Lynval Golding of The Specials has posted one of his periodic video messages for fans of the band. He quickly touches on Neville Staple's absence on the upcoming U.S. tour, compliments band keyboardist Nik Torp (who played on Adele's song Skyfall) and hints about something special being unveiled during the upcoming tours. What or who could it be?
Very rare, live footage of The Invaders, the pre-cursor band to Madness has recently come to light. Suggs, Chris Foreman, Mike Barson and Lee Thompson along with original members Gary Dovey on drums and Gavin Rodgers on bass are all seen playing and dancing in the 46 second color clip. Sadly the footage is silent, but the band appear to be performing at a house party since Barson is playing an upright piano. The footage is likely from sometime in 1976-78.
The Invaders (also known as The North London Invaders), was formed by Barson, Foreman, and Thompson in 1976. By 1978, the band had changed their name to Morris and the Minors and had added Suggs, Mark Bedford on bass, and Dan Woodgate on drums to the group. Later in 1978, they changed their name to Madness, in homage to one of their favorite Prince Buster songs.
In honor of Black History Month, PBS (the American equivalent of the BBC) tonight will air American Masters: Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock & Roll. If you have an interest or passion for music, you do not want to miss this program. Appropriately enough, the documentary is narrated by Pauline Black, lead singer for The Selecter, who is an influential musician in her own right.
Tharpe was one of the most influential gospel singers in America in the '30s and '40s, and she put her stamp on the blues and big band music as well. In the '50s, she was an enormous influence on many musicians who started playing what became rock and roll, including Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. Her talent as a guitarist also impacted Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton. The special includes archival footage and interviews. Check out a preview below:
With The Specials upcoming 2013 U.S. tour kicking off in less than a month in Chicago, fans are eagerly anticipating which songs they can expect to hear the band perform. While all the classics are likely to be in the set, the band have been including a few tracks from their second album, More Specials. To that end, I wanted to share a bit of rare band history about a song from the album.
Did you know that the instrumental track Holiday Fortnight (a unique rockabilly ska song with Mexican-style brass and a cracking solo from Rico Rodriguez) was originally titled Why Argue With Fate? The song was written by band guitarist Roddy Byers about a conversation he had with his Father when he was much younger about his poor school performance and his Father's belief that he would amount to nothing if he didn't apply himself.
However, due to internal band politics at the time, the track was instead recorded as an instrumental and given a new title. A few years ago Byers, stumbled upon a demo recording of the original track in his attic and he recently released it with the original guide vocals, which he had recorded for Terry Hall but that were never used. Have a listen to both tracks below.
The Tube was an innovative and cutting edge music television series, which ran for five seasons from 1982 to 1987 on Channel 4 in the U.K.. The show was presented live by hosts Jools Holland and Paula Yates, and was an incredibly important showcase for many emerging 80's bands.
I was lucky enough to see The Tube regularly while living in England in 1986 and I still get misty eyed at the mention of it. It was responsible for introducing me to a slew of great bands. Indeed, Bono of U2 called it ‘the best rock ‘n’ roll programme on TV.’ And it was. The Tube was a very important outlet for many performers, and provided a turning point in the careers of many of them. Paul Young made his TV debut on the show in 1983. The following year, Madonna made her British TV debut on the show.
For Fine Young Cannibals performing live on The Tube in 1984 was instrumental for introducing the trio of Andy Cox and David Steele (ex-members of The Beat who had broken up in mid-1983) and their new singer Roland Gift (formerly of Hull ska band The Akrylykz) to the British music press and ultimately the U.K. music buying public. Up to that point the band had been turned down by every record label they had approached and their manager John Mostyn (who had previously managed the The Beat and who booked the first 2-Tone tour in 1979) had to use some old school bluff and bluster to get the band some much needed print and broadcast publicity. Watch Mostyn discuss his clever strategy in the video below.
The band's fortunes really took off after Mostyn booked them on The Tube for their debut television performance in late 1984. Check out this very rare and fantastic footage of the band performing Don't Ask Me To Choose, Johnny Come Home and Move To Work which all later appeared on their eponymous 1985 album. Its fascinating to watch the audience, who had never seen or heard of the band prior to their performance, warm to them as the set progresses. You can see a band and its career coming together before your eyes.
The buzz around the band grew to a fever pitch after a self produced video the band shot in a bare studio in Birmingham in late 1984 for Johnny Come Home began airing regularly on The Tube. Fine Young Cannibals signed a deal with London Records a few short weeks later.
The New York Times has an excellent profile on Watty Burnett, the baritone vocalist for The Congos, whose 1977 album Heart of the Congos is considered one of the greatest roots reggae albums of all time. It turns out that Burnett, who originally worked for producer Lee Perry as a session vocalist and musician at his Black Ark Studio along before joining Cedric Myton and Roydel (Ashanti Roy) Johnson to form The Congos, has lived quietly in Long Island, New York since 1980. Read the article here.
The article contrasts Burnett's quiet life on Long Island (when not on tour with The Congos (who recorded a critically acclaimed new album Icon Give Thank in 2012), Burnett works as an electrician, records music on his own and occasionally performs with a local Long Island reggae outfit called Noah’s Arc) with his life as a vocalist for the world renowned vocal trio.
For a dreadlocked Rastafarian, Long Island took some getting used to. Mr. Burnett remembers a trip to Freeport from Manhattan on the Long Island Rail Road, accompanied by the bass player for the Congos, Tony Allen.
“When we got to Queens, the conductor said, ‘This is Jamaica, last stop Babylon!’ ” he said. “We got really angry. We thought, ‘This guy’s messing with us!' "
Recorded over a span of three years, Heart Of The Congos features a who's who of musicians including Ernest Ranglin, Sly Dunbar, Mikey Boo, Boris Gardiner, Geoffrey Chung and Winston Brubeck who were members of The Upsetters band. ‘Fisherman’, the most famous song by The Congos and the opening track from Heart Of The Congos, is well known and loved enough to be considered an absolute classic within the relatively large field of vocal reggae.
An article from last summer in The Quietus plumbs the mysticism and allegories of the track:
Drop the needle onto ‘Fisherman’. The drums have all been bounced over to one channel on the TEAC, causing a wicked amount of degradation in the sound; the opening snare hits have been wrested of all harshness and clarity; then the reverb sees them crumble away into darkness. These are the abyssal depths of the track. Plumbing these waters are the basslines, one fuzzy and immersive, the other squelching and funky, carving out yet more three dimensional space (two different bass players were used on two separate days of recording - if this was an accident, it was a happy one). The delicately phased guitar lines sparkle above this, like sunlight on a calm sea surface, dappling the space below. The voices arrive staggered, creating further space, Watty’s rumbling bass and then Roy’s clear tenor. They may sing about the sea-bound man in the third person, but really it's The Congos themselves who are the fishermen, and the listeners the fish. They are, as the bible would tell you, the fishers of men. And this is evangelical, churchical music… just perhaps in more of a Rasta style than we had been previously used to.
The song starts with an exhortation to a Rasta fisherman - who already has three children, with another on the way - to bring back enough food for his family, before making a direct comparison to the apostolic fishermen Simon (aka Peter), James and John who have countless hungry “children” to feed (“lots of hungry belly pickney ashore – millions of them”). The Congos, being based in a fishing port, are keen for people to realise that this is a parable, and throw a concrete suggestion into the lyrical mix: that the fisherman might actually provide for his family by going to see Quaju Peg, the collie man, for some of his fragrant produce to sell. The song ends with the Congos urging the fisherman to reach higher ground because rain is coming, perhaps the forewarning of an apocalyptic event comparable to The Flood – a theme which is returned to again and again later in the album. The lyrics plumb depths under their deceptively calm surface, just like the music.
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece about the 40th anniversary of the release of the Harder They Come film and sound track, released in February, 1973. The article includes an incredibly detailed interview about the song's development and its recording in Jamaica with Jimmy Cliff, who composed and sang the title song (and starred in the film), bassist Jackie Jackson, and guitarist Hux Brown who played on it. Read the interview here.
According to Cliff:
The first development of my song is actually in the movie—when the guitarist and I are rehearsing a song in the church. That's an early draft of "The Harder They Come." The rest of the music came fast. When I have a title, the rest always comes very fast. I'm quite good at melodies.
The lyrics came from my past. I grew up in the church and had always questioned what they were telling me. Like the promise of a pie in the sky when you die. The second verse about oppressors trying to keep me down kind of reflected my own life—coming out of the ghetto in Jamaica and fighting the system. I wanted the song to have a church feel and to reflect the environment I grew up in—the underdog fighting all kinds of trickery.
The release in the U.S. of 'The Harder They Come', (a movie that required subtitles so that American audiences could follow the dialogue) had an impact far beyond its modest take at the box office. While the film had a cultural impact and developed a strong cult following in the years following its release, it was the movie soundtrack which captured the hearts and minds of like minded people across the country introducing reggae to a wider American audience. In fact, the movie can be credited with giving rise to the first American reggae band -- The Shakers -- who were musical pioneers playing reggae when it was an odd, foreign sound to most Americans born and raised on rock and roll.
The soundtrack of 'The Harder They Come' captured reggae at the moment it entered its own golden age at the start of the 1970's -- with a variety of styles, rhythms and exotic lyrics. It included songs by Cliff, The Maytals, The Slickers and others -- soulful ballads, upbeat rockers and even songs that quoted scripture and preached peace. The film became a primer for Americans about reggae music and the Jamaican experience. According to an essay in The Criterion Collection, a film publication, 'The soundtrack of 'The Harder They Come' is something like the Sgt, Pepper’s of reggae—one of the hippest and most memorable collections of Jamaican music ever recorded."
