RIP, Ranking Roger

As if the month of March weren't bad enough, last week I learned that Roger Charlery, Ranking Roger of The (English) Beat, died on March 26th at the entirely too young age of 56. The Beat formed a large part of the soundtrack of my youth, and the band was a 'gateway' to the rocksteady and ska musicians I love so much. Start with the Beat, find your way to Phyllis Dillon and Toots and the Maytals.

The Beat was blessed with two handsome, charismatic frontmen, and the interplay between Ranking Roger's Caribbean-inflected tones and Dave Wakeling's deep Brummagem burr was as integral to the band's sound as their incorporation of Caribbean and Latin instrumentation into their punk-tinged ska/rocksteady blend.

On the band's fist album, 1980's I Just Can't Stop It, the song Ranking Full Stop was the perfect showcase for Roger's mile-a-minute 'toasting' style. From the US Festival, this live version of the infectiously danceable tune is a gem:





Here's a rendition from 2016, in which Roger and his son perform the song, followed by the Beat signature tune Mirror in the Bathroom. The man hadn't lost his touch at all in the intervening decades:





The Beat wasn't just about party music, they were intensely passionate about politics, and articulated a vision for a multi-racial, multi-cultural society... one of their clarion calls was 'Love and Unity, the Only Way':





The Beat's second album, 1981's Wha'ppen, slowed down the frenetic tempo of the first album and incorporated more West African influences. The standout single Doors of Your Heart, a 'unity rocker', opened the album... again, here's the version from the US Festival:





The Beat's third and final album, 1982's Special Beat Service, was their American breakthrough, anchored by the single Save it for Later. While it had the Beat's most conventional rock tunes, it also included some of the band's 'purest' Caribbean dancehall style patois-heavy songs, such as Spar Wid Me:





Special Beat Service was on constant rotation at our house, it was a large part of the soundtrack of my high school years. Due to internal conflicts in the band, it was their last album, their big breakthrough was followed by the big breakup. Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling formed General Public, whose first single was 1984's Tenderness:





Roger also collaborated with other artists, such as the Clash, with whom he sang Police and Thieves during a 1981 concert:





In the 90's Roger reunited with Pato Banton, with whom he sang Pato and Roger a Go Talk on Special Beat Service for Bubbling Hot:





In the 21st Century, Roger kept performing in various incarnations of The Beat, and performed with his son. His last tour was in 2017, as recounted in this news item:





I spent this morning binge-listening to The Beat's three albums and various singles that Ranking Roger performed on. He was a big part of my youth, and I'm grateful for the message of love, peace, and unity that he always conveyed. By all accounts, he was a lovely man and he was a fine role model, which is altogether too uncommon among celebrities.

John Holt, RIP

I've been on a bit of a Blondie kick lately, and in what has turned out to be a cover songs thread at Roy's place, made reference to Blondie's The Tide is High, which is a cover of a song by the The Paragons, one of Jamaica's most popular rocksteady combos:





The song was written and sung by John Holt, who passed away in London on October 19th. Before joining The Paragons, John Holt launched his singing career with the 1963 single Forever I'll Stay:





He followed this single up with Rum Bumpers, a duet with Alton Ellis:





After his stint with the Paragons, Mr Holt had a very successful solo career interpreting the popular songbook in the reggae idiom, scoring a hit with a version of The Temptations' I Want a Love:





In the 1970s, Mr Holt collaborated with producer Tony Ashfield, who added lush production values to Mr Holt's recordings, scoring hits with cover songs such as Help Me Make It Through The Night, written by Kris Kristofferson:





With the rich production values and romantic themes, John Holt paved the way for the lovers' rock subgenre.

After a conversion to Rastafarianism, Mr Holt took on more political themes in his songwriting, with Police in Helicopter addressing a crackdown on marijuana growing in Jamaica:





John Holt had a long, storied career which serves as a beautiful microcosm ofmultiple Jamaican popular musical styles of the late 20th century, ranging from ska to rocksteady to reggae, to lovers' rock. It's fitting that he collapsed onstage during a music festival in August of this year... that is the mark of a true music powerhouse.

Ernest Always Gets an Upvote

Last night was a rough night- the nor'easter which hit the area (the wind is still gusting fiercely) took down a bunch of tree branches on the property at work, and at home the barbecue grill was knocked over, so I will have to right it when things get calm. Locally, an eleven year-old boy was killed by a falling tree limb. Driving to work had a surreal edge, truck traffic was halted on certain roadways, and passing a quarter-mile line of eighteen-wheelers isn't something that I'm used to.

It's still windy and cold, maybe it's time for a tropical breeze. At Roy's place, billcinsd and I were waxing lyrical about legendary Jamaican guitarist, composer, and arranger Ernest Ranglin. As far as I know, his greatest chart success as a session musician was playing behind Millie Smalls' worldwide hit My Boy Lollipop, and he was instrumental (heh) in defining the sound of Jamaican popular music forms ska, rocksteady, and reggae. He was also a titan of jazz, and collaborated on many recordings with countryman and piano legend Monty Alexander. The two have a great way of revealing the jazz roots of Jamaican popular music, with this Ranglin, Alexander, Sly & Robbie take on Surfin' being a standout (with Robbie Shakespeare's vocal performance channeling an old bluesman):





Mr Ranglin also does a great version of Augustus Pablo's seminal dub track King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. Dub, with its recursive loops punctuated by snatches of melody, marries well with jazz:





There's a great live video of Ernest playing NPR's 'Tiny Desk' music series, and generally being awesome:





One of the jewels in my record collection is a promotional disc of Ernest Ranglin and Monty Alexander, purchased from a music archive housecleaning sale. I'm not a huge jazz fan, but Ernest always gets an upvote from me.

Millie Small, Big Loss

This week has had nothing but terrible news about titans of popular music. I will definitely post about Little Richard's death, but that post is going to involve hunting down a bunch of links. Tonight, I am going to commemorate a singer who could be seen as a 'one hit wonder', but her one hit was a titanic smash worldwide. Jamaican-born singer Millie Small died of a stroke at the age of 72. She is primarily known for her 1964 bluebeat/ska rendition of doo-wop song My Boy Lollipop, with arrangement and rhythm guitar work by Bastard fave Ernest Ranglin. The teenaged Ms Small's cheery warble and wholesome charisma catapulted her to the top ten throughout the anglophone world. The song's appeal is immediately apparent on one listen:





With this one song, the first song by a Jamaican artist to become an international hit, Millie Small opened the door for other artists, such as Desmond Dekker, Phyllis Dillon, and Bob Marley, Prince Buster, Toots Hibbert, and John Holt. The next big boost for a second wave of Jamaican music worldwide was the 1972 release of The Harder they Come.

Millie Small was also instrumental in the rise of Island Records, which grew to become a music juggernaut.

Ms Small didn't shy away from political content, releasing a musical rebuttal to racist politician Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood', countering it with the observation about Jamaicans living in England: They work all week to keep the British country running. The song begins with a brilliant musical accusation that Powell is a fascist:





Millie Small's discography might not be very extensive, but her affect on popular music was enormous. Her international ska ambassadorship ultimately paved the way for artists playing a succession of musical styles, such as rocksteady and reggae, and hip-hop.

Toots Taken! This Time It's Personal, 2020

 This being 2020, the tragedies keep accumulating, and the latest one is truly saddening to me: Jamaican music legend Toots Hibberts died yesterday from COVID-19 related illness.  I have always been public about my love for Toots and the Maytals' music, and was excited to hear that Toots released a new single just about a month ago.  My first exposure, as a youth, to Toots' music was through the Clash cover of Pressure Drop... if you like a band, seek out the music of the bands that inspired them, and you won't be disappointed.

Like so many musicians, Toots got his start singing in a church choir as a kid, and throughout much of the 60s, he sang in vocal groups.  Things get particularly interesting with the release of Bam Bam, which in 1966 became the first Jamaica Independence Festival song winner:

Toots career was briefly sidelined when he served a jail sentence for marijuana possession, an experience that inspired his anthem 54-46 That's My Number: He was instrumental in the formulation of reggae music (here's a good primer on the distinctions between ska, rocksteady, and reggae music), and his song Do the Reggay lent its name to the genre: 1969 saw the release of Pressure Drop, the song which ultimately formed my introduction to Toots' body of work. The song was featured in the film The Harder They Come, which brought Jamaican music to a global audience: Toots had a knack for singing about the plight of the disadvantaged, and Time Tough is a perfect anthem for the overstressed and undercompensated: Toots wasn't always a poet of privation, many of his songs were joyful, and Monkey Man, a tale of losing a girl to a dummy, managed to be simultaneously lugubrious and hilarious: Pomps and Pride, the 1972 Jamaica Independence Festival Popular Song winner, is an exhortation to stop crying and to be happy in the moment: In the mid 1970s, Funky Kingston was conceived as a project to bring Toots music to an international audience familiar to funk and R&B music: I'm saving my favorite song by Toots and the Maytals for last... I'm not one to claim a particular favorite song, because my musical tastes tend to depend on mood, and it's impossible to narrow down any 'favorite', but if I were injected with sodium pentothal and put under duress to name a favorite song, there's perhaps a 70% chance I'd say Sweet and Dandy, a song I posted an analysis of years ago. It's a... uhhhh... sweet and dandy song about a family talking through a young couple's pre-wedding nervousness, and it's a pure, unadulterated joy to listen to. Here's the song as featured in The Harder They Come: Could there be a more perfect song? Years ago, I went to a local coffee shop to see a friend play, and after the performance, the barista and I started talking about music, and he ended up putting Sweet and Dandy on repeat and we sang along multiple times. About a year afterward, he ended up working at the cafe at my workplace, and we instantly returned to Toots. Toots was a nonesuch. He may not be as well-known as Bob Marley, but I think he was more of an innovator. I have to confess that I prefer Bob Marley's Redemption Song, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't listen more to Toots: Thankfully, Toots left us with one last album before he went on to the Great Beyond, one last, appropriate gift to help us cope with these tough times: If you are new to Toots, here is a full concert with Toots at the height of his powers: And here's a documentary exploring Toots' role in the evolution of Jamaican popular music genres: What a life! What a performer! It's been sad to hear of Toots' illness, sadder still to learn that he succumbed to it, but the way to remember the man is to blast his music, and there are hours worth of sheer listening pleasure. I've already listened to Sweet and Dandy a half dozen times today, which goes a long way toward making the sadness bearable.

From Houston to Kingston

As if this year hasn't been a big enough bummer, I learned of the recent death of singer and music executive Johnny Nash.  Mr Nash is primarily known for his smash international hit I Can See Clearly Now-  because of the song's reggae-inflected sound, I have to confess that I was an adult when I learned that Johnny Nash was born and raised in Texas, not Jamaica.

With his clear tenor voice and teen idol looks, Johnny Nash's first major label single was his 1956 release A Teenager Sings the Blues:

 

 

He first charted with a cover of A Very Special Love in 1958: 

 

 

 

In 1965, Nash had a hit on the American R&B charts with Let's Move and Groove Together: 

 

 

 

1965 was also the year when Johnny Nash moved to Jamaica with his manager and formed a company to market American singers in Jamaica. Upon meeting Robert Nesta Marley, he signed the young singer on with publishing company Cayman Music. As for his own music, he was inspired by the rocksteady scene, recording Hold Me Tight in 1968 for his newly formed label JAD Records: 

 

 

 

JAD Records also signed Jamaican music legends Bob Marley, Rita Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and Jimmy Cliff. Johnny Nash had a hit with his 1971 cover version of Bob Marley's Stir It Up: 

 

 

 

 My introduction to Johnny Nash, as a boy, was his 1972 international smash hit I Can See Clearly Now, backed by The Fabulous Five, Inc.. It's a gloriously optimistic song, just the sort of spirit lifter we need in these dark and stupid days:

 

  

 

Besides being a singer/songwriter and music executive, Johnny Nash was also an actor, having roles in 1959 bildungsroman Take a Giant Step and 1971 romance Vill så gärna tro. 

For his role in promoting and popularizing Jamaican music worldwide, Johnny Nash has had a couple of profiles in the Jamaica Gleaner. His passing elicited a heartfelt proclamation by Jamaican culture minister Olivia Grange: 

“The Johnny Nash experience tells a very credible story of Reggae's international influence since its inception. The fact that Johnny Nash and his manager Danny Sims were willing to move to Jamaica to record and produce reggae music meant that they were seeing the true potential of the music. Bob Marley and Peter Tosh wrote several songs for him and they in turn taught him how to play Reggae rhythm guitar. Johnny Nash covered a number of the Wailers' songs. It was a wonderful setup full of young, exuberant talent. Today we see similar connections being made between young Jamaican artistes and other young artistes and producers all over the globe. Jamaica is grateful for his contribution and we know that his legacy will live on.” 

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of my post, as a young 'un, I believed that Johnny Nash was Jamaican, and while I was wrong about the details, I think I was right in an existential sense... Houston and Kingston lost an icon with his passing.