Random Roots

Here are 3 roots tunes selected pretty much at random: 'Mellow Up Yourself' by Bonnie (Bunny) Gayle, 'Land Of Our Birth' By George Whyte & the Black Liberators, and 'I Man A Grass Hopper' by Pablo Moses. They all came out in 1975, but that's a pretty tenuous connection and completely unintentional.

Bunny Gayle was one of the original members of the Viceroys, and may or may not have been the same person as Devon Irons. As a solo artist he recorded a version of 'Yah Ho' for Keith Hudson, plus two singles for Clive Hunt ("Mellow Up Yourself" and the excellent 'Lady Of The Night') and this song that I found on YouTube.



'Mellow Up Yourself' isn't his Gayle's vocal, but he does enough to make sure that the superb and very heavy rhythm track doesn't go to waste. I don't know what label this came out on in Jamaica, could it have been Jigsaw? Treble C is the English release.

George Whyte, who knows? 'Land Of Our Birth' is the only song of his I've ever heard - there is a deejay cut called 'Farmer In The Den' by Jah Lloyd (a lot better than the title suggests). Reggae's littered with artists who left no trace apart from one or two great songs - same as soul, 50's rock & roll and most of the other genres of music that I like. It means you just can't get bored of it because the thrill of discovery is never far away.

Pablo Moses should be familiar to all reggae fans, and 'I Man A Grasshopper' was his first big hit. I remember hearing 'Come Mek We Run' on the radio late at night when I was still at school - it was the first song I'd ever heard by Pablo Moses and it just blew me away. Looking back, I think a good part of what I liked about it was Geoffrey Chung's production and the backing band. This is a similar sort of extended jam, split over the two sides of the single. The vocal's better than 'Come Mek We Run' but I sort of miss the flute.

Back to my youth!

Lovers rock isn't the most highly-regarded form of reggae. When you hear people arguing the merits of different eras, it hardly ever gets a look-in and I think that's a bit unfair. Growing up in England in the eighties, artists like Kofi, John McClean and Sandra Cross provided the soundtrack to some pretty crucial moments in my life and still have a special place in my heart.

My first selection is 'If I Give My Heart To You' by John McLean. Mad Professor produced a ton of really good lovers tunes on his Ariwa label, and for me this is one of the songs of the decade. Honey-voiced John McLean had a few other hits like 'Truly Bowled Over', but never did anything else even half as good as this one. The horns section may've been replaced by a synth, the rhythm may be a drum machine but it hardly matters: the lyrics are smart, McLean sings with the sort of finesse that few singers can manage, and the mix is fantastic light-hearted and playful in the sort of way that you only really hear on Ariwa.

The b-side is 'Doppler Effect' by Professor Doppler (aka Mad Professor). Listen to the drum, bass and piano - it's the sort of rhythm that got done to death at the start of the nineties, but it's also an evolution of the stuff Mad Professor was putting out on his African Connection dub LPs.

The next record is Brown Sugar's magnificent 'Our Reggae Music'. For those of you unfamiliar with them, Brown Sugar were a trio consisting of Kofi, Caron Wheeler and Pauline? Catlin. Kofi of course went on to very successful solo career, and Wheeler is far better known for her work with Soul II Soul a decade later but this is where it all started. The vocals are as great as you'd expect, and John Kpiaye's  guitar is a major bonus. Kpiaye's name crops up on so many great lovers tunes that I decided to do some digging, and after a just couple minutes found this biography! He's the man responsible for the reggae version of 'Swan Lake' and plays guitar on most of Linton Kwesi Johnson's LPs (think of that lovely hook on 'Reality Poem'). He put out an LP of his own a few years back that I really like and recommend - it may not be to everyone's taste but here's a sample:

Finally, here's one of the songs that all other lovers tunes are measured against - 'Ring My Bell' by Blood Sisters. For me this is better than Anita Ward's original disco version. It's not just that the vocal is absolutely flawless and the rhythm is superb - the dub is as good as you'll hear anywhere in reggae and both sides of the record are equally strong. I don't really know anything about Blood Sisters, they seem to have left no traces apart from one great record, a couple of good ones and a few photos on their MySpace page.

I'm going to sign off now with another video, a classic by someone called Melina Carrone, which came out on the back of Human Cargo's 'Carry Us Beyond'. 

Hope you enjoy!

It's a good little while now, me no fling down no legs

Winston Heywood, 'Bam-Sa-Bo', great tune: this is the original JA press on the Jaguar label, it was issued on Dynamic in the UK. I know absolutely nothing about the singer save that he produced a handful of superb singles at Black Ark, including 'Backbiting', 'Stop The War', and 'Long Long Time', as well as 'I'll Never Fall In Love' for Fud Christian. Bam-Sa-Bo has a good rhythm and nice lyrics; it's all about having fun.

There's a deejay cut on the same label by Dennis Alcapone, backed by Augustus Pablo's melodica version. Alcapone's version is quite listenable, but to be honest he's on autopilot and it's not his greatest performance. The b-side is also pretty nice, but it's one of those ones  where Pablo follows the tune instead of leading it like he does when he's at his best. Both of these two versions make a really nice accompaniment to the vocal, but I don't think that either is really strong enough to stand on its own.

Here's a taste of Winston Heywood's later work:

Tear Drops

Yes, the wife's away and I'm bored - so here's another post. 'Let Your Tear Drops Fall' was the first single I ever owned by Horace Andy. It's one of a series that he cut for producer Phil Pratt at the start of the seventies, including 'Get Wise', 'Tag Along', and the original versions of 'Youths Of Today' and 'Money Money' - all of them seriously good tunes, many of them collected on his LP 'Get Wise'. Here's a sample:

'Tear Drops' has more of a soulful vibe, and is one of very few tunes to use melodica in the rhythm section (the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is 'East Christmas Song'). Horace's voice has never sounded smoother and there's a lovely, delicate piano line. If you listen carefully you can even hear some clanking pots and a bit of studio chat towards the end.

The dub starts off very nicely with little drop-out soloing the backing vocals, but gets a bit samey after that. The melodica is one of the things I like best about the a-side, but on the dub it just overwhelms everything else and leaves you wishing for a bit less of it.

Anyway, to round things off, here's the original version of 'Money Money' together with it's deejay cut. I still have 'Evilous Things' somewhere and it has the wickedest dub (incidentally, does anyone have the original issue of 'Tell It Black' by Big Youth with the dub on the b-side? I've been looking for that for over 20 years).

Long time ...

Hi, I'm back. I've had flu, so's my daughter, so's my son - in sequence. You can imagine the fun I've been having this last month or so. Anyway, let's forget about that now and celebrate my return to good health with one of my favourite rhythms.

Sometime in the eighties I was sifting through the secondhand racks in Daddy Kool's when I came across an LP by Trinity called 'Full House'. You may remember it, a couple of excellent tracks, a fair bit of filler, and Trinity wearing dungarees and shades on the cover. Anyway, one of the best tracks on there was called 'Ring Craft', where he's going on about the Ring Craft Posse and his granny's bangles.

The rhythm track is a particularly tough version of 'Holy Mount Zion' by the Actions, which is today's tune (and if anyone knows whose version Trinity used please leave a comment). The Actions were an early incarnation of Well Pleased & Satisfied, who were responsible for some awesome roots tunes during the seventies and early eighties. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was blown away by 'Sweetie Come From America', and for years one of my most treasured singles was 'Living In The Slum' (the Total Sounds version with the dub). Anyway, for anyone out the who doesn't know them, here's a small selection of videos and a link to an excellent interview.

'Holy Mount Zion' on it's own is a great tune, but like I said it spawned a lot of versions. I've never been able to track down Well Pleased & Satisfied's recut, a 12" called 'Open The Gate Bobby Boah' featuring Jah Banna (by all accounts it's fantastic) but I do have two very good deejay cuts by Ken Quatty. 'Jah Lion' was the first one; it's a pretty serious tune. 

All the copies I've heard have been a bit overloaded on the vocal - if you can hear some distortion, it's because the deejay was either a lot louder than expected, or just a little too close to the mic. That said, it's a fantastic version by a really good toaster. Ken Quatty didn't record much, but most of his singles are good.

If anything, the second version, 'Cripple Skank' is actually better than 'Jah Lion'. Here Ken Quatty toasts over a stabbing, in-your-face guitar solo and gives it a rawness and intensity that has rarely been matched. This is one of the best deejay tunes in my collection and it doesn't let up from start to finish.

The b-side is the same cut but without the deejay, and is pretty great in its own right. In case you're wondering, the Jerry All-Stars are named after Jerry Baxter of Well Pleased & Satisfied, nothing to do with Jah Jerry. 

While you wait, here are a few more tunes to get you feeling Well Pleased & Satisfied.  I don't have words to express just what a great group they were, so I'll have to let the music do the talking.