Post by messenger on Jun 19, 2004 17:14:16 GMT -5
Music, culture & politics
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Title: Reggae Heritage
- Jamaica music Culture and Politics
Author: Lou Gooden
Publisher: Lou Gooden
Reviewer: Balford Henry
Lou Gooden regards this book as an anthology of Jamaica's culture. He thinks it is a must read for anyone interested in the island's music: a kind of reference book that ought to be passed on down the generations.
Sounds a bit ambitious. But, considering that most books about Jamaican music are written by people who actually experienced very little, firsthand, of what they write about, or are quite likely not even Jamaican, his is a very important literary publication.
Lou's past is linked to some of the very early development in Jamaican music.
For example, he was a deejay with Tom, The Great Sebastian, regarded as the first commercial sound system to be created in Jamaica.
He worked with WIRL, once owned by Edward Seaga, and later renamed Dynamic Sounds Limited, the island's major distributor of foreign and local music.
He is associated with the launch of Metro Media, one of the most durable and popular Jamaican sound systems ever, as the Silver Slipper and Baby Grand night clubs in Cross Roads which provided the backdrop for a lot of the early developments in our live music.
Gooden moved to the United States in 1981, studied broadcasting, and worked with WNWK 105.9 FM, a pioneer in West Indian radio in New York which was sold to Spanish owners in the late 1990s, and WRTN 93.5 FM which still carries the flag in the tri-city area.
He returned home in 2002, completed his book and was employed by his old friend, the late Clement "Sir Coxson" Dodd, at Studio One Records/Jamaica Recording and Publishing at Studio One Boulevard in Kingston.
The book is rich with historical data about various issues, venues, events and names from the past.
It goes back to early boogie-woogie days when foreign artistes like Louis Jordan, Fats Domino and Shirley and Lee dominated local music.
According to Gooden: "There are a large number of people who would like to associate themselves with the early history of Jamaica's music industry. They believed that you had to be standing on the corner of Luke Lane and Charles Street, in downtown Kingston, listening and sometimes dancing to the sound of Tom The Great Sebastian (sound system).
"Most of these so-called want-to-bes were not old enough to realise what was happening concerning the new rising sound systems. I was under parental control at that time and will not lie to prove that I was there at the beginning. I was a part of the early building of Jamaica's musical heritage. I contributed much more than most of these want-to-bes. I lived it then, not later."
Gooden even takes the Gleaner to task for providing "platforms to (sic) writers who have been misleading the public with their misinformation." He claims that, "Sunday after Sunday, the public is fed with information given by some writers who will not check the facts before writing them down." The errors include referring to the Skatalites as an American band and Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop", and not Desmond Dekker and the Aces' "Poor Mi Israelite", as the first gold-selling Jamaican record.
Gooden shows to what extent Jamaica's cultural heritage is misrepresented abroad, as well. He writes that during 1993 he bought a biographical book on Marcus Garvey at Barnes and Nobel in New York which opened with the statement that Garvey was born in London.
In a vain mood like that, you expect that Gooden should be able to deliver on some of the most glaring omissions from the annals of local music. Personally, I think he has come closer to the real genesis of the music and the industry that any one else has so far.
Starting out as Thomas Wong's third DJ on the Great Sebastian sound system, he played then hot spots like the Silver Slipper Club in Cross Roads, Champion House, Baby Grand, Blue Mist and Johnson's Drive Inn. All I can recall of the Silver Slipper was passing it on the way to St Francis Primary in Cross Roads and that Johnson's was the first place I tasted fried chicken and fries.
Gooden's rates himself as the founder of Metro Media, still one of the island's top discos. He said he selected the name for the label on which the Winston's perennial Father's day favourite Color Him Father, came out on.
He later helped to establish the Top Hat Club on Red Hills Road, which was then the mecca of Jamaica's night life. The place was so loaded with night clubs from top to bottom, ranging from the upscale Turntable to the raw Panderosa, which would take "bleachers" like myself a whole night to fully assimilate.
Incidentally, Gooden doesn't limit his book to music. He has sketches of the island's early political leaders and national heroes - Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley - as well their contempotaries like Garvey.
Tuning to the Rastafarian movement, Gooden noted the inability to develop a comprehensive religion, which led to "varying views".
"There was not even agreement on basic doctrine or a canon of scripture," he remarked.
Personally, I was happy to see that Gooden recognised the work of the late Vere Johns in this book. Johns is probably the most overlooked contributor to the success of our music and the business and really deserves to be resurrected in literature on these early years.
The books also pays a great deal of tribute to Sonny Bradshaw's work in those early days, including the success of his early Sevens which won numerous Press polls among the big jazz bands.
He covers most of the top names in the early era of the music as well as issues like: festival songs, recording studios, pressing plants, major distributors, and record producers.
Whatever he has written here I cannot account for the veracity of everything, especially the pre-1970s. But I must admit that from my knowledge, there is quite a bit of factual information contained in these pages and I would certainly recommend this book as reference material for anyone interested in the culture.
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See Pic: www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/onhold/20040619T160000-0500_61467_OBS_MUSIC__CULTURE___POLITICS.asp