Jerry heard her sing and encouraged her to take it seriously, she did and has released several albums. She’s also a very accomplished actress, you may have seen her in several Jonathan Demme films, like Married to the Mob and Rachel Getting Married.
The pictures are of Judy Mowatt.
Those are the women artists that we’ll hear and the cuts are:
1. Many are called – The IThrees.
2. Black Woman – Judy Mowatt.
3. Stepping out of Babylon – Marcia Griffith.
4. One Draw – Rita Marley.
5. Someone loves you honey – J.C. Lodge.
6. Tenement Yard – Sophie George.
7. Until – Nadine Sutherland.
8. Everything I own – Carlene Davis.
9. Uptown Top Rankin – Althea & Donna.
10. Jah Mysterious Works – Hortense Ellis.
11. Babylon must fall – Barbara Paige.
12. International Style – Sister Carol.
When I was doing my radio show at KRCB Santa Rosa Ca. the station’s program director decided that we’d do a tribute to Dylan’s 50th. All the DJ’s would do a 2 hour program devoted to Bob, 12 straight hours on the Saturday, 8am ’til 8 pm plus me from midnight ’til 2am. My friend Roland Jacopetti and I decided to do a preview a couple of days before, we jointly put together a 3 hour program of Dylan covers. I engineered it, Roland hosted it.
The 'Spill 