The biography of Peter Tosh

The biography of Peter Tosh has been long awaited in more than one sense. In the general sense that Tosh simply deserves a biography as an important reggae icon, being in fact long overdue when compared to the several biographies already appeared over the last decades on (fellow-Wailer) Bob Marley. Not even Peter Tosh’s sudden and shocking death in 1987 seemed to have occasioned a biography on him at the time. It was not until much later that British journalist John Masouri announced that he would write a biography on Tosh, initially scheduled to appear in 2011. There comes the long-awaited in another sense: this date was postponed, and eventually the biography, written by John Masouri, would appear under the title ‘The life of Peter Tosh : Steppin’ Razor’, in 2013.

WRITING THE OUTER AND THE INNER

You guessed it: in this post I will review this biography, placing it in a broader perspective. The work was with its 486 pages quite voluminous. Yet it was a good and pleasant read, from the beginning. Masouri knows how to write engagingly, which can of course be expected from a long-time experienced professional writer and journalist. I find, however, that there are different layers of good writing. In my experience some biography writers have a more personal, opinionated style, while others take a more detached, almost neutral stance. Some seem better in eliciting images, landscapes, and scenes, while others are better in describing psychological processes.

The author of the biography on James Brown, which I also reviewed on this blog (see post of October 2012), R.J. Smith, seemed in my opinion much better in describing internal psychology (in this case of James Brown) than outer scenes, landscapes or cityscapes etc. David Katz had a better balance in his biography on Lee "Scratch" Perry, called 'People Funny Boy' (see my review on this blog of August 2012). Colin Grant wrote the biography on Marcus Garvey ‘Negro With A Hat : the Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey’ (2008) as well as the 2011 work on all the three Wailers in their interrelation ‘I & I : the Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh, and Wailer’ (also reviewed on this blog by me, see post of May 2011). Grant combines several of these writing qualities, I think: both the outer and inner processes were described engagingly by him.

Masouri combines qualities as well, but less balanced in my opinion: he is apt in eliciting physical images, city-and landscapes, atmospheres, views of e.g. Kingston, Jamaica, or wherever Tosh went on tour, such as the US, Europe, and Africa. Yet he also pays attention to internal psychology. He has the latter quality to a degree, but I think Masouri is somewhat better in describing physical scenes, or ”situations”, than the deeper layers of Tosh’s psychology. He tries to unearth these deeper layers of Tosh’s personality, including through anecdotes, but stays a bit too superficial in this regard. Colin Grant achieved this better, I think, in his biography on Garvey. Masouri refers to how Tosh’s life experiences shaped his personality, but bases this on what Tosh said himself, of course, and on what others say about Tosh. This is fair enough, but besides people really closer to him, he also includes many people who had a shorter, more superficial or distant (working) relationship with him, saying not much more than how he “came across”. This is often part of anecdotes. This can be interesting still, goes even a bit deeper at times in the book, but never really too deep. Here and there in the book he tries to delve deeper in Tosh’s psyche, though: but with varying degrees of success.

PERSONALITY

Chronologically the biography departs from – obviously – Tosh’s life story since his youth in rural western Jamaica. Though somewhat broadly sketched, you get an idea of the environment he grew up in. Also broadly sketched his entrance in Kingston’s music scene is related, though it is very engagingly written. The biography then becomes a page-turner (in the good sense). The interaction with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer when forming the Wailers is interesting reading, but seems to provide for Masouri also a way to emphasize Tosh’s character traits, when compared to Bob and Bunny. Uncompromising and rebellious as a proud black man knowing his rights (different in this from the somewhat more compromising and “malleable” Marley, according to several people), Tosh could be displeased and angry on occasion, but also was often described as good-humoured, full of jokes, charming, and attentive (different from Bunny Wailer, of whom some said that "he seemed angry all the time”). Tosh was also said to be funny, and often joking. This personality formation of a rebellious pro-black stance, fighting against Babylon oppression and (related of course) his staunch Rastafari views, combined with an often charming, attentive and humorous disposition, is of course not necessarily contradictory. This despite the simplistic archetype existing among some of the “angry black man”. Even with some white people he went along well, though he was openly critical of some white people he (had to) work with, when he felt wronged by them.

This is in line with the “combined biography” I reviewed earlier on this blog: ‘I & I : the Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh, & Wailer’ (2011), by Colin Grant. Interestingly, Grant sees the three Wailers as somehow representative of three main types of Black attitudes in a white-dominated world (or: “Babylon”): Marley represents “adaptation” to it, Bunny Wailer “retreat” from it, and Tosh “rebellion” against it. Of these three original Wailers, this biography thus focuses more extensively on one of these, the said to be most “rebelling” and uncompromising one Peter Tosh, among other things through many anecdotes and life episodes. These stories in a sense confirm his rebelliousness, but of course not one-dimensionally. Aspects of adaptation or retreat are also to be found.

ROLLING STONES

A large portion of the book describes how Tosh joined the label of the Rolling Stones, also as a way to reach the international market. This part is also entertaining, though here and there a bit too much about the Rolling Stones (it’s not their biography), and some other white rock acts. Perhaps predictable, the in essence patronizing idea of settled white rock artists helping Tosh to cross over, “giving him a break”, so to speak, would spark Tosh’s irritation, though seemingly he bottled this up until later. While perhaps helpful, the patronizing aspect of this became in a funny way clear in an anecdote Masouri relates. A club in New York, apparently owned by a local reggae lover, invited many Jamaican reggae artists, while also the Rolling Stones and other rock acts with a love for reggae would visit regularly. When the Jamaican reggae band Culture, with Joseph Hill, was performing, two members of the Rolling Stones (not Mick Jagger though, who wasn’t there) went on stage – out of respect – to join them in the roots reggae vibe. Culture did not know who they – even if famous the world over – were and therefore - shocked - stopped playing and singing, only later to find out who these white men were.. I found this anecdote both funny and illustrative..

Later the conflicts between Rolling Stones members and Tosh increased, due in part to pride – or a sense of justice – of Tosh, continuously finding himself to be small-changed financially in dealing with big record companies, even if he specifically joined the (artist-led) Rolling Stones label to avoid this.

LATER CAREER : GATHERING MOSS

The biography continues then in the period after Tosh left the Rolling Stones label (and worked for big labels like EMI), and went further on his own with a changing Jamaican band accompanying him: first Sly and Robbie, and later the Soul Syndicate, including drummer Santa Davis. The interaction with the band provides further interesting reading. Masouri pays much attention to the tours he went on with this band, trying to reach large international audiences in the US, Europe, and Africa. The trips to Africa (Swaziland, Nigeria, and other places) had a special spiritual meaning for him, as can be expected for Tosh as a black Rastafari-adherent, who furthermore also as a hobby read much about Africa and its history, as related in the book.

Interactions with other music groups and artists continued, even with white artists, some with more commercial success than others.

The reception and quality of these concerts, and also of Tosh’s albums and songs, constitute another large part of the biography. Masouri, somewhat odd, gives his opinion on the concerts and the albums, though luckily in a moderate sense. Even if in some instances I agreed with Masouri (we both liked Tosh’s song ‘Feel No Way’ from the Mama Africa album apparently), I opine that biographers should be careful to give artistic opinions, due to the confusing pitfalls associated with subjectivity, hindering the required distance of a biographer. But, as said, he does this moderately. In describing Tosh’s concerts, Masouri shows how he is apt at describing vividly and evocatively the atmosphere and ambience during these concerts, on stage, as well as in and around the different concert venues.

Masouri further relates how Tosh reached success among some groups, though not always among whom he wanted: like Marley, Tosh lamented the fact that among his US fans were relatively few Black Americans, but much more a growing group white liberal (often marijuana-loving) kids. All in all, he had less commercial success than Bob Marley, as many of course know. Although some presented him as the next Bob Marley.

BAD PRESS

The critical British press on him is another interesting theme, and justly Masouri is critical about the arrogance in some British press pieces vilifying Tosh as inadequate or even fake. Masouri’s citing of these press reviews makes evident the both self-assured as denigrating tone this British press critique could have regarding Tosh. Apparently these critics saw themselves as arbiters of good taste. This is already elitist and condescending, but in this case they claim to be judges on music from another culture than their own (which they only claim to understand), while comparing with other reggae icons (of course Bob Marley)..

I guess bad reviews are part of being a famous artist, but too often such critiques are a mix of self-interest, too much believe in one’s own prejudices, in turn stemming from a sense of superiority of these critics, not seldom with a racist origin. A type of neo-colonialist attitude that dresses itself as ”hip”.

Two main problems that keep confronting - and hindering - the reggae industry come to the fore in this biography on Tosh: the first one is, as just discussed, non-Jamaicans and whites determining what reggae should be like and/or should reach the mainstream. The second one is the continuous, inappropriate comparison with Bob Marley. Both these aspects have racist overtones. At the very least both are depreciative.

It is almost painful to read how Tosh tried to circumvent these hindrances of reggae’s molested image while trying to keep his dignity. He even seems to compromise at times to these Western ideas to develop and broaden his career. It is a revealing aspect of this biography.

ANECDOTES AND MORE

This biography consists of quite a few anecdotes, and can be even called “anecdotic” to a degree (like many biographies). The anecdotes are combined with historical facts/backgrounds, interviews, concert and album descriptions (as I mentioned), opinions/evaluations, and - not unimportant - life events described broader and longer than often shorter and less serious anecdotes. These life events getting more detailed attention, includes the time when Tosh was in Jamaica beaten and abused by the police at the station, probably in retaliation for a critical speech against authorities he held at a concert in Jamaica not long before. Tosh was in fact beaten severely by several policemen, and maintained damage (recurring headaches for instance) from them long after. Similarly traumatic - and grim - is also the story of the armed robbery and murders in his own house, leading to Tosh’s death (and the surrounding events) in 1987.

On a lighter, more funny note are then the several anecdotes which say something about Tosh’s personality and sense of humour. Inevitably, several “marijuana-smoking” anecdotes can be found in this biography, but also other ones. They also show how Tosh could be attentive and considerate – especially some women he worked said they experienced this –, but also at times a bit impolite or rigid in his beliefs. When he worked with British-based reggae artist Dennis Bovell, for instance, who first wore dreadlocks, he at a later time refused to meet and talk to him after Bovell cut these dreadlocks. Tosh later said to Bovell that he never should have cut his locks. A different, but also interesting anecdote relate to the California band the Grateful Dead, led by Jerry Garcia, who wanted to meet Tosh, who, however, had objections against the band name and said, when he had the band on the phone, that they instead should be grateful to be alive.

PERSONAL LIFE AND DEATH

His personal life gets more attention in the latter part of the book. His friends and musicians he worked with criticized the too strong hold his new partner Marlene had on him, becoming his manager without - according to some – proper skills, and further estranging his long-time friends from him, and having a general bad influence on him. Some even suppose she used “obeah” (Vodou-like) magic to control him and continue her evil ways. A woman standing between her man and his earlier friends is a story I’ve heard before – even in my own life and circle - , and whether all these accusations against Marlene were actually true is hard to ascertain. Some who criticized her were spiteful, probably, or maybe she actually dominated him too much. It is difficult to know for sure.

Then the drama increases in intensity as the biography comes close to how Tosh died. He was shot to death in his own house in Barbican, uptown Kingston, when he and his partner Marlene were in there with a few friends, including other musicians. An old acquaintance from Trench Town – in fact living as a criminal and/or parasite (asking for instance musicians he knew for money) –, named Dennis Lobban, entered Tosh’s house with a few friends and demanded money at gunpoint. While asking where the money was, they hit the people present, threatened them, and shot their guns several times. The main perpetrator – Dennis Lobban – had criminal priors. The gunshot at Peter Tosh proved fatal, as for others, such as dee-jay Free I, who also died. Others, such as drummer Santa Davis and Marlene were also shot but survived the ordeal. This took place on the 11th of September of 1987 (another “9/11” indeed). The day Peter Tosh died. He was only 42.

A tragic, dramatic end of the life of a sincere, talented musical artist who only wanted to “free Jah people”, strived to righteousness, but got caught up by the wickedness around him.. This is no sanctifying of Tosh on my part, but a balance of his life’s reality, based partly on this biography. He was not perfect – like no one is – and was for instance sometimes irresponsible, hot-tempered, stubborn, impolite, or temporarily vindictive, but that was it. So the Biblical phrase ”the wages of sin is death” – that ironically many reggae artist repeat in lyrics (including in other words Tosh as well) - does simply not apply.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I found this biography insightful and enjoyable. It would be better in my opinion if it stopped after relating this death in 1987, or perhaps his funeral. This because the last episode on his legacy, was for me not necessary and even disturbing. Readers can summarize his significance for reggae and his unique talent for themselves after having read the rest of the book. That renders it somewhat superfluous, even if some interesting comments can also be read in this last chapter.

What’s much worse is that Tosh is devalued in this last part by a comparison with - again - Marley, seeking to explain why Marley was more popular, crossed over more to broader audiences. This related according to a Paul Khouri to the fact that while Tosh was more revolutionary, Marley had (he thought) better lyrics, and lacked prejudice in approaching his art. Khouri called him also a better “storyteller” than Tosh.

I am not sure what “prejudice” Tosh had supposedly more than Marley. Because Marley was half-white he trusted white people more? Maybe, but this biography relates how Tosh had worked with white people and often amicably (though not always). Because Tosh had a more rebellious, militant pro-black stance? Against injustice you can never be too militant, I would say. He was pro-black and pro-humanity, not anti-white to be anti-white. To add insult to injury, the same commentator, Paul Khouri, said Tosh’s lyrics lesser mass appeal related to Tosh’s lacking sensitivity in this regard. Khouri believes therefore that Tosh’s lesser mass appeal than Marley’s “had more to do with Tosh’s music than any lack of corporate push”. I do beg to differ..

I think Khouri is also mistaken in his evaluation because some of Tosh’s lyrics in fact do tell more or less a “story” (‘Stand Firm’, ‘Pick Myself Up’, ‘Peace Treaty’, 'Maga Dog' a.o.), but maybe it is true that Tosh tells less stories in his lyrics than Marley, having instead “structured messages” in them. Such lyrics can be interesting as well, only in a different way. Tosh could, I find, evoke images with his lyrics (‘Downpressor Man’ being an example), which is a type of story-telling, you might say. Also daily life was quite prominent in Tosh’s lyrics, while relatively less Biblical references (compared to other Rasta artists, like Marley), which might well relate to his stronger anti-Christian feelings. Despite his slightly “thunderous” voice (though much less than a vocalist like Prince Fari), Tosh also could convey sensitivity in his lyrics and songs. So, I do not agree with this critique of Khouri and some others.

Masouri wrote a good biography, but showed in my opinion bad judgement when he reserved this critique to the end, giving the idea that it is a final evaluation (maybe unintended, but still..). Added to the inherent nonsense of comparing what need not be compared: Marley and Tosh were both interesting artists - musically and lyrically - in their own rights. Not the one “better” than the other. Only the mentioned “corporate push” made some believe that.

A missed opportunity, I opine, in this last chapter - note: named ‘Legacy’ - is furthermore that Masouri did not really pay much attention to how Peter Tosh’s music influenced later Jamaican artists. Bushman (who made a tribute album with Tosh covers) is mentioned in this biography, but also other Tosh-influenced artists/singers could have been mentioned, including outside of Jamaica, notably Lucky Dube. Also that Tosh’s late-1970s songs ‘Downpressor Man’ and ‘Equal Rights’ - both lyrically showing his militant side - were relatively oft-covered later by other reggae artists is an interesting fact that could have been mentioned.

So, apart from these and other flaws – the main one being that it could have (if possible) delved deeper in Tosh’s psyche - I can recommend this well-written, informative, entertaining, and overall insightful biography, even to those who know already some things about Peter Tosh and his life.

The Life of Peter Tosh : Steppin' Razor: John Masouri. – 486 p. - London : Omnibus Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-18477-2836-4

"Earlier" Jamaican (folk) music

Mento is known as the earliest recorded Jamaican music genre. It was according to historians (and several sources I found) already recorded in the 1920s, and would remain popular up to the 1950s. It is seen as a - rural and acoustic - precursor to the later genres originated in Jamaica since the late 1950s/early 1960s: ska, rocksteady, and reggae. Mento shared similarities with Trinidad and Tobago’s calypso genre, but is a different genre with an own history and origin. Musical similarities between mento and calypso should be attributed to a shared African-Caribbean origin, rather than one being an off-shoot of the other: similarities go back to before: the African roots, combined with some (British/European) colonial influences.

CONFUSION OF TERMS

The confusion of terms can partly be attributed to the selling of mento songs as “calypso”: for commercial, marketing reasons, especially in the 1950s. For some reason “calypso” as a Caribbean music term was more known in the US than “mento”, and in the 1950s – when mento and calypso reached more commercial success outside of Jamaica, especially in the US – many mento songs were called “calypso”. Also Harry Belafonte (US resident of Jamaican origin), who became the very first artist world wide to sell over a million copies of an album, presented what were actually Jamaican mento songs as “calypso”. Most well-known (and very well-known at that) of that album is the song ‘The Banana Boat Song (Day O)’: actually a Jamaican-originated mento song, but known better (if: wrongly) as calypso.

RECORDING

This confusion of terms aside, it is known, or at least said by serious historians, that mento was the first recorded Jamaican music genre, in the 1920s. “Recording” can have different meanings though, not so much a mistaken confusion (as in mistaking mento for calypso), but correct, varying meanings. Recording in a professional music studio, with the goal of selling music to a public - or in colder economic terms “put on the market” - was in the 1920s not that common in Jamaica, a bit more in richer countries like the US, though it was upcoming. (The first “phonograph” recording device was invented and put to use for commercial records in the US since about 1887, especially increasing by the 1910s: since then records came more massively on the US and European market).

However, “recording” music does not necessarily involve direct commercial purposes. Recordings of traditional, folk music were also made by cultural anthropologists and other social scientists, with often modest equipment: for scholarly/scientific or research purposes. These are known as "field recordings". Focussing on Jamaica this is also interesting, especially since such academic, “anthropological” field recordings have been made also from early times, since the 1930s, both by Jamaican and foreign anthropologists. These recordings were of religious, spiritual and folk music at mostly religious African-based or Afro-Christian (religious) gatherings, whereby the music tended to have spiritual/religious and community functions, and not commercial or “pop culture” functions.

JAMAICA FOLK COMPILATION ALBUM

This brings me to an interesting compilation album I recently encountered: ‘Jamaica Folk Trance Possession’ with as subtitles both ‘Roots of Rastafari, 1939-1961’ and ‘Mystic music from Jamaica’. This CD was released in 2013, and can be bought on common channels such as Amazon (see: http://www.amazon.com/Jamaica-Folk-Trance-Possession-1939-1961/dp/B00BL319YQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1375651914&sr=1-1&keywords=Jamaica+folk+trance).

It consists of such early anthropological recordings of Jamaican folk music, from – as the subtitle says – between 1939 and 1961. Before common popular music formats, radio and commercial goals (for instance the 3-minute rule/convention for pop songs that developed later), this album thus consists of excerpts of research “fieldwork” – as it is called in scholarly terms – of anthropologists recording what happened to go on at musical/spiritual meetings related to folk religions and community gatherings among Afro-Jamaicans.

These religions - or spiritual movements - were often clearly African-derived, and in turn would influence mento. The recordings include examples of Kumina (Congo-based) folk traditions, early mento, Afro-Christian Revival Zion or Baptist sessions, Pukkumina or Pocomania (African-based) music, music of the John Canoe festival, and early Rastafari gatherings and Nyabinghi music. I find interesting also that Count Ossie (influential Rastafari-adherent Nyahbinghi drummer and musician) is included in the musicians on some recordings. Further it included work songs, and traditional songs starring the famous folk poet Louise Bennett.

LINER NOTES

The liner notes - in an accompanying booklet - further say that these are the oldest Jamaican recordings that exist. That is quite a statement, and, if true, it would make this compilation album all the more historically relevant. Mento might have been recorded since the 1920s, but unfortunately these recordings seem to have been lost, since the liner notes also say that the oldest existing recording of a mento is on this album: its mento opener (a Jamaican folk classic) ‘Linstead Market’, recorded in 1939.

These liner notes – written by Bruno Blum - are a general historical and musical overview, and here and there quite informative, but I can not evaluate if they are totally correct. Largely what is said is confirmed by other sources and scholars I know, though there are a few doubtful – or better said “controversial” - aspects. The author Bruno Blum traces for example in his account the roots of Ras Tafari to the (Afro-Christian) Zion Revival churches, which shared with Rastafari an own (African/Black) interpretation of the Bible and Christianity. Yet, I understood from other sources that it is not the only root of the movement, as some pioneering Rastas indeed had connections to Revival Zion churches, whereas others, at least according to some historians, distanced themselves more from such Revival religious aspects (including Leonard Howell, as well as Rastafari inspirer Marcus Garvey).

Besides this, many Rastafari eschewed from early on practices like spirit possession or evoking the spirits of the death, albeit of direct African origins, keen as these were on separating life from death. The same reason a part of the Rastas did and do not visit funerals, not only of some distant “generals” as a few reggae songs relate, but some not even of loved ones. This is not common to all Rastas though. It is similar to the “priests” in the Jewish tradition (from the Levi priest order) who eschew contamination with the dead and death and do not dwell close to death (or e.g. cemeteries). An example of how a Biblical/Old Testament influence outweighs African traditions.

This last issue is not just a sidepath, since it is interesting in light of this that Congo (music) traditions so strongly influenced Rastafari’s Nyahbinghi traditions. Congo drumming often has the spiritual function of evoking the spirit of foreparents (i.e. the dead). This all seems contradictory, but makes sense when the symbolic and factual are properly regarded in their own worth : Rastas who do not visit funerals (of e.g. a biological brother or aunt, or even of a loved and respected elder Rastafari) don’t refuse to do so necessarily because they do not care about those deceased: they do not like death..

RECORDINGS AND SOUND QUALITY

Back to the CD. Its academic context might be – for some music listeners – something to get used to. It appeals to rationality, historical analysis, thinking, and not just to – as many prefer – just “feeling” the music. The weak and distorted sound quality - due to its relative antiquity and probably the used equipment - does not help either. The somewhat soft and distorted sound and vocals, including background murmur and noise, are far apart from the clarity, and modern, noiseless recording of popular music nowadays recorded in studios (or current Jamaican music).

Still, overcoming this I really got intrigued by these recordings. A certain rational mind-set helped me in this case – or as some say, using the “logical, rational” left brain half (I actually think you have to use both - the emotional and rational brain halves - in most of life’s activities…but that is another issue..).

Furthermore, sometimes helped by my imagination, when the sound quality is not so good, I still notice and even feel the “groove” on most songs on this album, which tend to have a strong drum- and percussion-focus (as some would expect). Simply turning up the volume also helped me to get “inna di riddim” better. Besides a drum and percussion lover, I am also a "call-and-response" singing lover, another African retention recurring throughout these songs/recordings. Also other interesting types of harmony singing can be heard. This gives in some way an interesting musical history lesson. Often I really found it engaging and danceable as well.

RASTAFARI AND NYAHBINGHI

Historically certainly interesting is also that the album liner notes claim that the album includes the oldest known Rastafari song (lyrically) ever recorded. ‘We Are Going Home’, by the Ras Tafari Youth Group (and no..it can at present not be found on YouTube). The sound quality – again – is not very clear, and the sound somewhat distorted, but you get an idea.

The liner notes also said something which I considered very informative: the relation to Congo rhythms, via Kumina, that would help shape the Nyahbinghi rhythms among the Rastafari. These first-recorded Rasta chants, however, were accompanied by music/rhythms influenced by Baptist church ceremonies, though the lyrics (and of course the Rastafari movement) criticized this colonially shaped Christianity for being racist.

Nyahbinghi (as said Congo/Kumina-based) can be found as well on this compilation - including the “heart beat” rhythm base -, played by Rastafari-adherent Count Ossie. Interestingly, Blum points in the notes at specific African origins in Ntoré rhythms from the Kivu region (Eastern Congo) – especially maintained in the eastern parish of Jamaica of St Thomas - that influenced Nyahbinghi music.

MUSICAL ROOTS

What also was educational to me was that the notes explained how at Baptist church ceremonies musically, in chanting, while keeping the beat with the feet, the off-beat was accentuated with a hand clap: the same off-beat that would later define ska (and rocksteady and reggae). It shows how far back in folk music own, distinct Jamaican rhythms go, and that the skanking “afterbeat” that would set Jamaican genres apart from e.g. US Rhythm & Blues since about 1960, indeed has a long tradition in local Jamaican folk music. Both in the Afro-Christian Baptist music, but also in the “heart beat” of Nyabinghi drumming: after the two “heart” beats an off-beat followed on the third beat: some see this as a precursor to the emphasis on the third count of a 4/4 bar in ska, rocksteady, and reggae.

Relatedly, the characteristically “shuffling strum” of the guitar (or banjo) in mento – sounding as “kerchanga”, “kerchanga” - also is considered as a precursor of the skanking guitar and organ licks in later reggae.

MENTO AGAIN

A few mento songs close off this 'Jamaica Folk Trance Possession..' compilation album of field recordings. Mento had not really that rhythmic “off-beat”/"afterbeat" focus as ska and some older folk forms had. Yet with its other musical characteristics it also influenced what would become ska, rocksteady, and reggae. Several musical artists, for instance Laurel Aitken, were active both in mento and later in ska and following genres. There is a continuity there.

Also, several Jamaican artists of the ska, rocksteady and reggae era, especially those that grew up in rural areas (where mento was more present), made initially such (much more acoustic) mento songs (like Leonard Dillon of the Ethiopians) or at least let some of their songs strongly be influenced by mento, e.g. Peter Tosh. This is also said in the recently (2013) appeared biography of Peter Tosh, written by John Masouri (‘The life of Peter Tosh : steppin’ razor’), although Masouri also makes occasionally the mistake of calling mento influences on Peter Tosh songs “calypso”.

Also, what is known within Roots Reggae as the “country style”, of groups like the Maytones, and to degrees also the Gladiators, the Itals, and Culture (all groups with partly rural connections) – and occasional songs of other groups – show influences of mento. Several folk mento songs/lyrics are redone by later reggae artists.

Mento partly influenced ska and following (sub)genres (rocksteady, reggae, up to dancehall). Other local Jamaican influences shaping these genres came from other, older musical traditions mentioned (Pukkumina, Kumina, Nyahbinghi, Revival Zion etc.), of which specific African origins can be traced, more specifically in origins (Congo for instance) than some may think.

All this makes these historical recordings valuable.

The only thing that seemed to be missing - or absent: “missing” implies that the album aimed to be comprehensive, which it did not state as such -, is music of the Maroon communities in Jamaica, the formerly escaped slaves. These Maroons' relative isolation and freedom enabled the maintenance of relatively more African cultural (and musical) traits. Apart from this, I have read that Maroon musical aspects also had an influence on Jamaican popular music development, although not in too many sources. In another field – that of food – there is a Maroon influence on wider Jamaican culture and society: the Jerk Chicken and other Jerk dishes. This despite the fact that the Maroons still partly maintain a self-chosen isolation/separation within Jamaica. But like I said: that - food - is another field. There are, in any case, some interesting videos with Jamaican Maroon music on YouTube..

Possibly there is another CD/compilation album on Jamaican Maroon music..

Mandela's other only friends : reggae songs on apartheid

When Ruud Gullit, the Dutch, mixed-raced football (soccer) player (then for big Italian club AC Milan) of part Surinamese descent, won the football price for European footballer of the year, the Ballon D’Or/Golden Ball, in 1987, he dedicated his award to the then still incarcerated freedom fighter against apartheid Nelson Mandela. This news reached Mandela in the prison and Mandela said this gave him hope and a sense of joy. Three years later, in 1990, Nelson Mandela was eventually freed from incarceration, meaning at the same time the beginning of the end of the racist apartheid system in South Africa. It was officially abolished by 1991, but was considered really overcome with the first democratic, multiracial elections in 1994. Mandela won in those elections, readers will probably know, and became the first black president of South Africa.

Years after Mandela was released, he and Ruud Gullit met one-to-one before appearing in a television programme. Gullit relates from that encounter that Mandela said to him: “when I got out of prison, and later became president, every one, the whole world, was or became my friend. But when I was in prison you were my friend”.. Gullit said he was deeply touched by this remark.

Indeed it has an impressive dramatic feel to it. A dramatic feel that is so powerful that it conveys a deeper truth that is both emotional and rational. The stuff of which the best of literary and other art works are made. “When I was in prison you - the emphasis on “you” is important - were my friend (or one of my few friends-that’s what the emphasis on you says)”, was a wise way to point out how people tend to opportunistically associate with the strong and the winners, while eschewing the suffering and the losers. That many people are simply not willing to show true solidarity with the weak and downtrodden.

This is the deeper truth behind it. And it is a truth, I think. Not just an opinion or interpretation. Looking at today’s world relations: people holding on to their own: the rich West neglecting the world’s majority which is poor, the problems in for example Africa maintained by - mostly man-made - unequal economic structures etcetera, etcetera.

That’s the broader, deeper truth behind what Mandela told Gullit. Gullit indeed rephrased it as “when I was in prison you (emphasized) were my friend”, sounding as if he was saying: you were my only friend, perhaps because he made it so personal. This seemed however appropriate, since he was talking to Gullit in a one-to-one at the time. Maybe Gullit reproduced it a bit different from what Mandela actually said, that is also possible.

If Mandela indeed said, or meant, “you were my only friend when I was imprisoned” then there is a complicating issue. The deeper truth of lacking solidarity with sufferers or suffering Africans, which I mentioned before, remains truer than true. I have no doubt about that. Literally taken, however, it is not entirely true. Gullit was in 1987 not Mandela’s “only friend”. I am not talking about his cell mates or his family and friends who visited him regularly then. No, I mean internationally: symbolic friends (like Gullit) showing solidarity publicly.

Many reggae artists, to be specific, expressed solidarity to the imprisoned Mandela in their lyrics, and some artists in other genres as well, especially black artists. An international football/soccer price is however more mainstream than most of these artists, of course. With regard to global exposure then, Gullit’s gesture in 1987 was still relatively influential. Especially reggae’s relation to the general “mainstream” has remained up to the present, let’s say, problematic. Perhaps, exactly because reggae has relatively much socially critical messages and lyrics.

In this post I would like to focus on the “other only friends” of Mandela when he was in prison for fighting apartheid: I will discuss the role of South Africa, apartheid, and more specifically Mandela in reggae songs’ lyrics over time. Before and after around, say, 1987.

Songs against apartheid appeared in other genres as well: by (South) African artists, as well as outside and in more mainstream pop music, such as Peter Gabriel’s ‘Steve Biko’, or Eddy Grant’s Afrobeat/calypso-like hit ‘Gimme Hope Jo’Anna’, to give a few examples (both from the 1980s). I choose in this post reggae because it is the genre I know most about, having been a fan for about 28 years now.

Another reason is that the genre by itself is strongly associated with a focus on Africa, due to the Rastafari connection. Socially critical, Black Power and topical lyrics are also relatively more common in reggae of course, as a whole, when compared to other, even Black or Caribbean genres. In soul and R&B, as well as in salsa or merengue, social commentary in lyrics is still not very common, even exceptional. Love and party lyrics predominate there. To a lesser degree this is also the case in hip-hop or calypso. In reggae social/political commentary is more common, not in all its subgenres equally, but it is in a broad sense the norm. Increasingly since the late 1960s.

AFRICA

The Rastafari movement originated in Jamaica, and is derived from the ideas and prophecies of Marcus Garvey, and continued by Leonard Howell from 1932 onward. The coronation of Haile Selassie as emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 was for both Garvey and Howell an important symbol and sign of redemption of Black, African and African-descended people. The Rastafari movement which Howell helped develop since 1932 in Jamaica – in conflict with colonial authorities – became as a consequence focussed on Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia, as a symbol of Africa, as continent of origin. Also, Africa as a whole got attention among Rastafari-adherents in Jamaica.

Not everyone had enough knowledge about all countries on the African continent. A retreat to the symbolic can be an expressed desire for redemption, for liberation. At the same time it can mean, in some cases, that more knowledge is lacking or deemed unnecessary. This can still be defendable if there is a deeper truth outweighing “factual” truths. The deeper truth that “Africa and Africans must be free” – the essential message of Rastafari – outweighs I think factual or practical knowledge about for instance Ghana, Cameroun, Angola, or Sierra Leone, although many Rastafari-adherents found information about these countries interesting in early stages of the Rastafari movement as well, of course. The distance some early Rasta leaders took from Vodou and Obeah-like African-derived religions – also present in Jamaica - , instead focussing on a Black rereading of Christianity and the Bible, points also at how the symbolic, however, got to outweigh the factual.

Even the factual truths are not always correctly represented. Simplistic historical representations as: “our African forebears came from (mostly from) Ghana” can be heard among both Jamaicans and Surinamers. This is due to some African retentions in both countries of clear Ashanti or Coromantee (Ghanaian ethnic groups) origin, and vague historical knowledge. The truth of the matter is that Ghana - under its colonial name Gold Coast - was indeed an important market for the English (and the Dutch) for their slave trade, but it was one of many. Scholarly studies show that probably about 35 to 40% of slaves in Jamaica (with similar figures for Suriname) came from the Ghanaian region. A large percentage, but not the majority. The majority came from other regions: the Angola/Congo region was where about 30% of slaves in Jamaica came from, according to informed estimations, and smaller percentages from other parts of West and Central Africa.

You might assume from this a contradiction between “official scholars” at universities and elsewhere on the one hand, and folk knowledge, as living on orally in African-Jamaican families, on the other. This is however partly a false contradiction. Many Jamaican families know from stories passed on (from grandmother to mother and before) more precise locations of the place of origin of their actual foreparents. So the correct knowledge has partly survived. The mother of reggae singer Chezidek said once that she heard from prior generations in her family that the roots of the family can be traced specifically to (what is now) Nigeria. Others can trace it quite correctly back to current-day Ghana (older reggae singer Winston Rodney - a.k.a. Burning Spear - for instance), while old-time (1950s and around) percussionist in Kingston, Watta King, influencing reggae and Nyabinghi percussion players, had a Congo background as family heritage. (I discussed Watta King in my blog post on bongos/percussion and reggae (http://michelconci.blogspot.nl/2012/09/distant-yet-near-hand-drums.html)).

A liberation movement like Rastafari requires however symbols. Ethiopia primarily. Other symbols presented themselves as European colonialism in Africa continued, and white minority racist rule developed in Angola, Rhodesia. And South Africa: that what is called apartheid.

APARTHEID

Apartheid became the official government policy in South Africa since 1948, and increased its institutionalized racism with intensity. Segregation, discrimination, and since 1970 Black South Africans definitely lost their citizenship rights within South Africa as a whole. From 1948 a racial classification system was implemented by the white government, African people were set apart and became effectively without rights, including forced resettlements to new homelands (‘Bantustans’) they were ascribed to by the white government. Extreme forms of segregation were behind all this, and also in places where both blacks and white lived. The “township” Soweto near Johannesburg is an example of a place where black South Africans in and around Johannesburg (i.e. working for white companies) were forced to live.

Forced to live in the generally less-developed, poorer, and inhospitable homelands/Bantustans, or in the townships, many black South Africans went to work for white-owned companies in South Africa – under strict conditions of course (passes etc.) – pointing at an added economic dependency.

Protests against apartheid were repressed harshly and violently, and Nelson Mandela – leader of the African National Congress (ANC) – was incarcerated in 1962, while Steve Biko was beaten to death while imprisoned in 1977. Both became martyrs for the anti-apartheid struggle.

This extreme form of a racist state policy, with its focus on segregation for white benefit, was combined with a series of measures part of what is called “petty apartheid”: laws that forbade amorous or sexual relations between white and black persons. Those who maintained such relationships were punishable by law. Someone I know - a white Dutch man who has lived in South Africa - told me that he and his black girlfriend eventually had to leave South Africa to live in Lesotho, a separate country surrounded by South Africa.

I am not going to describe the whole history of apartheid, because it can be found elsewhere, even on Internet. To get a good overview the Wikipedia-article (English) is insightful.

When learning about apartheid, the extremity of a state-institutionalized racist policy, by a white-minority government, to segregate and discriminate the black majority of a country on grounds of race seems harsh and absurd. It is on the other hand not so different from colonial practices in Africa since a century before, when a white minority ruled and decided over a black majority, killing and destroying on the way. The Belgian colonial regime in Belgian Congo, in seeking to enforce labour from natives in the mineral-rich Congo, caused about 8 million deaths among the Congo natives. Eight million! The white minority-government in Rhodesia, later Zimbabwe, likewise discriminated the majority harshly etcetera etcetera. Apartheid followed up on that colonial past in Africa. But, crucially, in a later stage (as said 1948 and after), when decolonization had become globally more accepted.

That South Africa especially became symbolic is therefore understandable. I think, however, that apartheid became more symbolic in a later stage, when decolonization continued more and more. The independence wars against Portugal in Angola and Mozambique in the 1970s, and the independence of Zimbabwe from Britain in 1981 also became symbols in some way. After these struggles: apartheid remained still in place in South Africa, downpressing the black majority in their own country. An undeterred remnant of colonial discrimination, so to say. Or last hurdle, if you will.

Apartheid, and specifically Nelson Mandela, thus got in a relative sense more attention in the 1980s internationally. This increased the pressure on the South African government.

REGGAE AND SOUTH AFRICA

Besides Ethiopia, other African countries have always received occasional attention in reggae lyrics, especially of course by Rastafari-inspired artists. This related to the topical and historical events. Bob Marley’s ‘Zimbabwe’ is a famous example, but other reggae artists have mentioned specific African countries other than Ethiopia as well. Angola (e.g. ‘We Should Be In Angola’ by Pablo Moses, or Mutabaruka’s ‘Angola Invasion’ – though linked to a South African invasion), Nigeria, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe (e.g. by Burning Spear), Zambia (by Misty In Roots), Kenya, Sierra Leone, Congo, Rwanda etcetera. And also South Africa. This occurred already in the 1970s.

All in all, however, this is less structural than the mention of Africa as a whole, or of Ethiopia. The latter is called on often symbolically, albeit aided by topical events (Mengistu, the violent Italian Fascist invasion). Well-chosen symbols can convey deeper truths, often out of reach to the merely topical or factual. Therefore - and that is in itself a good thing - reggae lyrics can be both symbolic as topical.

I note, however, that in the 1980s more reggae lyrics specifically mention African countries besides Ethiopia, but with one country being mentioned the most: South Africa. Often this consisted of critique on the apartheid system. Nelson Mandela, as symbol of the fight against apartheid, was also mentioned quite often. Calls to free Nelson Mandela have been uttered in reggae lyrics before Ruud Gullit dedicated his price to Nelson Mandela in 1987. No coincidence I think: Ruud Gullit was a reggae fan and I am almost sure he knew of these lyrics: they must have influenced him.

All in all many lyrics of many reggae songs - in Jamaica, as well as in Europe- and African-based reggae - began to deal with South Africa, criticizing apartheid, especially increasing in the 1980s. Literally dozens of songs by different veteran and newer artists. One of the earliest anti-apartheid songs on record was by Peter Tosh in 1977: the song ‘Apartheid’. It was a specific topic already then. The relatively unknown (Jamaican) group Well, Pleased & Satisfied, with a.o. member Jerry Baxter, had also a relatively early anti-apartheid song with ‘Fight Against South Africa’, in 1977. The Abyssinians’ strong ‘South African Enlistment’ (1978) was also relatively early in this regard.

It would increase in the 1980s, and even more in the latter half of the 1980s. After Mandela was freed in 1990 several songs on him and South Africa would appear commenting on/celebrating this release and later presidency (Culture’s ‘One Stone’), or warning Mandela for remaining Babylon dangers (Dennis Brown’s deep ‘Shepherds Be Careful’). Even many artists associated with dancehall of the less “conscious” and even “slackness” type, like Yellowman, Shabba Ranks, or Madoo, devoted songs to Mandela or South Africa.

I’ve tried to combine these reggae songs on apartheid in a Playlist on YouTube. See:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBiUHLE6GUMjOyZhGYmxMdloQ5rt0sfjQ

(If I forgot some that are on YouTube I am open for tips, of course.)

Interestingly: when I checked/researched the recording date of the songs in this playlist, it showed that a majority was released in the period between 1984 and 1989. It seemed by then to be more topical or – in a respectful sense - “in vogue”. Often it was the main theme of lyrics (not just “a” theme, such as in Bob Marley’s reproduction of Selassie’s speech in the song ‘War’, or other reggae songs on broader African struggles), showing in the titles with the name "Mandela" in them: there are several reggae songs with in their title both Mandela and “free”. Or, broader, with in the title, apartheid, Steve Biko, South Africa, or the mentioning/criticizing of white President Botha: who was president when apartheid received most attention (in the 1980s).

Nelson Mandela became a vehicle through which in reggae lyrics apartheid was criticized/discussed, but far from always. Many lyrics discuss apartheid in South Africa broader, without mentioning even personal names (or just one time in a verse Mandela, Biko, or Botha). At times also Steve Biko, but Mandela more often.

In the remainder of this post I will just discuss the broad lines among these reggae songs with lyrics on apartheid, and Mandela. The songs themselves can be found in the said YouTube playlist. I can say that I find some songs relatively better from a strictly musical perspective, and sometimes I find the lyrics more inventive (“deeper”) than those of others, but that is often so. In some cases – in my opinion at least - relatively deep lyrics combine with good musical qualities, such as on the strong song ‘Mr Botha’ by the Mighty Diamonds, the soulful ‘South African Enlistment’ by the Abyssinians, the Mighty Diamonds impressive song called ‘Apartheid’, Burning Spear’s engaging ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, or Junior Delgado’s raw but catchy ‘Hanging Tree’. While not quite of this classical roots calibre, in my opinion, I still must admit that the Dutch reggae band Revelation Time’s song ‘South African Downpressor Man’ (with Ruud Gullit singing along) does not stay too far behind, and is I think actually an up-to-par “real” reggae song, with good vocals and a nice Rockers Roots riddim, almost reaching Jamaican standards.

Further, there are several other good and catchy songs in that playlist I did not really know before. Such as the strong tunes by Frankie Jones, Barrington Levy, Leroy Sibbles, and Tetrack in the playlist. There are the good singing and lyrics of Carlene Davis, nuff crucial chunes, and groovy riddims often too..But of course all this is subjective and my personal taste that may or may not be similar to that of the readers.

The broad lyrical themes regarding South Africa can however be more objectively analysed.

CONCLUSION ON LYRICS

The situation in South Africa had become more known internationally, and the racist segregation, downpression and discrimination by a white minority of a black majority is mentioned in many lyrics, all of course correct and in line with actual history. Mandela is an important but not dominant symbol throughout these lyrics. More often the apartheid system in South Africa is the main theme, of which as a subtheme Mandela is derived in the lyrics. This makes sense: the broad, unjust system led to Mandela’s incarceration, as an anti-apartheid fighter. President Peter Botha was mentioned a lot of course as a personal representation of the apartheid regime. Botha even seemed discussed as a personification of apartheid in a few lyrics, although apartheid was there before him, of course, and Botha implemented some (albeit mostly marginal) democratizing reforms. His successor President de Klerk became known as reformer, since under him Mandela was freed, and apartheid eventually abolished. (According to some, however, De Klerk was also hypocritical. Mandela himself said that De Klerk deliberately destabilized the situation in black areas in South Africa to undermine the changes in progress.)

Mandela is thus mentioned often as derived from the theme of apartheid. The other way around: departing from discussing Mandela in prison - and through this broader apartheid - does occur regularly but a bit less often. Such specific lyrics on Mandela when incarcerated, showing solidarity with him were still there within reggae, especially in the mid- and later 1980s. I found about a dozen songs more specifically on Mandela and his incarceration for 27 years. Some of these were released years before Ruud Gullit dedicated his football/soccer price to Mandela in 1987. Like I said, I think Gullit – as then self-declared reggae fan and also occasional reggae singer – must have been inspired by this.

Mandela was broadly speaking right: when Mandela got out of prison in 1990 and became president of South Africa in 1994, practically everyone in the world (in a manner of speaking) was on his side and his “friend”. This was much less the case when he was actually imprisoned. British and US governments of the time even deemed him some kind of terrorist, refusing thus to support him or show solidarity with Mandela up to well in the 1980s, Yet, by contrast, “Gullit was his friend” when he was imprisoned, Mandela said to Gullit in a one-to-one, which understandably touched Gullit deeply. It is beautifully put: both in a symbolic sense, as in a literal, practical sense.

He was his (symbolic) “friend” then, that is true, and an influential one: football/soccer being an internationally popular sport and Gullit was then more or less world famous as AC Milan player, also among the “mainstream”. On the other hand, the solidarity expressed in several reggae songs and lyrics around the mid-1980s shows that he was at the time not Mandela's only friend...

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBiUHLE6GUMjOyZhGYmxMdloQ5rt0sfjQ

Birmingham revolution

Recently – that is May 2013 - I went for a few days to Birmingham, United Kingdom. It was a city in England I had not visited before. I have been to London a few times, to Bristol, and I visited not long ago Bath and Cardiff as well. Yet Birmingham, in size the second city of all England with over a million inhabitants, was still new for me.

BIRMINGHAM HISTORICALLY

Birmingham is a city with an industrial past; it is even said that it is historically the first manufacturing (or: industrial) city in the world, developed as such in the 18th c. Birmingham’s history thus reflects the historical forerunner role of Britain in the Industrial Revolution, that would have international consequences.

ERIC WILLIAMS

In the 18th c. and afterward the British Empire was at its height. Eric Williams (1911-1981), the scholar and later prime minister, from Trinidad and Tobago, explained in his 1943 study ‘Capitalism and Slavery’ how this is not a coincidence. He came with the at the time controversial argument that Britain’s famed Industrial Revolution was in fact largely financed through Britain’s slave trade and slavery activities in the Caribbean region. Of course, such an opinion was not liked by self-congratulating Britons, who more or less manipulated the writing of history, subtly but insistently popularizing a supposed humanitarian character of the British Empire, emphasizing that Britain abolished the slave trade and slavery before other European states, and before the practice became outlawed in other parts of the world.

That the Industrial Revolution shaping England was financed through slavery was however not mentioned and obscured..

The latter manipulating of historiography is already hypocritical, but it became even worse when the British also explained their colonization of large territories of Africa, in the later 19th c. (when slavery in the British Caribbean was abolished), as part of this further quest, a “white man’s burden”, to civilize the world, in part by also stopping practices like slavery there. In reality the main - and probably only - reason for Britain to colonize African territories was to gain wealth and to exploit. Obvious as this may seem, I found that some historiographers (especially European ones, and even an occasional “lost” non-European one) read and write history in line with this pro-British humanitarian purpose attributed to British colonialism.

I think Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), the Jamaican thinker and activist, saw it more clearly, before Eric Williams. Garvey had a sharp eye for geopolitics and international relations. His expression “Free Africans at home and abroad”, and other statements by Garvey like “The world is my province until Africa is free”, can be seen as Garvey’s response to British colonialism: finishing legally slavery of Africans in the Caribbean, but then colonizing the place of origin of those same Africans.

Birmingham is not a port town, unlike Bristol (which I visited not long ago), London, or Liverpool. So a direct role in the slave trade and slavery is less obvious in Birmingham than in Bristol and Liverpool. From these latter cities ships destined to trade in slaves sailed out to Africa and then the Caribbean, and the gains thus made entered these port cities directly; many buildings in Bristol, Liverpool, and partly also London, were financed with slave trade money (“blood money” you might say).

In line with Eric Williams’ economic reasoning, Birmingham as “the world’s first industrial/manufacturing city” profited from the slave trade and slavery as well. Only more indirectly. According to Williams the slave trade and slavery gains financed the whole Industrial Revolution that would shape Birmingham, and the different industries there. More specifically, Birmingham was the British centre of the metallurgical industry since the 17th c. and through the 18th c., including gun manufacturing, while Birmingham factories also made the weaponry used in slave trading activities in Africa, sugar plantation equipment, and chains used in slavery. Birmingham industries even delivered machinery and chains to slave-laboured plantations in non-British colonies like Brazil and Cuba.

Williams in fact pays quite some attention to Birmingham in his work ‘Capitalism & Slavery’ (1943): to its above mentioned role in the colonial economy (guns, metal and otherwise), as well as, more positively, to the rise of an abolition (of slavery) movement in the city in a later stage.

EXPOSITION

When I recently visited Birmingham (in May 2013), we went to an exposition within the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (pictured below), which gave an overview of the city’s history: from past to present.

The city was more or less established from about 1100 (AD). The city name is of Anglo-Saxon/Germanic origin. From those Anglo-Saxon days the historical time line was followed. From industrialization to further developments and migrations. Interestingly, the Irish were the early migrating (and more or less discriminated) “outsider” labourer group. Later, especially since the 1950s, followed by Jamaican and Caribbean migrants that would become also discriminated. The exposition continued up to modern times with different cultures and ethnicities in the city, and to pop culture like UB40, Duran Duran (who were I found out here from Birmingham). Also Rastafari-adhering poet of Jamaican descent Benjamin Zephaniah was mentioned, as well as a carnival designer/artist of Caribbean descent who went under the name of Professor Black.

In between, Birmingham’s roles and interests in slavery, metals, and gun trade for the slave trade, were not ignored or denied, but explained adequately. Also the famous Birmingham abolitionist campaigner (against slavery) in the early 19th c., Joseph Sturge, got attention.

All in all I found it an interesting and well structured exposition.

BIRMINGHAM NOW

Birmingham was modern and globally focussed then, and when I recently visited I still noticed that it strives to modernity and the global, albeit in a different way. Until not too long ago the city’s focus was still on manufacturing and industry, although in recent decades a shift toward a “service economy” has taken place, similar to elsewhere in the Western world.

High-rise, new buildings are a superficial sign of urban modernity, of course, and current Birmingham has more or less a sky-line – unlike e.g. Bristol -, although high or modern buildings are interchanged with older and lower ones.. Some of the higher building were hotels, aimed mainly at the business market.

The remnants of the industrial past are however here and there present. The many canals flowing through the city and surrounding Midlands date mostly from the 18th c. onward, and had primarily economic, industrial functions. The same as the canals in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), they were laid out primarily for transporting goods for factories, not for ordinary citizens’ recreation or travel.

I noticed that in the present the canals in Birmingham no longer seem to have that industrial function. Now they are used by boats for tourism (thus recreational) purposes. Touristic boats are also to be found on the canals of Amsterdam, but there is a difference: I did not see private citizens having boats on the canals as on the Amsterdam canals. Maybe that is outlawed in Birmingham, I don’t know..

Photo underneath: me in central Birmingham (close to the Mailbox building) with the historical canals in the back

Like before, as I already said, current Birmingham continues to strive to the modern and global – or as one can say: cosmopolitan – in for instance the modern architecture, including high-rise, modern “mall”-like shopping centres (US influence?), while the city is also definitely multicultural. Multicultural regarding its population, as well as in restaurants and bars, and stores, representative of the different cultures in the city, brought by migrants since especially the 1950s: Indian, Pakistani, Jamaican, Chinese, African, even Latin American and other ethnicities. Birmingham is even one of the cities in Britain with the highest percentage of non-British migrant inhabitants: about 42% of Birrmingham is at present non-British of origin, many of these non-European.

BLACK POPULATION

Birmingham is also the place (with the surrounding West Midlands area) in Britain with - after London - the highest percentage of inhabitants with a Caribbean, especially Jamaican, background. A 2007 survey estimated the total number of Jamaican British in Birmingham at about 35.000 persons (compared to about 250.000 in much larger London), which would be about 3,5 % of the about a million people that inhabit Birmingham. This is the highest number outside of London.

The total “Black” population (including other Caribbeans and Africans) in Birmingham is estimated at about 6,4% of the city’s total. Also one of the higher percentages in Britain. Like elsewhere the Jamaican and Black population is relatively concentrated more in certain districts of the city, for instance the districts Handsworth and Aston. You can guess that these are not the most affluent districts, but rather working class areas. “A so it go”..

An interesting comparison would be with Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, where in about the same period (2006) about 69.000 people were of Surinamese background, that is over 9% of Amsterdam’s then about 750.000 inhabitants. The figure of “Black” inhabitants would differ somewhat because Suriname is more equally multiracial than Jamaica (including 45% Indians/Hindustani, or Javanese Indonesians). Furthermore, Antilleans and sub-Saharan Africans (quite present as well in Amsterdam), should then be included. Yet, since most Surinamers in Amsterdam tend to be of African origin, the figure of Black inhabitants of Amsterdam would most probably turn out to be about 9%: higher than the around 6,3% of Birmingham.

Bristol (about 450.000 inhabitants), to compare further within Britain, has an estimated 20.000 persons of Jamaican background, while Manchester (somewhat larger than Bristol) about 10.000 (about 2%). Maybe these demographic differences explain why I’ve heard about internationally known reggae bands with members of Jamaican backgrounds from London (Misty In Roots, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Aswad and others), Birmingham (e.g. Steel Pulse, partly UB40, also dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah), Bristol (e.g. Black Roots, Joshua Moses), even Wolverhampton (Macka B), but not from Manchester. But maybe that’s coincidence, and there are some reggae artists from there as well. Researching I found out that Trevor Roots (which I have heard of) comes from Manchester, as well as the Nucleus Roots I heard of.

Back to Birmingham, and my recent visit to it.. I liked the overall “vibe” in the city, and saw indeed how Birmingham was multicultural: regarding its habitants and in other aspects, such as cultural venues and restaurants. There even seemed some mixture of races. I write “even”, because this is throughout Europe and North America still not so common: multiculturalism tends to mean: different cultures separate from each other, not mixing.

We ate a good, delicious meal at a Jamaican restaurant (Caribana) in the south of Birmingham’s city centre. I’ve been to Jamaica for some weeks, and ate Jamaican food almost daily then, so it was not totally new for me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. What’s pleasant to the senses will remain as such.

Photo underneath: view of central Birmingham, from Bristol Street. Close to a Jamaican restaurant (Caribana) where we ate. On the left you see (the black building) a part of the music venue 0 2 Academy (formerly Birmingham Academy and Hummingbird)

BIRMINGHAM AND REGGAE

That brings me to another aspect of Jamaican culture and its relation to Birmingham: music, specifically reggae. I knew vaguely the connection of bands UB40 and Steel Pulse to Birmingham. I was never the biggest fan in the world of UB40, save for some nice songs – especially their earlier work and some nice, later original songs. I did not like most of their covers of Jamaican originals: not as good as the Jamaican originals, in my opinion. I liked Steel Pulse more, although also differing per album.

STEEL PULSE

Some of my favourite Steel Pulse songs are ‘Stepping Out’, ‘Rally Round’, and (from an earlier album) ‘Babylon Makes The Rules’. Their song ‘Klu Klux Klan’ is also among their better work, I think. I heard especially the more recent songs ‘Stepping Out’ and ‘Rally Round’ being played recently in reggae clubs in my hometown Amsterdam. Some people like the Steel Pulse tune ‘Roller Skates’ as one of their best songs. It has - as I write this - over two million hits on YouTube! I however find that song ‘Roller Skates’ a bit overrated. ‘Babylon Makes The Rules’ is in my opinion a better song and has “only” 288.000 hits, as I write this. The song ‘Klu Klux Klan’ - also relatively better in my opinion - does “not even” reach the 200.000 hits at present. This does not necessarily mean much, but it shows how tastes can differ among listeners.

Two million Youtube hits seems much in reggae, considering that great, classic Jamaican reggae songs like the Mighty Diamonds’ ‘I Need A Roof’, and Don Carlos’ ‘Just A Passing Glance’ – both big hits in Jamaica itself and internationally popular among reggae fans – do not reach even the 500.000 hits on YouTube at this moment.

Mark H. Harris, who for a time had a Reggae Reviews website, pointed out that Steel Pulse “cursed itself” as they began strong with their debut album Handsworth Revolution (1978), which he finds a classic. He opines that consequent albums of Steel Pulse were comparably less in quality than their strong debut, with weaker songs, and even amateurish here and there, or too commercial in some cases, though he says they would regain their form on later stronger albums. Here you can read his opinions on Steel Pulse albums. I partly, but not entirely, agree with him, though to be honest I haven’t heard all Steel Pulse albums or songs he mentions.

http://www.reggae-reviews.com/steelpulse.html

My favourite British-based reggae act, however, would overall be Misty In Roots, and they were/are London-based. But, more than this: my love for reggae was – from the beginning – mainly focussed on Jamaican reggae. I heard about other reggae fans getting into reggae through British reggae or ska (UB40, Steel Pulse, Aswad, Selecter, Specials a.o.). This was not the case with me: it started and stayed with reggae from Jamaica itself. In time, however, I listened to British-based reggae as well, which at times I liked.

This later and secondary interest for British-based reggae might show in the fact that beyond “mainstream” UB40, and more “rootical” - though still with some “mainstream” feel sometimes - Steel Pulse, I knew relatively little about Birmingham reggae acts. I have heard about Dub Poet Benjamin Zephaniah, but did not really realize he was originally from Handsworth, Birmingham. Zephaniah said the atmosphere in Handsworth was dominantly Jamaican when he grew up in that district of Birmingham. He even called Handsworth “the capital of Jamaica in Europe”.

To be honest, I did at first not even know that Handsworth – as in the good Steel Pulse song ‘Handsworth Revolution’ – referred to a specific Birmingham quarter, not far north of the city centre, and with relatively many Jamaican inhabitants. I did know more about the geography of Kingston, Jamaica (which I have also actually visited much earlier than Birmingham), ironically much farther away from my hometown Amsterdam than Birmingham...

After some research, I found that Ruby Turner (that I know a bit from) was also from Birmingham, as well as toasters Pato Banton, and Apache Indian (of ‘Boom Shack-A-Lack’ fame), but I never really got into these latter artists. Also Beshara was a reggae band with some popularity from Birmingham (lovers rock, but also some roots and Rastafari-inspired lyrics). I have, I admit, until recently never heard of Beshara. What I recently heard from Beshara on YouTube sounded good to me.

I have heard, however, from the Musical Youth, having an international hit as young children with a remake of the Mighty Diamonds’ ’Pass the Kutchie’, under the name ‘Pass the Dutchie' (that is: replacing the ganja reference with a reference to a type of cooking pot). Musical Youth were also from Birmingham. I did not really know that. I live and I learn..

But besides my personal, partly limited knowledge, - which says most about me and my own preferences -, many do point out that Birmingham has since long a quite vibrant reggae scene, since the 1970s, and up to the present. There are presently, in 2013, in Birmingham reggae-minded studios and production houses active, that are connected with the Jamaican reggae scene, and that are successful with their reggae productions. This post on the Birmingham reggae scene of another blogger is interesting in this regard:

http://radiotogo.blogspot.nl/2012/04/birmingham-reggae-production-houses-and.html

Steel Pulse is also still active by the way, though band members have changed over time.

After doing more research and seeing a few documentaries I found out more about the Birmingham reggae scene since the 1970s. I found out that Birmingham’s popular culture and subcultures reflect the multicultural character of Birmingham’s population. This is perhaps predictable. Somewhat more special is that from this multiculturalism also developed mixtures of the different cultures. Even some globally relatively rare mixtures. Not only that many white British youths got into ska and reggae and were influenced by Jamaican or Black culture (including skinheads and Punks)….that is quite well-known by now. But also some black youth from Birmingham were influenced by the Punk subculture, apparently. Also, the Bhangra music genre – based on Punjabi/Indian/Pakistani traditional music, and then modernized - was influenced by Black music genres like reggae and funk in Birmingham. Birmingham is known by the way as the hotbed of this hybrid Bhangra music genre.

Examples of cultures “mixing” beyond just coexisting as a further dimension of multiculturalism, and which can have good, or at least innovative, effects..

The interesting recently appeared documentary ‘Made in Birmingham: Reggae Punk Bhangra’ (2010) – entirely on YouTube - pays quite some attention to the important Birmingham reggae scene since the 1970s, as well as to other genres and subcultures with which it intermixed. It shows how reggae was influential within the whole popular music scene of Birmingham, influencing also Punk, and discusses the said cultural mixtures.

A (historical) compilation album of “Birmingham reggae” songs by various artists, along the lines of the compilation album on the ‘Bristol Reggae Explosion’ - which I mentioned on my blog post on Bristol of June 2011 - seems therefore an excellent idea.

Buddy sung but unsung

I gathered my early knowledge about reggae music when I was about 10 years old, if I recall well. Quite predictably, it was a tape of a Bob Marley album - given by my brother’s friend - that led to deeper knowledge about reggae. Bob Marley’s album Kaya and soon after Burning, Confrontation and other albums. This knowledge became connected with a love for it. As with all true love, increased knowledge also increased the love.

In my mind I never set Bob Marley apart from the wider reggae genre. A recurring critique throughout this blog, as some may have noticed, is that I find that Bob Marley is too often set apart at a supposedly higher level as presumably better, than other reggae. Like it is the cream of the crop, and the rest to be ignored or at least of lesser value. Maybe Chris Blackwell would not mind this wrong idea too much, but I do.

I repeat again that there are several equally talented and great artists within reggae and Jamaican music: before, during, and after Bob. This is not to deny that Bob was a great artist - because he was - and an important one in spreading reggae internationally! I just do not like that particular commercial interests, or subtle forms of racism (since Bob was half-white, and most other reggae artists black), lead to misconceptions among eventual fans.

Therefore I would like to “honour”, if you will, another reggae act in this post, a group/artist that in my personal history helped to strengthen my love for reggae not less than Bob. A group that actually increased my broader love for reggae, especially roots reggae. I am talking about the Wailing Souls.

ON THE ROCKS

Not long after I began to listen to Bob Marley albums (when I was about 10 years old, so around 1984) – within the same year - my brother bought the then recently released (vinyl) album On The Rocks (1983) by the Wailing Souls. I was soon intrigued by it, and liked the sound. Especially the “super catchy” ‘Stop Red Eye’ was a tune on that album that caught me immediately. It is not too exaggerated to say that this album eventually changed my life.

For not just that song I liked, but in fact most on the album. It overall appealed to me even more than the Bob Marley albums I listened before. Maybe it was the somewhat rawer, less-polished harmony sound of the Wailing Souls that attracted me. It sounded more authentic, somehow. Again knowledge and love interrelated: I read all the lyrics on the album sleeve, improved my English and even Jamaican Patois.

I read on the sleeve of On The Rocks not only the lyrics, but also the names of the members and of the musicians, and of the song writers. All this betrayed my curiosity for the world and (often Rastafari-inspired) people behind the album on that Caribbean island. This song was written by member Winston “Pipe” Matthews, the other by Lloyd “Bread” McDonald, others by George “Buddy” Haye. Even these nicknames intrigued me in a way. Each Wailing Souls member sang their own song, and I noticed vocal differences between these singers.

In the early cementing of my love for reggae music this album On The Rocks was thus crucial. Still, along with my brother and friend, I began to explore several other artist in the broad reggae realm: Eek-A-Mouse, Yellowman, Burning Spear, Culture, Israel Vibration, Lee Perry, Ini Kamoze. I remember there was a more or less intense Gregory Isaacs-listening period as well .. So much to keep up to within reggae, and so we – and I - forgot a bit about the Wailing Souls.

FIRE HOUSE ROCK

Forgot not really: some years later: a record collection (still the vinyl days, around 1988) at the house of a well-travelled Spanish friend of my mother was broad and international qua genres, but had quite a lot of reggae. Just looking through the records I saw names I often knew, but albums I did not have/know. It was there that I encountered another Wailing Souls album that I did not really know yet: Fire House Rock (from 1981). I copied it on cassette (relax, I know it is illegal: later I bought it, so..), and soon fell in love with it. Again the names Pipe, Bread and Buddy, with also Garth Dennis (as on On The Rocks) for important harmony vocals. I liked most songs on Fire House Rock… I was then about 15 years old, and after years this album got me since then again listening intensively to the Wailing Souls.

CONTINUING REGGAE TRAJECTORY

Now it’s about 23 years later and I went on on my trajectory of life. I have remained a reggae fan and always considered reggae broadly, with a focus on Roots Reggae: I had a sort of intensive “Culture period” between I believe 2001 and 2005 (focussing on/listening relatively more to the group Culture with Joseph Hill) – which was stimulated by several great concerts I visited of Culture in Amsterdam - , but mostly it was broadly oriented, and I variated between different roots icons: Burning Spear, Gladiators, Jacob Miller, Horace Andy, Israel Vibration, Mighty Diamonds, Hugh Mundell, Lee Perry, Culture, Black Uhuru, Augustus Pablo, and an occasional early dancehall... In time I added some artists we (that is: me and the people I then use to “hang” with) – and I personally – had not gotten around to listen so much before, like Alton Ellis, Sugar Minott, Abyssinians, even some older rocksteady, or early dancehall dee-jay’s. More recently I got into (some) modern dancehall and even more the New Roots (Capleton, Sizzla, Richie Spice).

And yes, between all this I also bought more albums of the Wailing Souls that I did not have yet, or that were released later..

THE WAILING SOULS’ STORY

The Wailing Souls had gone through changes over these years, though, as other groups have. I noticed on their albums from the late 1980s and 1990s, that some members had left the group and only two remained: Winston Matthews (or “Pipe”, the main songwriter historically) and Lloyd McDonald (or “Bread). Later I heard they had settled in California, USA. Apparently due to musical and social changes in Jamaica the members found unpleasant.

As a fan I followed news about the group. I read about what reggae historians had to say about the Wailing Souls. These writers/experts - like David Katz, Roger Steffens, Beth Lesser, or Steve Barrow - all describe how the Wailing Souls were formed in the poor, ghetto area of Trench Town in western Kingston. The place “where singers come from”. Some say it even is the place where reggae music actually was “born”, but some contest this as too simplistic. Trench Town had at least a strong influence on reggae’s formation.

TRENCH TOWN

The reason that singers came relatively more from Trench Town is, well, poverty. Poor people search a way out of the ghetto through music and by expressing themselves. That might seem self-evident. But also particularly singers, instead of instrument players: that also relates to poverty: Trench Town and other ghetto people could in most cases not afford musical instruments, beyond maybe a guitar, often even self-made. Buying modern instruments as used in music studios in Kingston, and being schooled in them, was often more affordable for people with more money, a steady income, and more or less a “middle class” position, living in wealthier “uptown”.

Trench Town and other ghetto (Waterhouse e.g.) people without such means instead specialized and improved their vocal skills and with that auditioned for the studios elsewhere in Kingston, hoping to be able to record a song with the musicians and producer there.

That is how the Wailing Souls began, having honed their vocal harmony skills with the influential musical and vocal teacher Joe Higgs, in the Trench Town part of Kingston. The same Joe Higgs who also assisted and taught Bob Marley, the Wailers, and other artists in this regard (harmony vocals) in Trench Town.

(A view of Trench Town. I took this photo in 2008)

This history is quite well explained by the reggae historians/experts I mentioned before. These historians also mention Winston Matthews as the main person and songwriter of the Wailing Souls, attributing the band’s successes - first they had big hits in Jamaica, later they became internationally known - to the songwriting talents of Winston Matthews. “Though also other members like Lloyd McDonald and George Haye provided strong songs”, or something along these lines, is often added to this.

The Wailing Souls much later, meanwhile having settled in California, had a lesser moment when they wrote songs for the in itself entertaining 1993 Hollywood movie ‘Cool Runnings’, on a Jamaican bobsled team. The songs for that movie were in my opinion too crossover and polished, and less “rootical” than their other works. Luckily they kept making “realer”, rootsy reggae soon after this (later 1990s and 2000s), so my respect for them overall remained intact. They “kept it real” or in this case maybe “returned to the real”.

COMPARISONS

Even some reggae historians who know that reggae is much more than just Bob Marley and the Wailers, compared the Wailing Souls to the Wailers. Not just because of similar band names or that they were also from Trench Town, but also musically. Some compared the singing voice of particularly (oft-lead singer) Winston Matthews to Bob Marley. The sophisticated harmony singing, taught by Joe Higgs - who also taught the Wailers - of the group was also compared to the Wailers.

Why these comparisons? Seemingly it was meant as a compliment. Yet I would rather say that Matthews sings good because he sings good, not because his singing sounds somewhat (not even so much) like Bob Marley’s . I think Matthews has a more “melancholic” quality to his singing than Marley’s. The harmony vocals are maybe in some ways comparable, but neither overly similar to the Wailers (Peter, Bunny and Bob). Personally, I liked the harmony vocals of the Wailing Souls overall more than those of the Wailers, actually, for being more melodically varied.

So let’s please stop the nonsensical “it’s good reggae because it sounds like Bob Marley & the Wailers” dogma. The same dogma that made Grammy or even specialized reggae awards recently go relatively most to Marley’s sons, and rarely to equally talented Jamaican reggae artists toiling for years (though Black Uhuru and Burning Spear were positive exceptions).

Maybe this shows that the Spanish expression: “las comparaciones son odiosas” (meaning: comparisons are hateful) has some truth in it. Comparisons are often hateful indeed. Also because it fits with my earlier mentioning of the interrelation between knowledge and love: if you compare something away, you no further have to know more about it, let alone love it..

Okay, Matthews’s aching, slightly hoarse but nice voice does have some similarities with Marley’s singing. McDonald’s singing voice is “clearer” and “mellower” by comparison. The other who sang regularly, George Haye, had also an aching, slighty hoarse voice (like Matthews), but tending more toward a “chanting” Burning Spear or Joseph Hilll-like voice and a bit more “rasping”, when compared to Matthews. Interesting how the members of the vocal groups complement each other.

RESEARCH

Researching the Wailing Souls I found that there was much attention to the central role in the Wailing Souls of founding member Winston Matthews: indeed he wrote and sang most songs after all. But “most” here means about 50% of all songs (sometimes he wrote songs with Bread). The other songs were in most cases either written and/or sung by mostly Lloyd “Bread” McDonald or George “Buddy” Haye. The strong songwriting skills of Matthews are also heralded in several publications by different reggae experts (from the extensive ‘Rough Guide To Reggae’ to works by David Katz, Roger Steffens, Beth Lesser and others). In itself I agree with this: Matthews wrote several great songs (e.g. ‘Busnah’, ‘Bredda Gravalicious’ a.o.), among my all-time favourites.

Lloyd “Bread” McDonald wrote good songs and sings well. Bread would by the way appear on the much-promoted documentary ‘Marley’ (2012), directed by his namesake Kevin McDonald (did the latter’s foreparents own slaves in Jamaica perhaps?). Bread got thus some exposure, though degraded to serving Marley’s story. With Pipe and Bread as remaining Wailing Souls since the 1990s several interviews were held with them, especially in the last 10 years, also to be found online.

REUNION

Further following reggae news, I heard that the Wailing Souls reunited again in 2007: older member Garth Dennis rejoined with the remaining two members then for concerts, after last having worked and sang together in the early 1980s. Rudolph “Garth” Dennis was long a harmony singer in the Wailing Souls (since the 1970s) – not unimportant for the total sound of course - , but he did not write too much songs: mainly the good tune ‘Slow Coach’ on the 1979 album Wild Suspense, which he also sang. Garth Dennis received more media attention also because he released a solo album around that period (2007). I am quite curious about it.

The other early member of the foursome that was Wailing Souls in those earlier days, George “Buddy” Haye, did not really join this 2007 reunion (he was still alive then to my knowledge), and somewhere remained “out of the picture”, or kept a lower profile. I did not find out if he was still musically active somehow from 2007 onward.

BUDDY

Haye was already with Matthews and McDonald in a precursor to the Wailing Souls under the name the Renegades, recording since the 1960s, Ska and Rocksteady days. He was there when the Renegades (with Pipe and Bread) recorded their very first single ‘You’ve Lost The Love’ (around 1965).

Reggae historians and experts, such as those I mentioned before, seem to have less to say about Haye than about the other band members. They do tell how Haye went to art school in Jamaica, and began in time to focus on his art, indicating at times that he had therefore less time for rehearsals in the band. His stay with the Wailing Souls was probably for that reason (other art activities?) interrupted between 1968 and 1974, but he rejoined in 1974, and stayed with the Wailing Souls up to 1984, contributing to a number of albums. The last album he worked on for the Wailing Souls was the strong Stranded album from 1984 (contributing three songs, besides of course crucial harmony vocals).

I understood he later went to live in Los Angeles.

INITY

Does this matter? Maybe the strength of the Wailing Souls was their unity (as in the word “harmony” of harmony vocals), and strong personalities combined into one strength: no competition. Mind you: we are talking about a “harmony vocal” group: the combined voices is what makes this group’s material strong, not just one voice.

This unity among the Wailing Souls seemed so strong that on some albums it was not even mentioned if specific individuals sang or wrote songs. On the early 1980s albums Inchpinchers and Face The Devil, for instance, all songs were credited to be written by ‘the (all?) Wailing Souls’ (also on discographical websites giving credits info). More than disregard, this might be a refreshing lack of ego competition: “I an I is equal”.

On other albums individual credits were however mentioned, so this seems inconsistent.

LESS ATTENTION

Either way, it nonetheless surprises me a bit that nowadays George "Buddy" Haye gets less media and scholarly/journalistic attention in the “reggae world” than Garth Dennis (who in the earlier Wailing Souls wrote less songs and sung less lead vocal than Haye), but that is partly because Dennis was also involved in the formation of another legendary Jamaican group, Black Uhuru, and because he recently has released a solo album. (And because he unlike Haye rejoined the two remaining Wailing Souls in 2007, as I already mentioned).

I think, however, that Haye was in fact also quite important for the Wailing Souls, but also for my love of reggae personally. This because the song ‘A Fool Will Fall’, on Wailing Souls’ Fire House Rock album was written and sung by him. Other songs of him I heard before are also among my favourites: ‘Baga Trouble’,’ Jah Is Watching You’, and ‘Wild Suspense’ (interesting fact: ‘Wild Suspense’ takes its lyrics from a Marcus Garvey poem, ‘The tragedy of white injustice’). On the album Stranded especially Haye’s song ‘From Sunrise To Sunset’ is a good, melancholic (in the good sense of the word) tune. Also other songs he penned on other albums were mostly good, though it is often hard to find out if he wrote the songs, due to the combined credit info I mentioned.

A problem with the latter is that less-seasoned Wailing Souls’ listeners might not recognize Haye’s voice (when not mentioned in the credits/info): his vocals are like I earlier said a bit similar to Matthews’ singing voice though somewhat more…how do I put it.. “rasping”. I’m curious if someone who knows something about the Wailing Souls’ reading this might recognize Haye’s lead vocals on specific songs of the early Studio One recordings and on the albums Face The Devil and Inchpinchers..

I can understand that you also might say ”it does not matter: I & I live in one Inity… Rasta bredren a one"…, but the beauty of such Inity lies in respect for the constituting “I’s” or I-ses (Rasta term for personalities), that then came together in I and I.

Therefore I think it’s a pity that Haye/Buddy got and gets less attention than the other members of the Wailing Souls.

Maybe he himself chose to withdraw from the active music scene. Yet, when a person had made such good songs, with also strong lyrics, I automatically get more intrigued about the person behind the singer/songwriter. This is not just me, of course: as other art, music is a human-to-human interaction, is about connecting souls, and others might have it with other artists they feel somehow connected to.

Like I said I’ve searched on the Internet and read. I even e-mailed known reggae historian David Katz. I was glad he answered me, but unfortunately he did not know too much about George “Buddy” Haye either.

Buddy apparently lives now in Los Angeles, and I further gathered through writings some knowledge about his general biography, unfortunately without much details. I did not find anything on the Internet about the (visual?) art he was said to be involved in for decades. Perhaps I hoped to find an enthralling painting with Rastafari imagery by Haye, haha: from sonic to visual art, so to speak. Or a sculpture or installation by him, who knows.

On YouTube I found only one, short film of Buddy alone when he had become older (without knowing for sure if he was still musically active then), and a few older films of him as part of the Wailing Souls when still a foursome, and filmed before 1984, when he was still part of them. An example is from a BBC documentary, presented by Jools Holland (Wailing Souls performing on the Jamaican streets the Haye-penned song ‘Peace and Love Shall Reign’).

Being a “fan” of an artist is by definition personal and subjective. I think Haye wrote the kind of roots reggae songs that I loved, and sang in a way I liked too. Songs that connected to me, and that “spoke to my heart”, to use an appropriate cliché. I also find his conscious, Rastafari-inspired and philosophical lyrics intelligent: “The world has been uneven yeah, save the massive poor people oh yeah” (from the song 'Baga Trouble'), and the effective “It was the act of affection that puts my love into motion”: seemingly simple yet conveying a deeper, human wisdom. Or the strong, philosophical opening line of the classic song 'A Fool Will Fall':

“A lying tongue is just for a moment. And Righteousness is an everlasting foundation”..

(George “Buddy” Haye, ‘A Fool Will Fall’, 1981)

This line, maybe along with the opening line of Bob Marley’s song 'Rebel Music' (“Oh why can’t we row this open country..Why can’t we be what we want to be? We want to be free”) more or less summarizes also my own life philosophy. It speaks to me that much..

Also the line “It’s true we have been misled..knowing right from wrong” (from the song 'Peace and Love Shall Reign') intrigues me. These are the kind of lyrics I like so much in much roots reggae: Rastafari-inspired, which consists of a spirituality, but still connected with humanity and critical of social reality and injustice..

A FOOL WILL FALL

'A Fool Will Fall', from the Fire House Rock album, is my favourite George Haye song. It is not just my favourite Buddy tune, it is my favourite Wailing Souls tune (though there are close contenders like ‘Busnah’, ‘Mr Big More’ , ‘Bredda Gravalicious’ a.o.). I can even say that it was, and still is!, actually one of my favourite reggae songs ever. And of all genres, for that matter…

What makes this song so excellent, in my opinion? It's also interesting to analyze this in light of the fact that I also write songs myself for quite some time (this way I can learn too). I think it is the combination of a slow “rockers” riddim by the Roots Radics band – who had a sort of “sparse” sound -, the strength of the lyrics, the well-placed and creative harmony and call-and-response vocals (as on many Wailing Souls’ songs), and the engaging, emotive voice of Buddy.

But a good song is also determined by a good general structure, as experienced songwriters can tell you. A basic “verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus” structure is only part of the story. A good song is not a purely rational – or objective – thing of course. Nonetheless some objective “guidelines” can be gleaned: a dramatic development toward the chorus (as climactic/high-point), which synthesizes the central lyrical message, and often this chorus is in higher notes (an higher octave), parallel with the symbolic “high-point” it represents. And with more harmony vocals at the chorus.

The Wailing Souls often make good use of “bridges” in the song structure (between verse and chorus). This is good to point out, because in the later 1980s and 1990s experienced Jamaican musicians began complaining how some new dee-jay’s and singers came with simpler songs to the studio than before: just one- or two-chord tunes, lacking a bridge, and built around perhaps a catchy hook or two. This type of song often is less enduring, gets old sooner, and speaks less to the soul and heart than more complex songs (as in roots reggae was more common up to then), although the simple melodic structure is sometimes compensated well with rhythmic complexity and power (changing the balance).

Other aspects that can make a song good relate to technical musical details like chord progression and a returning ”tonic note” in the main chord (e.g. G-minor), that returns throughout the song at the right moments, providing rest-points or anchors. Technical details, but for the musical feel often important.

All these aspects seem present in most Wailing Souls’ songs, reason why their songs are often outstanding and enduring, while the Wailing Souls' well-chosen harmonies, personal vocals, and distinct reggae rhythms gives them at the same time unique qualities.

The song ‘A Fool Will Fall’ has in my opinion all these good, enduring characteristics of a classic. It is “outstanding among the outstanding”, so to speak, and George “Buddy” Haye’s voice singing on ‘A Fool Will Fall’ has some qualities making the song a bit more “mystic”, or “dreader”, when compared to the tunes by Matthews or McDonald on Fire House Rock, that are nonetheless good in other ways.

Therefore: ”Buddy” will, whatever he is doing now, always remain my “soul buddy”. Music - and the fact that it is recorded - can be such a beautiful, connecting thing..

(What I have found of George "Buddy" Haye on YouTube I have assembled in this Playlist on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBiUHLE6GUMh9M58lOWwsQyJ8SywXWUYS)

Reggae music lovers (in the Netherlands): Bill

INTRODUCTION

How people got to be reggae music lovers or fans has always fascinated me. Maybe partly because reggae still is off/outside the mainstream, also in the Netherlands. It is not found that easily, let’s just say. It requires (to a degree) an extraordinary life path: that is, different from copying the masses, or simply following what’s commonly on television or the radio.

Reggae has of course since decades gone international and widened its fan base, but I have known individually quite different reggae fans within the Netherlands. Black and white (and Asian, or mixed etc.). Males and females. Old and young. Some with little education, some highly educated. Of different class backgrounds. Some combine liking reggae quite equally with other genres (e.g.: some with African, funk, soul, some with hip-hop, some even with non-black music genres), while others on the other hand adhere almost “strictly” to reggae music, and do not get into much else. Some like roots reggae more than dancehall or vice versa. There are even reggae fans – believe it or not - who do not smoke the “ganja herb”. Furthermore, some have an interest or sympathy for the related subject of Rastafari, some do not, or even despise it. The latter, despise, I find somewhat odd since Rastafari is not the same as reggae, but is nonetheless connected to it.

These differences (and similarities) between and among reggae fans/lovers intrigue me, also in relation to personal backgrounds. That’s the reason why I would like to interview specific individuals who love reggae.

About 10 months ago – a post on this blog of 5th of June 2012 - I started this series by interviewing my “bredda” (Jamaican Patois for “brother”, but also “friend” or “mate”) Abenet, who was in his late 20s (see: http://michelconci.blogspot.nl/2012/06/reggae-music-lovers-in-netherlands.html).

This time I interview another “bredda” of mine, Bill.

BILL

Bill is a younger bredda who as I write this is 18 years old. His full name is Bill van Oostrom. He is a DJ (or “Selector” in reggae/Jamaican parlance) of mostly reggae music, playing and selecting songs in different clubs and at different reggae- and/or dub-minded events in and around Amsterdam. His DJ name is (Selectah) Ill Bill.

That is more or less how I first met him: Bill, a younger, Dutch guy with short to medium-length dreadlocks, was at one time “Selecting”, being the DJ, or – as some say - “spinning”, in a reggae-minded club in central Amsterdam (while I was there). But I encountered him more and more after this, since late 2012: at a Mad Professor concert in Amsterdam, other reggae concerts (e.g. of Ziggi), or King Shiloh sound system sessions. And at other times when he worked as DJ/Selector at reggae-minded clubs (e.g. Frontline or Café The Zen) I visited regularly in Amsterdam.

Ill Bill was also one of the Dee Jays at the 10 Years Anniversary party of the (Dutch-based) reggae organization the Black Star Foundation. This party/event named ‘A Decade Of Reggae Music’ was held the 22 of March of 2013, at concert venue the Melkweg in Amsterdam. Dutch and Jamaican reggae artists like Joggo, Vivian Jones, and Spectacular performed at that event on stage.

In short: I know him from the broad reggae scene in Amsterdam, as both DJ and visitor..

Since I heard him “select” tunes (mostly old-time vinyl, by the way) as a DJ in clubs and at several parties, I already got a vague idea of his preferences within reggae. Talking to him in person it was specified more, as well as through (modern times!) Facebook posts by him of songs. Often the songs he either played or linked to I liked as well. Sometimes he pointed me to names I did not know. Partly, our reggae tastes seem similar.

Still, there is enough that remains unknown to me about Bill as a reggae lover, about the person behind the DJ Ill Bill. That’s why I asked him some deeper questions.

TRAJECTORY

Bill estimates he got into reggae really somewhere between his 10th or 12th birthday, at first mostly listening to music of Bob Marley, as well as Dutch-based reggae acts Beef and Ziggi (Recado). Alongside reggae his musical tastes were, at first, varied and he then also listened to hip-hop, rock, grunge, or pop.

He relates that what strongly appealed to him in reggae was the “relaxed vibe” that combined with rebellious lyrics and messages. He also found the apparent “simplicity” of reggae to be - in fact - powerful.

In time he started to specialize and “delve deeper” into reggae. It was around when he was 15 year of age that Bob Marley became less interesting, too well-known for him, and he started checking out other reggae artists who were at their prime at the time: Sizzla, Buju Banton, Capleton and others. He got to like them, and around that time (around his 16th) he had become a DJ, starting to focus then more on Dancehall Reggae, and he got into that: including the type of dancehall with “slackness” lyrics.

He explains how he by then understood the lyrics – in Jamaican Patois and English - better, also of this type of Dancehall. He found out that the lyrics consisted indeed too often of “slackness”, meaning often boastful, and violence- and sex-themed lyrics. He did not appreciate this slackness so much, and got bored with it.

DUB

He tells how he then searched other directions, but still within the broad reggae realm. In his school, the new, not quite reggae, but reggae-influenced genre of ‘Dubstep’ was then upcoming and had fans. Through this Bill got interested in deeper origins of this Dubstep: namely more original reggae 'Dub', as it arose since the Roots Reggae era in Jamaica, in the 1970s, pioneered by King Tubby and developed by Lee Perry and others, and later variants in Britain, such as by Mad Professor and the Vibronics. He really got into dub.

The phat echoes and heavy, pounding bass lines of dub was “what he really was searching”, he states. I imagine he partly means the kind of bass that you, with piled up, large speakers (sound system style), feel vibrating through your whole body, especially your belly.

..AND MORE

This does not mean that Bill since then only likes dub. It is only one of the types of reggae he got into. In fact, he points out how he is a big fan of vocal songs combined with dub versions. It was long common in Jamaican music, in the vinyl age, to have a vocal song followed by an instrumental or dub version of it. This became customary for many Jamaican records since around 1968. Interestingly, Bill says that this dub version of a song actually gives you time to think better about the A-side with vocals, that played before.

Bill surely has maintained this strong attention toward lyrics, also of the tunes he plays as DJ. He presently even claims he knows all the lyrics of all the tunes he ever played/spinned as DJ/Selector! That’s remarkable.

He thus likes Jamaican Dub, and e.g. UK Steppers Dub, but equally - vocal - original Roots Reggae, and Early Dancehall.

VINYL

I saw and heard Bill play (spin) mostly “old-time” vinyl records. That is an observation not a critique. I myself in fact slightly prefer the sound of “vinyl” as well: it just feels as if it makes the music flow better. I think that flow got lost a bit between the O’s and 1’s of digital transcription of sonic waves.

Bill says however he is not a Strictly Vinyl Selector, though I initially thought this. He confirms that recently he prefers vinyl, but he interchanges it still at times with CD or digital music (wav, mp3).

He describes how precisely this switching from digital to vinyl music is a “magical” experience for him. For with vinyl, he gets more the feeling he literally “has the music in his hands”. Added to this, he points at the greater difficulty of mixing vinyl tracks (compared to digital tracks): making it a more interesting challenge for him as a DJ.

His DJ name is, as mentioned, DJ Ill Bill. Why “Ill” Bill?, I asked him. Like many unusual nicknames there is a good anecdote behind it: at the Magneet festival he was with Doctah-T of the Dub Doctors. Soon after he would join the Dub Doctors. As a kind of contradictory joke he presented himself as a doctor who is ill himself. Hence the name. Before this he went under the name DJ Buffalo Bill, but it became Ill Bill.

MUSICIAN

Bill is a Selector, but he is also occasionally a musician, you might say. He has been playing the guitar since he was 8 (thus: for about 10 years now). In addition, he is involved with production of especially electronic dub and Deep Sounds. He also enjoys playing the melodica at times.

He also makes/composes instrumental music, such as dub reggae songs. These, along with his mixes of reggae songs by various artists, can be found on his SoundCloud channel (see: http://soundcloud.com/dj-ill-bill-amsterdam)

Somewhat in line with this musical creativity, though more indirectly, he also spins/plays the reggae instrumental or dub music for others to toast, chat, or sing over. I have seen him spin and change the tunes and collaborate thus live in clubs for upcoming and more settled artists like Netherlands-based (but from Saba in the Caribbean) Rastaman and “cultural” Dee Jay (in the Jamaican reggae meaning of “vocalist”) One Root Freeman, as well as for known Jamaican artist King Kong. Ill Bill selected for both One Root Freeman and King Kong at the New Year’s Party (2012-2013) at Café the Zen in Amsterdam.

RASTAFARI

Bill tells me that the message and lyrics of Rastafari-inspired, “conscious” reggae, the message of “peace, love, unity, and equality” appeared as natural and self-evident to him, and were in sync with his way of being. That is why he loves reggae, he explains: it has a message which meant and means very much for him. Moreover, he says it shows that he is not the only one who sees in daily life things that are in fact wrong and unjust.

PRESENT

In the present Bill is a big, and really committed, reggae fan, listening to it on a daily basis and constantly, and also spends much time searching reggae records. He mentions that on his i-Pod (again: modern times!) he listens now to, e.g., Augustus Pablo, King Tubby, Johnny Clarke, Twinkle Brothers, Black Uhuru, Capleton, Ranking Dread, Kanka, and also to Nyahbinghi drumming like of the Sons of Negus.

CONCLUSION

Bill has in common with the reggae lover I interviewed before on my blog, Abenet, the same importance he places on “positivity” in music and lyrics: Bill did say after all that he was put off and bored by slackness lyrics in much dancehall. Abenet saw aspects he could relate to within Rastafari, and Bill associates even more strongly with the Rastafari message.

Comparing with myself: what I suspected, based on my experienced and informed estimation (I try to avoid having prejudices), seems true: Bill’s taste in reggae is not too different from mine. Not identical, but close to my tastes. I also share the same association/identification with Rastafari, and find - like Bill - intelligent, socially conscious lyrics important.

Musically we seem to have a lot in common as well. A difference is maybe that I like Dub a bit less than Bill (only some selected dub albums and songs), and tend to be also more vocally oriented. I must say that I never got into UK Steppers too much, and even less into Dubstep or Jungle, but that’s me.. I do like some dubs of Augustus Pablo though, including with the melodica instrument, so that I do have in common with Bill, who likes to play the melodica now and then.

In common we also have our love for Roots Reggae, and Early Dancehall in the broad sense. More specific I also like the strong chatting “flow” of Capleton, and I am also a fan of Black Uhuru, to mention some artists Bill said were on his i-Pod. I have never heard before of Kanka, though, another name Bill mentioned. It turns out to be Dub-like.

Since I play bongos (percussion) my interest in Nyahbinghi drumming increased as well, just like Bill listens to it, though I always have been interested in drum patterns, and “grooves”, since I was very young.

All in all Bill has a lot of love for reggae, showing in a strong, sincere commitment to and interest in reggae music and culture, in all its variety, as well as in Rastafari and lyrics. It also made him quite knowledgeable about the genre and related themes. These seem to me good characteristics for someone who is a Reggae Selector/DJ at different venues and events..