THE UNTOLD STORY OF JAMAICAN POPULAR MUSIC
By Mohair Slim
PART 1 (1945-1961)
'Boogie In My Bones' - American R&B AND THE PIONEERS OF Jamaican SONG
"Rude boys executing the latest steps in their crisp shiny suits and appropriate footgear, a Red Stripe beer in one hand, spinning around - feet moving lightning sharp - dancing with their girl to the latest sounds. The record selector or DJ for the set exhorting the crowd, and the cool, to "Shake It Up, Wake It Up ... this was the Jamaican dancehall, 60s style."1
Introduction
Everyone knows that the Blues had a baby and they named it Rock'n'Roll. What isn't widely appreciated is that the Blues had further issue - an illegitimate, gun-totin', pot-smokin' rude boy called 'Ska'. Ska, Jamaica's first truly indigenous music form owes its existence to American Rhythm and Blues just as surely as does Soul, Funk and British Beat.
To most people, the term 'Ska' brings to mind the English bands of the late 70s and early 80s: Madness; The Specials and The Beat . In fact, Ska, a hybrid of R&B, Jazz and Mento, evolved in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica around 1961. Over the course of the next decade, Jamaican musicians and producers, with innovation and imagination far exceeding their number, moulded and re-moulded the Ska sound - creating first Rocksteady and around 1969, Reggae.
A Potted History of Boogie Woogie
Boogie Woogie, the by-product of Blues and Rag-Time, emerged from the barrelhouses of the American south in the early 1900s. A piano-based dance music, it is characterised by the recurring bass notes (eight to a measure) of the left hand as the right hand plays same-chord improvisations around and against the bass rhythm. The same trains whose sounds inspired the architects of Boogie Woogie also carried black populations to all corners of the continent. Before long variant styles emerged in cities like Texas, Memphis, Kansas City and Chicago.
The sound of the Boogie piano captured the imagination of New York's Cafe Society in the 1930s. It was the first distinctly black music form to be accepted by white America - as evidenced by its inclusion in 1938's 'Spirituals to Swing' concert series at prestigious Carnegie Hall. Jimmy Yancey and Pinetop Smith were two of the originators of Boogie Woogie but it was the work of 'The Boogie Woogie Boys' - Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson - that took the style to the peak of its celebrity just before World War Two.
Whilst Boogie Woogie in its pure form (unaccompanied piano) had only a fleeting popularity, it was nevertheless fundamental in shaping post-war African-American music. Whether replicated on piano or guitar (as by John Lee Hooker), the driving and hypnotic shuffle beat spoke to generation after generation of exponents and black music-lovers.
Virtually all the R&B hit-makers of the 1940s, Louis Jordan, Amos Milburn, Wynonie Harris et al, used Boogie as the rhythmic foundation of their songs. The arrival in the 1950s of innovative young Boogie-men such as Professor Longhair, Little Richard, Rosco Gordon and Jimmy Reed imbued new spirit into an art already over half a century old. Whether being played in a Baton Rouge bar or a Kingston dancehall, the Boogie beat was as fresh and evocative in 1955 as in its New York hey-day twenty years earlier.
In the 1950s, Jamaica was experiencing a stage of cultural transition. A nation of a mere 750,000 people, its traditions were a hastily-assembled collage of the heritages of other lands - African, British, Chinese, Jewish, Armenian and Lebanese. Being almost exactly as far from South America as from the United States, Jamaica lay in a no-mans between two powerful cultures. As a legacy of slavery, a third influence - that of Africa - shaped the customs, musical and otherwise, of the island's predominantly black populace.
Ultimately, the Afro-American musical tradition - Jazz, Blues, Gospel and R&B that won favour with the music fraternity, and the Jamaican public in general in the 1950s. Both Latin and African influences would eventually exert themselves, but the Ska era was ten years away, and in the meantime Jamaican artists spoke in the language of Black America.
The three main mediums responsible for the dissemination of Blues and Boogie in Jamaica were short-wave radio, the sound system and live music performance. Unusually, the local recording and radio industries had little or no influence on the nascent Jamaican music scene.
Alpha School and the Dance Bands
Most authorities date the origin of popular Jamaican song as circa 1945. It was at this time that the Eric Dean Orchestra began performing around the island. Primarily servicing tourists and British expatriates, they covered contemporary Swing-Jazz hits by the likes of Duke Ellington, Illinois Jacquet and Louis Jordan. Many of Jamaica's musical forefathers served their apprenticeships in Eric Dean's aggregation. This clique included trombonist Don Drummond, guitarist Ernest Ranglin and Roy White - one of the originators of the sound system. Among the dance bands that packed out Jamaica's hotels, clubs and theatres in the 1940s were Redver Cooke's Band, Kes Chin & the Souvenirs, George Albergo's Band, Carlisle Demetrin & his Alpha Boys, Val Bennett's Band and Roy Coburn's Blue Flames.2
By the early 1950s, the big bands, having become uneconomical, disintegrated into the smaller dance bands that popped up around the island. Replete with hep nomenclature - 'Aubrey Adams & the Dewdroppers', 'Roland Alphonso & the Alley Cats', 'The Trott Brothers', 'Hersang & the City Slickers'. For the jet set at the swanky North coast beach resorts they played easy-listening Jazz and Calypso, but, at gigs in the townships, groups began including Jump-Blues numbers in their sets.
Mento, a Jamaican spin-off of Calypso, had been the music of the Jamaican everyman. But, by the mid-1950s, Boogie-Shuffle reminiscent of U.S. Southern and West Coast performers Amos Milburn, Charles Brown, Smiley Lewis etc. began to dominate the live music scene. The vocalist in the first R&B bands were Theo Beckford, Bunny & Skitter, Owen Gray, Laurel Aitken, Lascelles Perkins, Lloyd Clarke and Winston Samuels. Jazz on the island was also evolving - from middle-of-the-road Swing-Jazz into a more progressive and eclectic sound incorporating Be-Bop, Hard Bop and Latin elements. The developments in Jazz and R&B in the early 1950s had been precipitated by departure of elder statesmen like saxophonist Joe Harriott, Sonny Gray and Dizzy Reece for the European and U.S. jazz circuits. The subsequent changing of the guard opened the way for younger artists to mould and re-mould the island's sound.
The spiritual leaders of the new movement were the likes of Cluet Johnson, Roland Alphonso, Tommy McCook and Rico Rodriguez, all of whom had graduated through the ranks of the dance bands in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Included in this second generation of great Jamaican instrumentalists were bassist Lloyd Brevett, saxophonist Sammy Ismay, trumpeters Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore ahnd Baba Brooks, drummer Lloyd Knibbs. Many of these Jamaican Jazz pioneers were also alumni of Alpha Catholic School, an school for poor and/or wayward children. It was at Alpha that Tommy McCook, Lester Williams, Rico Rodriguez and Don Drummond learned the rudiments of music and music theory by way of Classical European method. The school was run by a radical young nun, Sister Ignatius, who encouraged the boys to play the tunes that moved them - that meant the American Blues they heard on the radio.
Short-Wave Radio
Local radio stations RJR (Radio Jamaica Rediffusion) and JBC (Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation) were irrelevant to most Jamaicans. The stations was schewed to the tastes of the ex-patriates English and the minority Jamaican uppar and middle classes. They programmed primarily English and American adult-oriented Pop, specifically crooners like Frank Sinatra, Brook Benton and Dean Martin. Other than the occasional Duke (Ellington) or Count (Basie) track, the distinctly Afro-American predilections of the majority of young Jamaicans were unsatisfied.
Jamaican hipsters quenched their musical thirst at the stream of beautiful Jazz, Blues and Rock'n'Roll sounds that flowed across the Gulf of Mexico from the American mainland "late at night when the air was clear and cool and free".3 Short-wave crystal sets throughout the island tuned in to stations transmitting out of Southern cities like Nashville (WLAC), Memphis (WDIA) and New Orleans.
Vocalist and producer Derrick Harriot recalls rushing home from school on his roller-skates to tune in to WINZ (Miami) and WGBS (Nashville). Listening intently, he would learn the latest R&B hit by The Coasters, Marvin & Johnny or Shirley & Lee which he would perform during lunch break the next day.4
The Sound Systems
Perhaps the most crucial contribution to the promulgation of Rhythm and Blues in Jamaica was made by the sound system. A uniquely Jamaican phenomenon, the sound system or 'set', was a mobile discotehque using huge speakers to pump out the latest hit records.
Since the 1940s, sound system DJs had been providing musical entertainment to Kingstonians at dances (or "jump-ups"), parties and nightclubs. Just after the World War Two, a Jamaican man who had been doing farm work in US, returned to the island with no money but plenty of Blues, Jump-Blues and Jazz 78s. In no time the records circulated amongst local collectors. Someone soon struck upon the idea of playing the records for the public. All one needed was a disused Scout Hall, a hi-fi and a few dozen bottles of Red Stripe and, voila, a thriving dancehall - "mash it up!". The alcohol was key. That was where the money was made. It is no coincidence that both Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid had operated liquor shops before they took to the music business.
The sound systems acted like musical trojan horses, spreading the good word of R&B from town to town throughout the island. From Friday night to Monday morning, DJs with exotic titles like Lord Koos of the Universe, Nation, Count Machuki and Tom the Great Sebastian belted out the latest R&B shots and old "fave raves" - all the while urging the dancers to "get some life in your feet, 'cause we're turning up the musical heat!".
The sets were sufficiently mobile that an operator could service West Kingston club-goers at Johnson's Drive-In on Saturday night and be ready for a Sunday afternoon picnic gig at Cane River. Other well-known venues of the day were Chocomo Lawn, Forrester's Hall, the Shady Grove Club and King's Lawn. Some venues had their own systems, like 'Blue Mirror', which was run out of a brothel in Nest Street. Another early 'house set' was 'Fats Wallo', based in a bordello on the Kingston waterfront. 'Fats Wallo' was renowned for its large selection of R&B an Doo Wop singles which its sailor clientele unloaded from the port-cities of New Orleans, Tampa and Miami.
The differing musical proclivities of the DJs gave each set its own feel. Roy White and Adrian Dean transmitted predominantly Blues tunes. Clement Coxsone Dodd, also known as 'Scorcher', aimed at the young sophisticates, "when I arrived on the scene it was because I played Jazz, and my followers could execute the dance for the sound I played". Even in later years, 'Coxsone's Downbeat' was renowned for its "mellow sound", such that its name was colloquially known as "Coxsone Round-beat".5
Different systems were also distinguishable by their sound configurations. V-Rocket's set was known for its high-treble tone, in contradistinction to 'Lloyd's Hi-Fi' which boasted "the heaviest sound around". Lloyd Daley was able to give his 'Matador' system clear bass resonance because, like Coxsone, he had been trained as a radio technician and could built and modify his own equipment. Operators employed erected speaker-walls, joining to eight individual speaker boxes to created "Houses of Joy" to get maximum volume capability. The throbbing beat traveled across neighbourhoods, luring the local boys on their 'quickly-bikes' like the mythic Siren's song.
Derrick Harriot recalls:
"We used to get influenced a lot by the sound systems because I can remember school days when we were going home in the evening, our ears open to hear any sound, wherever it was coming from. Even if it was three or four miles ahead, we used to walk exactly where the sound was... we were listening to the songs they were playing and sometimes went in to participate in the dance. My parents never knew of course..."6
Competition between the sound-system operators was intense and violent as they vied for the hearts and feet of Jamaican Blues-niks. One of the longest rivalries was that between Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd and Duke Reid. Dodd who had worked for a short period in America as a cane-cutter, travelled frequently to the States, like many other DJs, on the lookout for the best and rarest Blues and Jazz sounds. Duke Reid was a burly former police officer whose 'Duke Reid the Trojan'7 system was one of the most "wicked" on the island throughout the R&B, Ska and Rocksteady periods.
Prince Buster recounts a story from the days when he was a deputy DJ-cum-security for Coxsone Dodd. The tale centres around a Willis Jackson record that was the signature tune of Coxsone's 'Downbeat' sound system. With the label scratched off, only Dodd's men knew the artist and title of the track. Rival DJs, including Reid, had tried for years to locate the song in the States. One day, Reid walked up to Buster in the street and said simply "Later For Gator": "I told Coxsone that Duke have the tune and him say, 'No'. Duke played out that night and we went to listen to him, and when Duke put out the tune, Coxsone pass out."8
The Origin of a Jamaican Record Industry
To a large extent, the pioneer DJs may be regarded as the founding fathers of the Jamaican music industry. They gave the Jamaican public their initial taste of Blues in the Dancehall and once they had them hooked they sold them the sound in a take-home form.
America major record companies quickly recaptured the market share they had lost to the indies in the Rock'n'Roll revolution of the early 1950s. As a consequence, turn-of-the-decade Pop music had was far removed from the raw Rock'n'Roll of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard and moved towards the Brill Building pap of The Crew-Cuts, Pat Boone and Petula Clark. The indictment of the doyen of blues disc-jockeys and populariser of the term "Rock'n'Roll", Alan Freed, for payola, was a metaphor for the backlash against small record companies and the underground music they championed.
Black American music was going through a similarly bland phase. The producer-auteur was born. Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry and their ilk were too busy twiddling knobs and directing orchestras to notice that even Ben E. King's prodigious vocal talents couldn't make defeat the cheesy arrangements. Litlte Richard was in teh seminary. Lloyd "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" Price had been poached by ABC and no matter how much Red Stripe you might have drunk, and how loud the DJ played it, 'Personality' still sounded naff - and when the rude boys give a record the thumbs-down, you'd better get-it-the-hell-off.
The system operators faced a dire predicament - where to find fresh rock'n'roll sounds to feed the dancing appetites of their fit, young patrons. They realised there was only one solution - to record their own Boogie-Blues for local consumption.
Almost overnight, record selectors became "producers" and signed-up home-grown R&B talent, booked studio time and commenced pressing singles. Initially, the 45s were made for exclusive use at their own sound system "jump-ups" - after all, R&B was for dancing not listening. The measure of a single was the crowd it would attract.
The Jiving Juniors' "Lollipop Girl" was so popular at the Blues dances that on 'Coxsone's Downbeat', they would play it ten times consecutively every night. Dodd mistakenly believed he had the only copy - until one night he heard Duke Reid spinning "Lollipop Girl" on his 'Trojan' system. Reid had bribed someone from within Dodd's organisation to lend the 45 to him so that he could make a dub.9 Dodd confronted his nemesis outside Kingston's Central Police station. Reid drew his service revolver and Dodd (who always packed heat) returned suit. After an exchange of "your mother"-type pleasantries the combatants withdrew.
Some time around 1958, a man approached Dodd asking whether he had considered selling acetates of his recordings to the general public. Coxsone scoffed, but allowed him to take one to run-off copies. All of the few hundred singles pressed promptly sold out. When it was discovered that people would buy records to play at their leisure the Jamaican recording industry exploded into life.
Stanley Motta is credited as being the first man to have recorded Jamaican music. At his Kingston studio in the mid-1950s he produced Mento and Calypso primarily for the tourist trade. There were not yet any other purpose-built recording studios on the island. Coxsone Dodd, Lloyd Daley, King Edwards, Duke Reid and the other trail-blazing producers were forced to use the primitive one-track facilities at the island's radio stations. Eventually, a local merchant, Ken Khouri, bought Motta's studio, renamed it Federal Records, and made it and his resident studio band, The Caribs, available for hire. The Caribs were the house-band at the Glass Bucket's and were, in fact, three Australians (Lowell Morris, Peter Stoddart and Dennis Sindrey) and one Jamaican (Lloyd Brevett).
Federal employed one-track and later two-track equipment - the singer on one track - the group on the other. Tenor sax-man Rolando Alphonso laughs as he recalls "twenty guys on one mike - all trying to get a shot off. Hah!"10. The positions of the players were marked out on the floor with chalk. When called upon for a solo, the trombonist, guitarist or whomever, took two steps towards the microphone, moving back when finished. Australian Graeme Goodall, being the only qualified sound engineer on the Island, was involved in virtually every recording session during the Shuffle and Ska periods.
Manufacturing records was an initially extremely costly and time-consuming. The acetates had to be sent to New York for mastering. Pressing was done at Federal Records which, in light of its monopoly on pressing, set its prices high. By 1960, market conditions had changed. It was discovered that mastering could be done closer to home in Miami, and a second local pressing plant, Caribbean Records, came into operation. The result was a lowering of the cost structure of the music industry, facilitating the boom in recordings that ushered in the Ska epoch.
The Labels, The Hitters and The Hits
The musical output of Jamaica in 1960 included every species in the Rhythm and Blues genus. From the street-corner Doo Wop of The Charmers to Clue J & His Blues Blasters' honkin' instrumentals a la Roy Milton or Johnny Otis. Vocalists Keith & Enid sang love ballads of the kind made popular by New Orleans duo Gene & Eunice. Owen Gray and Laurel Aitken shouted the Blues like Rosco Gordon and Roy Brown.
The stars of Jamaican Boogie wore their influences on their sleeves. Al T. Joe (AKA Jamaica Fats) was a Fats Domino imitator. Wilfred Edwards sang an acceptable Nat King Cole. Owen Gray's piano style more than resembled Memphis' Rosco Gordon who sold out Kingston's Carib Theatre when he visited in 1958.
Laurel Aitken was the first Jamaican to reach the top of the local charts - with 1959's 'Boogie In My Bones'/'Little Sheila' (Island's premiere release) upon which he was back by The Caribs. Aitken had a particularly authentic Blues sound, racking up hits with 'Boogie Rock', 'Judgment Day' and 'Honey Girl'. Derrick Morgan, with tracks such as 'Shake A Leg', 'Fat Man' and 'Lover Boy', was one of the biggest stars of the Boogie-Shuffle era. Other hit sounds of the day were 'Easy Snappin' by Theo Beckford, 'Oh Carolina' by the Folkes Brothers and 'Manny-Oh' by Higgs & Wilson.
Led by the like of pianist Aubrey Adams and horn-honkers Roland Alphonso, Carroll McLaughlin, Lester Sterling et al, the backing groups sounded like the Dave Bartholamew Band with a severe hang-over. Though somewhat raucous the better players' solos revealed an acute Jazz sensibility - a legacy of the Alpha school. Australian-born Dennis Sindrey's surf-rock guitar is heard on on hundreds of early sessions. Jamaican ensembles refined their techniques and learnt stage craft by supporting the American R&B acts that toured the island, including Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Chuck Jackson, Sam Cooke and The Drifters.
Most labels had an ensemble of select instrumentalists that backed most artists on the roster. This would to become a feature of the Jamaican recording industry. Not only did house-bands make recording cheaper and simpler, it enabled the producer to cultivate a distinct sound. Prominent early studio bands were Clue J & his Blues Blasters (Studio One), Matador All-Stars (Matador), Duke Reid Group (Treasure Isle), Sir D's Group (Dee's), Beverley's All-Stars (Beverley's) and the aforementioned Caribs. Despite differing monikers, these groups often comprised substantially similar personnel. This doubling-up was inevitable. Given a total Jamaican population of under 1 million people, there was only a relatively small pool of competent musicians from which to choose.
Artist credit on the 45 would most often go to the vocalist (e.g. "Jackie Opel") or, if an instrumental, the lead soloist (e.g. "Don Drummond"). But, if the backing band could get their name on the label as a by-line to that of the featured performer (e.g. "Owen Gray with Kenneth Richard & His Band") then the exposure might enable the group to pick up live gigs.
The one band - one company rule was abandoned in the mid-1960s when the Skatalites became so sought-after that they threatened to monopolise studio work on the island. Meanwhile, some studio outfits, such as the those of the Caribs, Baba Brooks and Lyn Taitt, despite having provided the musical accompaniment on many of tracks that help to make up the Jamaican musical canon, remain virtually unknown today.
The pioneer Jamaican record companies can be divided into two main categories. Firstly, there were the labels linked to the principal producers - Duke Reid (Duke, Treasure Isle
11, Duke Reid, Dutchess) and Sir Coxsone Dodd (Studio One, Coxsone, Supreme, Worldisc, Allstar). Second, there was the myriad of other independent labels - Federal, Starline, Regal, Wirl, Smiths, King Pioneer, Matador, Caribou and Beverley's etc. - usually run on shoestring budgets. Typical of these one-man enterprises was the tiny 'Pal' label which operated from the rear of a Kingston haberdashery shop.
For the owner of a new record label, the first port of call was the Vere John Opportunity Hour, a weel;u talent show held at the Ward, Ambassador, Palace or Majestic Theatres. It was at such that Alton Ellis, Owen Gray, Derrick Harriot and later Ken Boothe, Bob Marley and Desmond Dekker (another Alpha Boy) were discovered. To the young man from the shanty town the stage at the Ward Theatre was a chance to pull on a tight sharkskin suit, belt out a tune and just maybe ascend to a better way of life.
The music of Jamaica circa 1960, though powerful and fascinating, was unashamedly derivative. The Boogie-Shuffle style dominated in terms of both live and recorded performance. However, the Jamaican public would soon become enamoured of another music - one which combined the irrepressible beat of R&B with the exoticism of native island sounds.
The competitive instinct of the DJ-producers and the cultural dynamism within the Jamaican musical community ensured that the new sound spread rapidly across the Jamaica. By 1962, Ska had driven the lively local music scene in a frenzy.
PART 2 (1962-1967)
'I'M IN THE MOOD FOR SKA' - The SOUND of YOUNG Jamaica
"South of Jamaica, down Kingston way,
that's where the Ska, first began to play,
now as I wonder, how did it originate, three little letters, they call it the Ska."12
Operation Ska
It was 1961 and Jamaicans' enthusiasm for their own brand of Rhythm and Blues showed no sign of waning. The dancehall patrons kept swinging, little realising the end was near for Jamaican Boogie. Ska, Jamaica's first indigenous music, was about to dawn. However, it would take a typically Jamaican collaboration between the record men, the DJs and the artists to bring about the change. Unusually for a folk music, Ska seems to have been born out of deliberate experiment more so than organic evolution.
The date: one Sunday in early 196113.
The place: Federal Recording Studios, Kingston, Jamaica.
Those present: a hand-picked collective of Jamaica's most accomplished musicians.
The engineer at his desk chuckles as a young man propping a beaten-up brass trumpet on his hip recounts the previous night's gig. Meanwhile, standing in the corner with his back to the assembled musicians, an older man in baggy chocolate-brown trousers and sweat-stained olive shirt draws the slide on his trombone to and fro warming up his lips in readiness. The producer hurriedly shepherds the last of the musicians into the studio for what might be just another recording session. Coxsone Dodd, owner of Studio One Records and Jamaica's pre-eminent DJ/producer claps his hands, gaining the attention of the dozen or so present. In the next few minutes the seed of a musical idea is planted that makes all that has gone before suddenly irrelevant.
Those present at this momentous gathering resolved to modify the R&B which had been the model for all previous Jamaican commercial music. They felt the need not only to free the songs (and themselves) from the constraints of the Blues pattern, but equally as important, to further enhance the music's danceability.
Tommy McCook, one of the top saxophonists of the day, credits producer/DJ Coxsone Dodd as the man responsible: "It was conscious, consciously done ... Dodd asked someone in the studio what could he do to change that effect of the Blues concept ... someone, whoever it was, introduced that up-beat which is referred to as the so-called Ska."14
The explanation provided by Tommy McCook does not, however, tell the whole story. There are four beats to the bar. The great majority of Blues, R&B and Gospel places the accent on the second and fourth beats of the bar. However, in Boogie Woogie the strict 2/4 precept if not ignored is not strictly adhered to. Rather, the left hand plays the bass notes so as not to discriminate between the beats of in the bar giving 1 and 3 as much emphasis as 2 and 4. The resultant steady-rolling rhythm contributed to Boogie Woogie's attraction as dance music (as with Northern Soul's soul-clap 4/4 beat). The pulsating 4/4 drive of the Boogie in its classic (pre-War) form is made all the more noticeable by the absence of a drummer (who would inevitable be hitting down on the 2nd and 4th).
After the War, almost simultaneously, there evolved in the South (in New Orleans and Memphis particularly) and on the West Coast, a revised style of Boogie Woogie whereby the meter of the piano would fall behind (after) the drum beat. In extreme examples, on tracks like Frankie Ford's 'Sea Cruise', Rosco Gordon's 'Let's Get High' and Floyd Dixon's 'Hey Bartender' , the piano actually began to stress the off or the up on each four beats. The use of the beat between the beats produced a jaunty rhythm that is best-described by the term by which the music is known - Shuffle or Shuffle-Boogie. Such inclination is detectable in recorded New Orleans R&B at least as far back as the 1940s and Dave Bartholamew's 'Ain't Gonna Do It', Professor Longhair's 'Willie Mae' and Fats Domino's 'Little Bee'. The popularity of R&B Shuffle in Jamaica in the late 1950s is some evidence to suggest that the music on the island (as determined by the collective tastes and preferences of the public, musicians and producers) was already gravitated towards a Shuffle-Boogie style. Even, if you believe Coxsone Dodd's theory, then the Ska concept merely exaggerated the existing off-beat inclination.
The typical Ska approach used the guitar to reinforce the Boogie rhythm of the piano by way of single note riffs on the off-beat, i.e. 4/4 strumming in an upward motion. If you imagine a drummer hitting down on each of the four beats, the strum was made at the point at which the drummer would raise his stick rather than when he hit - "a-ska, a-ska, a-ska, a-ska". The bouncy tempo thus produced could be augmented by employing a horn section or a harmonica (single-note riffing) in support of the guitar.
That this slight adjustment gave the song a entirely different feel was in one sense deceiving. The structure of the music was, at first, not significantly different from the Boogie of before. The drumming style was essentially unchanged, the call and response vocal pattern had endured, as had the twelve bar format. However, after 1962, synthesis with other local and imported musical traditions and spontaneous development altered both the form and substance of the Jamaican sound. By 1966, the relation between Ska and its forebear, R&B, had become somewhat hazy.
While Coxsone Dodd claims to be the musical Moses, also present on the Mount on that great day in 1961 were the core musicians of the Kingston scene. In 1962, these same players joined to form the greatest of all Ska bands - The Skatalites, all except the man actually credited with devising the term 'Ska' - bass player Cluett Johnson, better known as Clue J. Dodd, being musically illiterate, used Johnson as interpreter to convert his purely aural concepts to music. Clue J had the peculiar habit of greeting his friends as "Skavoovie" and when Dodd tried to explain the off-beat sound he was after, Johnson naturally heard it as "a-ska-a-ska-a-ska".15 Early on Ska was also known as 'staya staya'.
The breakdown of the blues regimentation gave the artists, as individual Jamaicans, the freedom to "express other aspects of their musical environment".16 Producers and musicians began to synthesise elements of Mento, Calypso and Latin Jazz into their recordings. While this cross-pollination may have been subconscious initially, the influence of non-American music forms became progressively more overt and ultimately a defining constituent of the mature Ska sound.
The Sound of Young Jamaica
Upon the granting of independence from Britain in 1962, a wave of national pride swept Jamaica. The early Ska hit, Derrick Morgan's 'Forward March' echoed the sentiments of many:
"Gather together brothers and sisters for independence,
We're Independent! (chorus),
Join hands to hands children, start to dance we're independent,
We're Independent! (chorus),
Don't be sullen, no, the lord is still with you,
Because the time has come, when you can have your fun, so tag along."
The public were quick to embrace anything affirming Jamaica's cultural sovereignty whether it be an ideology (Garveyism), a religion (Rastafarianism) or a music (Ska). Liner notes on 'The Birth of Ska', an early Ska compilation LP, reflected the parochialism of the times: "the beat now called ska, made all feet dance, since Jamaicans, and visitors who heard it, recognised that rhythm deep inside themselves as truly Jamaican."17
The dancehall patron quickly became captivated by the "joyous gallop of Ska", The crowds who packed out the Silver Slipper, Skipper's Lawn, Club Parascene, Palm Beach BBQ and the Hi-Hat in Rae Town were predominantly from the shanty-towns of inner Kingston. It would not have been surprising had Ska music, like Jamaican Boogie previously, remained the cultural exclusive of the urban poor - "the inside jokes, the rivalries, the common symbolism, and the shared experiences of ghetto life were the fabric of this musical tapestry."18 What soon became clear was that, regardless of social position, town-folk and farm-worker alike, Jamaicans were taking Ska to their hearts.
The Ska beat rolled into the outlying districts of Spanish Town, Montego Bay, Gold Coast and Port Maria courtesy of the ever-diligent sound system operators. Regional set-ups emerged - Count Smith ruled over Greenwich Town while 'Jack's system' dominated Denham Town. But the real action remained in West Kingston where, in the wake of the first Ska wave, the established DJs continued their battle with renewed vigour. One up-and-coming DJ was King Stitt, who became famous for his catchphrase "Rock it From the Top! - to the Very Last Drop!".19
An example of the mutable nature of the sound-system business was the alliance between old rivals Sir Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid against a new enemy - Dodd's one time apprentice Prince Buster. In 1964, 'the Duke' and Dodd led a parade of their combined followers up Bond Street to the big dance at Forrester's Hall. At the same time, 'The Prince', bare-chested and blowing a horn, marched his fans along King Street, joining up with the 'Supertown' system at the Jubilee dancehall - less than 150 yards away from Forrester's Hall. Late the next morning the duelling Ska sounds finally died away. The 'sound-clash' became an integral feature of the Kingston live music scene.
Ska had become more than just a musical style it was also a force for social change. The Jamaican middle and upper classes warmed to the genre. In fact, it was the 'party-set' from the suburbs that devised the dances to accompany the frenetic Ska beat - the Kingston Head Roll, the Western Roll, the Wash-Wash and Rowing. Given the Island's neo-British class division the ardent participation of the bourgeoisie was phenomenal.
Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s it was customary for high society to spend Sunday afternoons in leafy East Kingston listening to the leading Jazz instrumentalists of the day. In 1963, several of these artists united to form the Skatalites - Don Drummond, Frank Anderson, 'Dizzy' Moore, Lloyd Brevett, Rolando Alphonso and Lloyd Knibbs.
One of the Skatalites' first gigs was a garden party at the Bournemouth Gardens in uptown Kingston. Despite the fact that they were evidently not a Jazz band, the hoi-polloi turned out - curious as to what would make these gifted men would want to play "buff-buff" music more associated with shanty-town gangsters and rastafarian drop-outs: "The audience was in the main receptive, even enthusiastic, and for the first time they were aware of the contradiction between the propaganda they had heard about ganja smokers and these musicians."20
Before the Ska revolution one of the upper crust's preferred bands were Byron Lee & the Dragonaires. The Dragonaires played primarily Latin Jazz, Mento and Calypso - at first. Their leader was bass-player Byron Lee, a middle class Jamaican of mixed African and Chinese extraction. When Ska started to gain wider acceptance, Lee, ever-the-pragmatist, began to include in his uptown sets more of the Ska songs he had previously reserved for the West Kingston crowds.
In 1959, The Dragonaires had been sent by their Manager (Eddie Seaga - later leader of the Jamaican Labour Party) to the slums of downtown Kingston to learn the emerging music. It was upon this experience that The Dragonaires based their clean Ska style which in 1963 and 1964 they took to the island's tourist resorts and supper clubs. Byron Lee professes: "The middle and upper classes didn't know anything about this new type of music. It was music ... for the underprivileged people. Their attitude changed very rapidly when we and the radio stations started to play Ska music."21
Byron Lee & the Dragonaires duly became the Ska band to the Establishment. It was inevitable therefore, that, when the time came, the Dragonaires would be chosen as Ska music's official ambassadors to the World.
Ska All Over The World
In 1964 the Ska style reached its zenith. Radio stations JBC and RJR, as a result of considerable political (and in some cases physical) pressure, were now programming home-grown sounds. Those who had made quick bucks from the craze were ploughing the money back in, building new, better-equipped studios, e.g. Byron Lee's 'West Indies Studios' and Coxsone Dodd's 'Jamaica Recording and Publishing Studios'. Every week a clutch of new Ska 45s was released.22 Electrifying young talents like The Wailers and Jimmy Cliff and organist Jackie Mittoo were discovered. Byron Lee even had a cameo on the first James Bond film - the Jamaican-set 'Dr No'. In all the excitement no-one noticed that the word of Ska had travelled overseas, to Britain and the US.
The 1964 World's Fair was held in New York. To promote tourism, the Jamaican Government decided to send a delegation of musicians and dancers, including Millie Small, Jimmy Cliff and the Blues Busters. Having previously been their Manager, it surprised no one that the Minister of Development and Welfare, Eddie Seaga, chose Byron Lee and the Dragonaires as the support band for the tour. Lee has since denied receiving any government assistance for the trip.
Allegations of class bias, nepotism and corruption have all been proffered as reasons why the Skatalites, recognised as Jamaica's foremost Ska band, were overlooked in favour of The Dragonaires. Jackie Mittoo concluded "them send Byron Lee because the Skatalites smoked ganja". Like many who had been intimately involved in the infant Ska scene, Clement Dodd denounced Seaga and Lee as opportunists: "You see the man them sending our people to represent the Ska business and they sending out people who don't know nothing 'bout it."23
Regardless of the controversy back home, the tour was a massive success. A dancing group led by Byron Lee's girlfriend Sheila and his business partner Ronnie Nasralla demonstrated the Ska dances to a capacity crowd of 30,000 at New York's Singer Bowl. The organisers declared August 12 'Millie Small Day' in honour of the artist and her current international smash hit 'My Boy Lollipop'. As a consequence, Byron Lee was assured of regular US gigs for the next two years, including several at the Copacabana and a three month residency at the swanky Lake George Inn resort.
The US music industry journal, Cashbox, predicted that Ska would be the next in an already long line of novelty dance crazes that included the twist, the limbo, and the Bossa Nova.24 Atlantic Records quickly contracted Byron Lee to record a Ska LP squarely aimed at the white adolescent market simply called "Jamaica Ska'. Byron Lee's band were also engaged to cut a party album for Columbia's subsidiary Epic. Despite being produced by the now-legendary partnership of Curtis Mayfield and Carl Davis, 'The Real Jamaica Ska', like the Atlantic effort, failed to capture the urgency of Ska as it was played in its homeland.
While the Ska fad lasted only about six months, and the immediate benefit of the hype was received by only a select few, it is significant that, for the first time, the US public had been given a taste of the rich musical culture of an island only a few hundred miles south of the Florida Peninsula.
The impact of Ska in England was more enduring. Caribbean music had certain advantages in the British market that it did not have in America. Since the 17th century, Jamaica had been the linchpin for British military and commercial interests in the Americas and as such was a cherished part of the Empire. For the two decades after WWII, West Indian emigrants descended en masse upon England's industrial centres - London, Birmingham, Coventry. Even after Jamaica won independence in 1962, persisting close relations between the two countries precipitated significant cultural exchange.
The West Indians who arrived in England in the so-called 'banana boat' invasion quickly discovered that England was not the Promised land the British Government had been promoting. Wages were relatively high, but jobs were hard to find. Racial discrimination meant that most new arrivals couldn't garner decent accommodation and were forced into neo-slum dwellings in London suburbs like Brixton, Camberwell and Notting Hill.
In the cold and unfamiliar environment of post-War industrial England, expatriate Jamaicans sought succour by reviving aspects of their lives in Jamaica. On any given weekend in London, numerous 'Blues parties' took place at which the black community - manual labourers, merchant seaman and students alike - gathered to dance, drink, smoke and catch up with news from back home. Sound systems emulating those of Duke Reid, Count Nick etc. sprung up to pack out the Town Halls and Community Centres. There was, however, usually a time-lag of about a year between when a record would hit the streets in Kingston and when it would get played in England.
The high cost and difficulty of obtaining new release Jamaican R&B/Ska 45s was a significant problem for the British enthusiast. As there was no distribution network for Jamaican records in England, they had to be specially imported from the Caribbean. Jewish businessman Emile Shallet was the owner of the London-based Melodisc Records. Since its founding in 1946, Melodisc had been releasing Jazz, Calypso and other exotic sounds Shallet discovered on his travels. In 1960 Shallet launched a new label aimed specifically at London's West Indian market. As a vehicle for local release of Jamaican musical product, it was so successful that, in England, the label's name, 'Blue Beat' has since become synonymous with Ska.
The inaugural release on Bluebeat Records in 1960 was 'Boogie Rock' by Laurel Aitken who had that same year immigrated to Britain. Aitken, already an established star in Jamaica, was to become the patriarch of England's Ska and Reggae movements. Trombonist Rico Rodriquez also left Jamaica around that time complaining of police harassment him for his Rastafarian. lifestyle. The arrival of these and other accomplished Jamaican musicians including pianist Errol Dixon and singers Owen Gray and Jackie Edwards sowed the seed for the growth of an English Ska scene.
The immediate success of Blue Beat and its sister label Dice quickly led to the establishment in England of other companies specialising in West Indian song such as Planitone, Island/Black Swan, Doctor Bird, Rio and R&B/Skabeat. At first, many of the English companies were content to merely re-release songs licensed from Jamaican labels. However, by 1965, encouraged by the triumph of the locally-recorded 'My Boy Lollipop' (Rod Stewart on harmonica?) almost all such companies began to record home-grown Ska. Even the majors got involved, with EMI, London and Parlophone all flirting with the genre. Of these, only EMI with its Siggy Jackson-produced 'Columbia Blue Beat' label made any meaningful long-term commitment to Jamaican music.
When white youth - the Mods - embraced Ska music, the future of an English Ska/Reggae industry was assured. At Soho clubs like The Roaring Forties, the 77 Club and The Flamingo black American servicemen, Jamaican immigrants and London Mods shouted and shimmied to local Ska/Soul heroes Blue Rivers & the Maroons, Jimmy James & the Vagabonds, Ezzreco & the Launchers and Herbie Goins & the Nighttimers. Renowned Jamaican instrumentalists Rico Rodriquez and Ernest Ranglin both had stints as members of The Flamingo's house band, Georgie Fame25 & the Blue Flames, in the mid-60s. The merging of the cultures was further evidence by Jackie Edwards composing a hit song titled 'Keep On Running" for an emerging mod band - the Spencer Davis Group.
The combined purchasing power of West Indian settlers and white hepsters yielded a slew of underground Ska hits, Jimmy Cliff's 'King of Kings', Byron Lee's 'Jamaica Ska', Prince Buster's 'Madness' and The Skatalites' 'Guns of Navarone' amongst them. The labels Blue Beat. Dice, Island, R&B and Island become part of the lingo of the street wise. The volume of sales was all the more remarkable given the almost total lack of exposure in the media.
The BBC, like the Jamaican establishment broadcasters before it, steadfastly refused to acknowledge the existence of contemporary Jamaican music despite persistent pleas from local music distributors. This policy was maintained until the early 1970s when the massive popularity of Reggae became too much for even 'Aunty' to ignore. Emille Shallet asserts that, in the mid-1960s, Ska releases regularly outsold top 40 Pop records. Derrick & Patsy's 'Housewives' Choice' is reputed to have sold an amazing 19,000 units within five days of issue.
In the absence of a smash hit, the English music press largely ignored the Bluebeat revolution. The break-through came with Prince Buster's 'Al Capone' which, being the first Ska track to make the Hit Parade, opened the way for later chart successes including the Skatalites 'Phoenix City' and Desmond Dekker's '007 (Shanty Town)'.
The British Ska scene developed at a pace and in a direction all of its own. Other labels followed Blue Beat's lead in producing local Ska. Amongst these was no only the niche labels like Island and Doctor Bird but also the majors Parlophone, EMI, Fontana and Columbia (with its off-shoot 'Columbia Blue Beat'). Distinguishable by its cleaner production and cosmopolitan feel, English Ska bore the influence of the many music styles freely available in 'Swinging London'.
While Jamaican music was well-received in Britain, the appreciation was not reciprocated. In a Jamaica, intensely proud of its new musical art, the British Beat invasion made little impression. Lyrics from Keith and Ken 1964 song "The Beatles Just Got To Go" reflected the general ambivalence of the Jamaican public:
"Exter, exterminate 'em, this just can't wait 'till later,
here's what I want you to know,
the place is a-crawlin' with some creatures called the Beatles,
but the Beatles just got to go...
We've plugged our ears on the sides,
we've tried insecticides,
hot water won't budge this thing,
you know their muckin' up the rhythm and the joint can't swing...
Exter, exterminate 'em, this just can't wait 'till later,
here's what I want you to know,
if they don't stop their hootin',
we'll really start a shootin',
so the Beatles just got to go."
In 1967, in the UK, Ska evolved into Rock Steady which in turn evolved into a British Reggae scene that would rival that of Jamaica itself. Ska music had become indelibly linked with British youth culture, and when a Ska revival sparked in the late 1970s it was unsurprisingly led by English bands like Madness, the Specials and Bad Manners.
Ska Music - a Post-Mortem
In the past, some critics have slighted Ska as monolithic and of significance only as an antecedent of Reggae. With the re-release on CD of previously rare authentic Ska, there has been a more positive reappraisal of Jamaica's original Pop music. Far from being narrow and provincial, the archives of Blue Beat, Duke Reid, Studio One et al have revealed a suite as diverse as any of the great popular musics of the world.
Afro-American music forms R&B, Jazz, Soul and Gospel provided inspiration to Jamaican musicians throughout the Ska and Rock Steady years. Lyrical and musical aspects of the Spiritual tradition were retained by vocal groups like Justin Hinds and the Dominoes, the Maytals and Desmond Dekker & the Four Aces. Bob Marley modelled his Wailers on Curtis Mayfield's Impressions, while the Blues Busters were using the male duo Gospel-Soul formula years before Sam and Dave. The sound of Jazz and Latin Jazz lived on in the recordings of Granville William's Band, The Skatalites and the Los Cabelleros Orchestra.
Other species of Caribbean music pre-dating Ska - Mento, Calypso and Burru/Nyabinghi - supplemented the reservoir of instrumental and lyrical ideas available to the Ska musician. Nyabinghi, a neo-African percussion music developed by the Rastafarians of inner Kingston, helped shape Ska through drummers Count Ossie and Drumbago particularly. Calypso's story-telling function was used to great affect by Ska songwriters, with the social and political turbulence of mid-1960s Jamaica providing plenty of satirical ammunition.26 The musical concepts of Mento (essentially a faster type of Calypso) had an osmotic influence on Ska music as a whole and were particularly evident in the work of Lord Tanamo and veteran outfit Carlos Malcolm & the Afro-Caribs.
One of the distinguishing features of Ska, as opposed to Jamaican Boogie, was the utilisation of African vocal concepts. Previous to Ska, in an effort to reproduce the sound of American R&B/Jazz singers, local artists sang in a very mannered style. However, as early as 1959, on Theo Beckford's 'Easy Snappin', the usual clear enunciation is replaced by a colloquialistic slurring of the words. Throughout the early 1960s, as the songwriters and vocalists became more confident in their own artistry, the singing became progressively more natural allowing the emergence of an exotic and fascinating patois.
It was at this time that seed of the African vocal idea blossomed. This approach maximised the rhythmic capabilities of the vocal - as opposed to merely establishing melody or communicating a message. In the services of the island's Poccomanian Church, whose practices were a curious blend of ancient African custom and Protestantism, the congregation chanted incomprehensible words and noises creating rhythms and polyrhythms. The consequence of these neo-African influences on the local music was the use of scat-singing, nonsense lyrics and eventually a uniquely Jamaican vocal art known as 'toasting'.
Toasting was developed by the sound-system operators. To emphasis the music's rhythm, the DJs chanted staccato noises over the top of the instrumental tracks that were the staple of the early dancehall. A common technique was the rapid-fire repetition of words, like "ska-ska-ska" or "get-up-get-up-get-up" also employed were locomotive-noises ("ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch"), hiccups ("he-da, he-da, he-da") and grunts. Prince Buster, Coxsone Dodd and Byron Lee all utilised toasting to accentuate the fervour of their records.
Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid remained the preeminent tycoons of the Jamaican music industry, but by 1965 their primacy was challenged by a fresh crop of young producers. Many of these had been taught the business by the very men they now sought to dethrone, either as artists, e.g. Derrick Harriot, or as assistant operators, like Prince Buster. Other emerging producers were men with ideas and enthusiasm but scant experience.
The majority of this new generation of producers, such as Leslie Kong (Beverley's) and Vincent Chin (Randy's) attached themselves to one of the multitude of established or emerging small-medium companies of the late ska era - Hi-Lite, Randy's, Pussy Cat, Faith, Beverley's. However, some were able to found record companies as vehicles for their productions, as did Justin Yap with Top Deck Records and husband/wife team Linden and Sonia Pottinger with their Gaydisc, Tip Top and S.E.P. labels. Whilst the average life-span of these labels was very short indeed, taken together their contribution to Jamaica's musical heritage is as significant as that of the big two - Reid and Dodd.
Conclusion
"the music from yesterday still has its attractive sides. The problem for us is that we are not capable of making Ska music today as we did in the sixties. The sound of today is too clean, Ska music is rough - right from the heart..."27
Virtually all the great Reggae vocalists, instrumentalists and producers began their musical careers with Ska music. While in the 1970s Jimmy Cliff, Derrick Harriot, Bob Marley, Toots Hibbert, Lee Perry, Jackie Mittoo and Peter Tosh achieved worldwide acclaim, many great artists were unable to adapt with Jamaica's post-Ska musical developments.
The Blues Busters left on a boat to the USA in search of fame. Jackie Opel expired in a car crash. The Skatalites, now re-formed and based in New York, were nominated for a Grammy in 1995 - though they are without Don Drummond who murdered his girlfriend and committed suicide in jail in 1969. Meanwhile, Laurel "the Godfather of Ska" Aitken has lost his Jamaican accent and lives the quiet life of a retired English gentleman in suburban Leicester.
But what ever happened to the great Shuffle/Ska vocalists like Lascelles Perkins, Leon Silvera, Basil Gabbidon and Shenley Duffus?; what of the vocal groups the Dreamletts, the Itals and the Blues Blenders; the instrumentalists Billy Cooke, Aubrey Adams, and the mysterious bass player known only as 'Blues'?
Thirty-plus years on, early Jamaican music - Jazz, R&B and Ska - remains an unjustly neglected areas of musicological study. Recent CD releases such as 'Jamaican Boogie - The Dawn of Ska' (Sequel Records) gives one hope that the enormous talent of the pioneering Jamaican artists and producers and the quality of the musical heritage they helped create will one day get the recognition it deserves.
By the end of 1967 the reign of Ska was over. It was replaced as Jamaica's now-sound by 'Rock Steady' - a slower, stripped-down breed of Ska. The erotic lurch of songs like Hopeton Lewis' "Take It Easy", The Wailer's "Put It On" and Delroy Wilson's "Dancing Mood" was easily distinguishable from the aggressiveness of Ska.
While owing a debt to Soul music, Rock Steady signified a further shift away from Jamaican music's American roots. The Rock Steady period, despite producing some of the most accomplished and sublime recordings in all Roots music, lasted only two years, being superseded in 1968 by Jamaica's most enduring musical creation - Reggae.
By 1969 the connection between contemporary Jamaican music and American R&B was almost completely indiscernible.
It had been a very quick ten years.
Recommended Listening:
Various - Ska Boogie - Jamaican R&B, The Dawn of Ska - Sequel Various - Ska Bonanza - The Studio One the Ska Years - Heartbeat Various - Jazz in Jamaica - Lagoon Various - Original Club Ska - Heartbeat Various - The Birth of Ska - Trojan Derrick Morgan - Blazing Fire - Unicorn Various - Monkey Ska - Trojan Various - Its Shuffle and Ska Time...- Jamaican Gold
1 Chris Wilson, Liner Notes to Ska Bonanza, Heartbeat Records 1991
2 Tommy McCook and Cluet Johnson were both members of Roy Coburn's group.
3 ibid
4 Interview with Aad van der Hoek, Liner Notes to Derrick Harriot & the Jiving Juniors - The Donkey Years 1961-1965, Jamaican Gold records 1993
5 "Round" because it has no edges.
6 ibid
7 So-named for the Trojan van that Reid used to transport his equipment.
8 Sebastian Clarke, Jah Music, Heinemann Educational Books 1980, p.58-9. Note that the record was Willis 'Gatortail' Jackson's 'Later For Gator'.
9 op cit van der Hoek
10 Unknown audio file on Internet
11 Duke Reid named his record label after the family business - "Treasure Isle Liquor Store.
12 'Ska Down Jamaica Way', Ferdie Nelson and Ivan Yap, Top Deck Records.
13 There is some dispute as to the year in question 1959 has also been quoted but early 1961 would appear to be the more reliable.
14 Unknown audio file on Internet
15 There are alternative explanations for the origin of the word "ska", e.g. Jackie Mittoo said that Byron Lee devised the term, however, the explanation here provided has the most support.
16 op cit Clarke p.69
17 Liner notes, The Birth of Ska, Trojan Records 1989
18 Chris Wilson, liner notes to Original Club Ska, Heartbeat Records 1990
19 Lloyd Davey interview with Mohair Slim 17 August 1996
20 op cit Clarke p.70-1
21 Liner notes to Byron Lee & the Dragonaires Play Dynamite Ska, Jamaican Gold Records 1993
22 The policy of record companies to pay performers per side meant that between 1962 and 1966 literally thousands of ska songs were recorded - a remarkable number given the small size of the market. This payment method also forced the musicians to experiment in order to come up with new tunes.
23 op cit Clarke p.78
24 Cashbox, August 22 1964, "See Ska As Hitting the Dance Floor Before It Hits In Disk Field"
25 Georgie Fame recorded Ska for the R&B label under the name Clive Golden.
26 i.e. the Rude Boy songs of the late Ska early Rock Steady period.
27 Byron Lee interview from Liner Notes to Byron Lee & the Dragonaires play Dynamite Ska, Jamaican Gold Records 1993
(First published 2001, all rights reserved)
