CONTENTS

Information Page

Introduction

Chapter One – Early Days

Chapter Two – Rudie Don’t Fear

Chapter Three – Hippy Boys

Chapter Four – Liquidator

Chapter Five – Upsettin’

Chapter Six – Black Progress

Chapter Seven – Soul Rebels

Chapter Eight – Soul Revolution

Chapter Nine – Trenchtown Rock

Chapter Ten – Youth Professionals

Chapter Eleven – The Harder They Come

Chapter Twelve – Catch A Fire

Chapter Thirteen – Midnight Ravers

Chapter Fourteen – Burnin’

Chapter Fifteen – Pick A Dub

Chapter Sixteen – Rebel Music

Chapter Seventeen – Talkin’ Blues

Chapter Eighteen – Fire Burning

Chapter Nineteen – Natty Dread

Chapter Twenty – All The Way From Trenchtown

Chapter Twenty-One – Dread Lion

Chapter Twenty-Two – Rastaman Vibration

Chapter Twenty-Three – Smile Jamaica

Chapter Twenty-Four – Exile In London

Chapter Twenty-Five – Kaya

Chapter Twenty-Six – Tuff Gong Uprising

Chapter Twenty-Seven – African Skies

Chapter Twenty-Eight – Harbour Sharks

Chapter Twenty-Nine – Bad Card

Chapter Thirty – Hurting Inside

Chapter Thirty-One – Fussing And Fighting

Chapter Thirty-Two – Real Situation

Chapter Thirty-Three – Who The Cap Fit

Chapter Thirty-Four – Who Colt The Game

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

IFIRST fell under the Wailers’ spell after seeing their television appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973. However, the moment of realisation, when everything clicked into place, didn’t arrive until years later, after Aston “Family Man” Barrett sat down at a piano and rattled off a selection of what he called “half blues”. A few of the other Wailers who were there that night in the back room of a south London pub gave knowing smiles as “Fams” worked his way through ‘Easy Snappin’’, ‘Stand By Me’, and a couple of Fats Domino tunes. The roots of the band’s music were laid bare and the differences between the seductive rhythms of the Caribbean, the sounds of black and hillbilly America and England’s gospel and music hall tradition all blurred into one, causing my head to spin. In a flash, I saw that categories are meaningless and that music is an undying spirit which can never be confined by time, place, or genre. It can however, carry a message. The way Family Man and the Wailers used music to convey something so life-affirming filled me with wonder … and still does.

Family Man taught me a great deal more in the nine years I spent working on this book, as we travelled intermittently throughout America, Europe, and Jamaica, or sat talking in an endless succession of tour buses and hotel rooms. I came to understand that even Bob Marley, blessed as he was with prodigious gifts of his own, would have struggled to craft his songs of freedom without this affable master of sound at his side.

Fams feels he’s been cheated out of his life’s work, and has good reason to. He poured his heart and soul into making music that succeeded in fulfilling all the ambitions he and his fellow Wailers harboured and that has touched millions of people, yet he’s been forced to watch from the sidelines as others have stolen the credit and rewards, leaving him with an increasingly empty feeling and a cult status that can’t feed his large family. While Marley was alive, Family Man felt protected and free to follow his creative muse as he pleased, despite the political violence surrounding 56 Hope Road, or the complexities of the Wailers’ recording contract. The mission to glorify Jah was always at the forefront of the band’s music alongside a desire to comfort, educate and inspire all creeds, as well as aligning themselves with black liberation. Theirs was a selfless undertaking and while the Wailers enjoyed the fruits of hard-earned success, they cared little for material gain. With Tuff Gong, they were intent on building a network of business enterprises that would have revolutionised the local record industry and helped many young people escape from Trenchtown’s crime, violence, poverty and frustration.

If Family Man feels embittered, it’s because some of the people who’ve now turned their backs once shared in this grand adventure, when the Wailers had spread their roots rock reggae gospel to the four corners of the earth. One of the things that struck me most about the bassist was his well-mannered conservatism, yet the rebel in him still burns brightly. Knowing what I know now, I blame his mother. The former Violet Marshall is descended from the Maroons, a community of escaped slaves who lived free in the Jamaican mountains. They remained at large throughout the reign of the Spanish, who called these escaped slaves “cimarrons”, meaning “wild ones”. Under the leadership of legendary figures such as Cudjoe, the Maroons developed early forms of guerilla warfare in eluding their pursuers and were never defeated, despite being confronted by superior numbers and firepower. The British were forced to sign a treaty in 1738, guaranteeing them self-governance. In return they would cease their raids on plantations, hand back any escaped slaves seeking to join them and, in the event of an invasion, fight on the side of the British army. At Cudjoe’s insistence, he and the British commander signed the treaty in blood and the Maroons have continued to retain relative autonomy ever since.

It’s their unique history that makes the Maroons so different from other Jamaicans. Family Man delights in tracing his ancestry back to the arrival of the British, reminding people there were Barretts in Jamaica “long before any Marleys or Blackwells”. In a curious twist of fate, these same Barretts were also related to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It’s an unlikely scenario, but from this mix of slavery and nobility came a character destined to play a central role in the life story of Jamaica’s most famous musician, Robert Nesta Marley.

CHAPTER ONE

Early Days

JAMAICA was still under colonial rule in 1946, the year that Aston “Family Man” Barrett was born. Life on the island was rapidly changing and not necessarily for the better, since Jamaica’s army of small-time farmers and plantation workers were experiencing grave hardship and large numbers of them had begun looking for work in the towns, swelling urban populations to breaking point. This in turn led to slums springing up on the outskirts of Kingston. Riots and strikes became commonplace – a situation the British government largely turned a blind eye to, since it was more concerned with rebuilding its own war-torn cities after the ravages of World War II than tackling problems faced by its colonies. Jamaica however, had contributed in no small measure to the Allied war effort and so would continue to receive limited financial assistance in return for increased quotas of local products such as sugar and bauxite. This helped the middle classes, but made little provision for the poor, who were faced with rising insecurities in the wake of their traditional farming economy being threatened with collapse.

Violet Marshall’s family weren’t alone in leaving the countryside for a new life in the city. They had lived near Mount James in the parish of St Andrew’s before settling in Kingston. Violet married Wilfred Barrett, who was a blacksmith from Fletcher’s Land, near George VI Memorial Park (now National Heroes Park) in central Kingston, although his family were originally from St Elizabeth. The couple had three daughters, Fay, Olive and Winsome, before Aston Francis Barrett arrived on November 22, 1946. Another son, Carlton, would be born four years later, on December 17, 1950. Winsome went to live with an aunt in St Mary’s, so the rest of the family didn’t see a great deal of her apart from during the holidays.

During the brothers’ early childhood, the Barretts lived at 26 Beeston Street, on the corner of Chancery Lane in downtown Kingston. Beeston Street was one block away from Orange Street, which came to be known as “Beat Street” because of the many record stores and studios found in the immediate vicinity. The teeming, musical metropolis this downtown area of Kingston would become was still some way off, however, and the local recording industry non-existent. The sound of big band jazz and New Orleans dominated people’s musical tastes, as well as native, Caribbean styles Duch as mento. Churchmusic, too, resonated with poorer, religious families like the Barretts, as well as country & western artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Marty Robbins, Jim Reeves, and Hank Williams, who sang of everyday life and hardships in ways ordinary Jamaicans could understand only too well.

The year after Carlton was born, the Barretts’ roof was badly damaged after a hurricane swept across Jamaica, destroying thousands of homes and leaving the countryside decimated in its wake.* Aston remembers playing in the pools of water it left behind, but his fondest memories are of the music he’d hear at Christmas time, when his father would take up a harmonica and entertain the family during the holidays.

“When my daddy played that harmonica, it sounded like a piano,” Family Man recalls. “I could hear the bass and the melody in there. In fact, it was like country & western, the way he played it. I remember him saying that my grandfather was a player of many instruments, so I must follow in his footsteps. He was a tinsmith and played bass, guitar, and everything. I only used to see my other grandparents when I was much smaller, because they died quite close to one another. And I didn’t know my father’s mother and father at all.”

The Barretts’ living quarters backed onto a communal space – called a tenement yard in Jamaica – for washing and recreation, shared by several other families. While most were part of government housing schemes, this one was owned by a Mr Davis, who was related to local saxophone player Val Bennett. Aston describes Bennett as “the King Curtis of Jamaica” and would watch entranced as he and his band rehearsed in the same yard where he lived. Bennett’s rhythm section at the time comprised Lloyd Knibs on drums, Lloyd Brevette on upright bass and Jah Jerry on guitar (all three would later join the Skatalites), along with two other regular visitors to the Barretts’ tenement yard: tenor sax player Tommy McCook and alto saxophonist Roland Alphonso. Bennett’s daughter Fay was another occasional visitor. She later became known in reggae circles for her duets with Charlie Ace, but she was primarily an actress and would often perform with the comedians Bim & Bam at Kingston’s Regal Theatre. Bim & Bam lived across the street from the Barretts, in the same building where Bob Marley would one day open a record store.

Music and performing made an impression upon Aston and Carlton from the beginning, but their early lives were also disciplined and, like their sisters, both were expected to attend St Patrick’s Church on North Street and the Salvation Army on Sunday mornings. Aston’s school, like St Patrick’s, was affiliated to the Catholic faith and had separate facilities for boys and girls. Fay and Olive both attended St Aloysius Girls’ School, while Aston followed in his father’s footsteps and enrolled at the nearby Boys’ School in Duke Street. St Aloysius had been a mixed convent school when Aston’s father went there, but it was rebuilt as two distinct institutions after a fire razed the original premises. While attending St Aloysius, Aston first met Herman Chin Loy, who would later own the Aquarius record shop and label in Halfway Tree. By this time, the Barretts had moved from their tenement yard into a family house at 23 Upper West Street in Hannah Town, not far from Kingston Public Hospital. They also lived in the Franklyn Town area, while saving to put down a deposit on a property of their own.

To get to school from Upper West Street, Aston would cut onto Orange Street and head for North Parade before turning into Duke Street. After lessons, he and his friends would sometimes walk around the corner to Ocean Boulevard and watch the ships sail into the docks. Kingston’s waterfront was a hive of activity and a centre for both commercial and navy vessels. Aston immediately took note of the sailors’ uniforms and would often wear military style clothing in later years, explaining how he “favoured the rude boy look.” There weren’t too many opportunities for misbehaviour at either home or school, however, since the teachers at St Aloysius weren’t exactly shy of using their canes to discipline unruly students, as the more rebellious Herman would discover. Aston, on the other hand, was among the brightest pupils in his class and a prefect too, for a time. He proudly recalls how his name was the first to be called out at assembly in the mornings, which meant he had to be punctual. There’s little doubt that he was diligent and determined during his school years.

However, music was in the Barrett blood and there was little chance of Aston avoiding the growing number of sound-systems, or mobile discotheques, playing in the Kingston area throughout the Fifties. While he was too young to attend in person, these sound-systems, nicknamed “houses of joy”, would often set up in open-air venues and, thanks to huge speakers, the music could be heard for some distance. As a child, Aston remembers Tom the Great Sebastian spinning the latest rhythm & blues tunes from America, and how policeman Arthur Reid’s wife won the lottery and invested her winnings into the Treasure Isle liquor store. Her husband subsequently bought a white fishtail Chevrolet Trojan and earned himself the nickname of Duke Reid the Trojan after taking ownership of a sound-system. He would eventually build a studio above the store and produce some of Jamaica’s best-ever rocksteady sides on his Treasure Isle label, but back then sound-system competition was his abiding passion and Coxsone Dodd (who owned a set called Downbeat) had become his greatest rival.

The late Fifties was a good time to enter the music business, since sound-systems were highly popular and record sales had boomed as small Dansette players came on the market. Federal owners Ken and Gloria Khouri became the first major players in the Jamaican recording industry after establishing an office at 129 King Street, cutting a tune called ‘Skokian’, which many consider to be the first-ever Jamaican recording. Local radio had also made its appearance by then, since JBC had started in 1959 and RJR was certainly in existence by 1960. Island Records’ supremo Chris Blackwell once rented an office above JBC, where artists such as Wilfred Edwards and Owen Gray would visit him and wait to hear their songs played over the air. The US stations WINZ and WGBS proved more popular, since they played a wider range of music, including hits from London and Latin America, as well as the United States.

Family Man Barrett: “They’d play all kinds of music, so we’d hear rhythm & blues from Chicago, soul, jazz, and also this style they called merengue. The latest sound back then was this Caribbean music they call soca now. It was like calypso and then there was this older type called the quadrille, which had faded out by the time I started playing. But we used to have this system called Rediffusion where you can just rent a box screwed into the wall and with wires attached, like how they run cable now. This was before my dad bought us a radio, which was a British make called a Philips. I never had a favourite programme, because I’d just listen to whatever song hit, then turn it right up!”

One of Aston’s early favourites was Prince Buster, who opened Prince Buster’s Record Shack on the corner of nearby Luke Lane and Charles Street in 1956. Forrester’s Hall and Jubilee Tile Gardens were both popular venues for sound-system dances, and rivalry was keen between Buster’s Voice of the People set and those owned by Duke Reid, Count Bells, Tom the Great Sebastian, Coxsone, and King Edwards. Unlike his competitors, Buster couldn’t afford to make trips to the US for records, so instead he championed whatever local music he could find, especially songs he produced for his own labels. Buster’s early hits included ‘Humpty Dumpty’ by Eric “Monty” Morris, Basil Gabiddon’s ‘Put On Your Warpaint Baby’ and his own ‘Bad Minded People’.

In 1960, after Coxsone had lured away some of his key musicians, Buster brought the Folkes Brothers and Count Ossie’s drummers into the studio for the first examples of recorded Rasta music. ‘Chubby’ and ‘Oh Carolina’, released in 1961 when Aston was just 14, marked the first time he or anyone else had heard the sounds of nyahbinghi committed to vinyl, but they were the exceptions in a field dominated by rhythm & blues and what Barrett calls “half blues”. Prince Buster would soon become the king of ska or blue beat and also Jamaica’s leading hit maker in Britain, where he spearheaded the craze for Jamaican music among white working class audiences.

“Some people have said that reggae music and ska came from pocomania or calypso, but it was nothing of the sort,” explains singer Alton Ellis. “The ska came from American music. We used to dance to that music, because Coxsone used to buy rhythm & blues music from America and then make some specials for himself based on songs by people like Louis Jordan and Rosco Gordon. These were the artists who influenced us in making our own thing, because as soon as Coxsone play a Louis Jordan or whatever, another man would go jump on a plane and buy it the same day. That’s why Coxsone began to make his own records using guys who came from the Alpha Boys’ School and could imitate the American music.

“It was the New Orleans sound that was popular back then and that’s what we followed. It’s a shuffle; the left hand is playing on the beat and the right hand is playing just a little bit off. We copied our sound from that and called it the ska and that is how our thing evolved. Then it gradually developed into the rocksteady and the reggae from there.”

In 1957 the Barrett family moved again, this time to 8 Van Street, in Rollington Town, Kingston 2. This was an area on the eastern outskirts of town, not far from Mountain View Avenue, which skirted the foot of Warieka Hill and the Long Mountain range. This upheaval meant that Aston had to change schools, since it was now too far for him to reach St Aloysius. His parents therefore got him transferred to Vauxhall School, which he attended for just a short time.

“In the first term you are a new student; just enrol and nothing done, so I don’t get back the same marks again and I never get no form of justice from that school really. The vibes change because I was taken out of the scholarship class and I get downhearted, so I couldn’t take any more school after that. I just couldn’t get my head into the place, ’cause it was unfair to me, y’know? My father, he got hold of some encyclopaedias for me around that time, but that’s when I get into the rude boy circles and get a little unruly and unfocused. But I was always a strong-minded guy. I knew the difference between good and bad and realised how it wasn’t so good to go walking on the wild side.”

Faced with the prospect of working in some unsatisfactory job or getting into further trouble, he joined the Jamaica Youth Corps. It was his sister Olive’s friend Keith Young who recommended him. There were two Youth Corps camps in Jamaica at the time. One was in the St Andrew’s area called Chester Vale and the other was in the parish of Manchester, in a mountainous district called Cobbler, midway between Christiana and Spaldings. Aston would spend the next 18 months of his life there, based in Block D, dormitory 10. During the day, he was expected to work hard, planting crops, feeding animals and breaking rocks in a nearby quarry overlooked by a steep incline dubbed Independence Hill. The camp consisted of 75 acres when he arrived, but soon expanded to well over 300 acres in total and is still used as a government training camp to this day. Aston felt at home living in such country surroundings, since the Barrett children would regularly visit relatives in places such as Mount James, St Mary’s and Bangor Ridge, Portland, during their school holidays. He particularly enjoyed the clean air and fresh food and, while his time there was regimented, he discovered there were plenty of recreational opportunities on offer and not just football, cricket or lawn tennis.

“We form a little group called the Drive-In Cracker Boys!” Fams exclaims. “One of the teachers heard me playing around on the piano and started to encourage us from there. He even tried to make some arrangements to take us into town and into a studio to record. Well we didn’t reach the studio, but we did some recording on his two-track tape machine and it was fun to hear ourselves played back, I tell you! This was the first time we’d had access to any instruments and there were five of us altogether. There was Marcus Wright, Winston Thomas and myself, but I don’t remember the other two.

“I wasn’t so good on piano at the time, but this guy Winston Thomas from St Ann’s we call Duppy Ranch, he used to play it really well. He was teaching me some piano in the Cracker Boys and so it was at the camp I learn the basics of piano, bass and guitar, except I only play rhythm and pluck guitar and not the solo one. I never go too much into that part and I did love the singing too, except I never take it seriously and never sing lead, only harmonies. This Canadian guy, he get us to practise lots of songs from that time, old favourites like ‘Stand By Me’, ‘Don’t Play That Song For Me’ and then hits by Fats Domino, Little Richard, and this Jamaican group called the Blues Busters. Sometimes we do some little shows in the country parts. Places like Christiana or Spaldings, and then we play at some church functions too.”

Jamaica celebrated its independence from Britain while Aston was in the Youth Corps, and this caused a wave of fresh optimism to sweep the country. People’s National Party (PNP) leader Norman Manley had called for a referendum the previous year and the electorate had voted strongly in favour of independence. Britain had recommended they join the West Indies Federation instead, but this was opposed by both parties and they were left with no choice but to grant Jamaica its freedom in 1962. Bustamante, duly installed as Jamaica’s first prime minister, oversaw an immediate increase in foreign investment. Bustamante’s government also declared a new public holiday called Independence Day, to be celebrated on the first Monday of August each year.*

Aston remembers seeing Jamaican national flags everywhere, even in the countryside. National pride now informed the social climate, especially among local musicians, who sensed the time had come for them to make their mark. After his brief spell with the Drive-In Cracker Boys, Aston felt the same way, although it would be some time before he could play music professionally. On his return to Kingston, he moved back into Van Street and became an apprentice welder at Chin’s Welding Works on the corner of East Street and Laws Street. Just as importantly, he then set about getting himself a bass.

“We couldn’t afford proper instruments,” says Family Man, “because they were too expensive, but the pressure was still there for it, because I used to look in the showcase at Music Mart on Beeston Street, see that Fender bass in there and then trudge back to my house, I tell you. That’s when I decide to make my own, because at Chin’s they have a woodworking section round the back and that’s where I get the materials to make my first bass. I get a nice piece of timber for the neck and then a broad enough piece to get the body. I then draw the shapes I want and take them to one of the guys in the woodwork shop and let him cut them out for me on the band saw. This is in the lunch break and then I put it all together, using a curtain rod for the one string and a small board under the bottom to ease the string off the fret. It was like a fretless, upright bass and my brother Carlton, he was getting so fascinated with music himself too. He made like a little drum riser and we got these empty tins of paint in different sizes, like quart- and gallon-sized cans. He might be walking somewhere on the street, then find himself half a little cymbal and he’d nail a piece of board on it and set it up so it would crash, so he’d have one cymbal to crash on the after beat.

“We’re always there playing, then we’d use our mouths to blow the horns section like the Skatalites, with me playing ska blues on my little one-string bass. It don’t have any hollow body to get that bass sound, but my back room near the back porch has a board floor with a little cellar below it, so when I rest it on the floor and pick it, the whole room vibrate and that’s where I get that effect! So we there practising drum and bass. Putting down the roots and the backbone of the music although my original dream was to learn how to play the piano because the piano is so orchestral. It’s like a full band to itself, because you can get bass, rhythm and you can play melody. And then the guitar is the next thing. I used to love seeing people playing the banjo with that high pitch. Then when I listen, I realise that the drum is the heartbeat of the music and the bass is the backbone. And I see that my brother is so gifted with the drum and I love drums too so I say, ‘Well I’m going to be the backbone.’ So if the heartbeat is right and the backbone is right, then the music should stand up and we can move forward.”

It was after independence that Jamaican music really began moving away from the New Orleans, “boogie-woogie” type of beat that Alton Ellis talks about. Derrick Morgan, whose song ‘Forward March’ defined the era like few others, was among the forerunners of this movement. Derrick had the top seven chart positions inclusive on the Jamaican hit parade in the period following independence. Together with Jimmy Cliff, he was the main attraction at Beverley’s Records, owned by Leslie Kong – a Chinese-Jamaican businessman who was still new to the recording business, but had the foresight to quickly sign up Desmond Dekker, who was studying engineering and working as a welder when chalking up his first hits for Beverley’s. Dekker had bluffed his way into the studio and sang ‘Honour Your Father And Your Mother’ to Kong, causing in-house arranger Theophilus “Easy Snappin’” Beckford to race for the piano and immediately strike up a groove behind him.

Dekker began recording for Kong the following week and recommended Bob Marley to the label. Marley recorded ‘Judge Not’ and ‘One More Cup Of Coffee’ for Kong before Jackie Opel arrived in Jamaica from Barbados and took the local recording scene by storm, pushing Beverley’s other artists into the shade. Encouraged by his friend Alvin “Seeco” Patterson, Marley went to Coxsone instead and formed a group, the Wailers, who debuted with the rowdy ‘Simmer Down’. Other popular records that sold in their thousands during 1963 included Stranger Cole’s ‘Rough And Tough’, Carlos Malcolm’s ‘Rukumbine’, a handful of tunes by Lord Creator (including ‘Don’t Stay Out Late’), Baba Brooks’ ‘Watermelon Man’ and tracks by Lord Tanamo, Byron Lee & the Dragonnaires, and the trombonist Don Drummond.

Since he was earning money from his welding job, Aston Barrett was another of the eager customers crowded around the counter in Randy’s Record Store on North Parade, where he’d buy American as well as Jamaican releases.

“It was me who brought the first turntable into the family, which was one of those with the automatic arm where you can stack up the records on top,” he says proudly. “My first hi-fi I made from this old jukebox that someone had thrown away and which I struggled to carry back to the house. I already have the treble, so I just need an amplifier and speaker, which I take out from there, patch them up and then it plays! That was the first stereo in my house and then I just build a cabinet for it out of what’s left from the jukebox so I can take it outside and play all the tunes.”

American stars such as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Ben E. King, and Chuck Jackson all toured Jamaica during that heady, post-independence era, a time when groups or singers were expected to dress smart and perform choreographed routines. While these shows were invariably packed, eyewitnesses claim they were never violent or disruptive. Yet, while the Jamaican public’s love of American music would never diminish, there was also a need for local musicians to express their own identity, which they achieved by making that change in the music from “half-blues” to ska.

Coxsone Dodd had already been among the first to produce homemade recordings and many attribute the change in the beat to him and drummer Lloyd Knibs when both were experimenting at Federal studio one day. Knibs would open and close on the second and fourth beats on the hi-hat, then come down on the kick drum and the snare on the third, leaving the first beat empty. He would play the rim of the snare, rather than the open snare. Hence he developed a new style of playing which more established drummers like Drumbago subsequently followed.

Previous to this, Ken Richards and Easy Snappin’ – both members of Clue J & the Blues Blasters – had been experimenting by heightening the emphasis on the second and fourth beats and creating a similar effect. Knibs heard what they were doing on guitar and piano and adapted it to his drums, although no one knows for sure. Coxsone had produced Easy Snappin’s signature tune back in 1957 and also recorded these same musicians on many previous occasions, so it’s not unreasonable to suppose he was a principal architect of ska. Despite fierce competition, he would also produce most of the Skatalites’ best-ever work, which was the lightning rod for the new, exciting sounds of ska.

Aston says that he and Carlton’s practice sessions were directly inspired by the Skatalites’ rhythm section of Knibs and Lloyd Brevette. “When those musicians decide to form this band called Skatalites an’ play the hardcore ska, the roots, everybody think this is a great change, because the band t’ing start get real popular like sound-system after that. Live music man!”

The Skatalites officially formed in June 1964, soon after Coxsone opened his studio on Brentford Road, although the various members had all played together before in various guises. Their line-up was a fluid affair, with drummer Knibs and double bass player Brevette at its core, accompanied by Drummond on trombone, Tommy McCook and Lester Sterling on tenor saxes, Roland Alphonso on alto, Johnny “Dizzy” Moore on trumpet, Jah Jerry and occasionally Ernest Ranglin on guitars and a teenage Jackie Mittoo on piano. They played regularly at venues like Gunboat Beach and the Bournemouth Club in east Kingston and recorded hundreds of tracks together before disbanding in the autumn of 1966. On one occasion Family Man saw the Skatalites play at the Rialto Theatre when they backed artists like Delroy Wilson, Ken Boothe, John Holt, Toots & the Maytals, Eric Monty Morris, the Heptones, and Three Tops.

Members of the Skatalites, like Drummond, were classically trained and had soaked up influences from jazz, latin, and Cuban music, as well as the usual mix of mento, calypso, country & western, pop, and American rhythm & blues. Cuban music was especially influential since McCook and Alphonso had both been born there, and hits like ‘Peanut Vendor’ and Mongo Santamaria’s ‘Watermelon Man’ weren’t alone in reaching a widespread audience during the early Sixties. Such diversity ensured the music was never dull and this had a galvanising effect on young players like the Barrett brothers, who were exposed to a wide range of styles from early on. Most ska bands featured vocalists (like child star Delroy Wilson, who Aston would try and imitate), while Toots & the Maytals – initially known as the Vikings or the Flames – were the first to incorporate gospel and sacred music with ska. Following on from the Folkes Brothers’ ‘Oh Carolina’, there was even a Rasta presence thanks to the Mellow Cats (Zoot “Skully” Simms and Bunny “Skitter” Robinson) who recorded songs like ‘Time To Pray’ and ‘Send Another Moses’.

The Skatalites created the most excitement in the Barrett household, tackling various genres including pop, television theme tunes, jazz, standards, and songs from Broadway musicals and film soundtracks, as well as the aforementioned latin tracks.

Ska had got popular after being aired on sound-systems at places like Foresters’ Hall and the Chocomo Lawn. Byron Lee & the Dragonnaires then started playing it in uptown clubs around Kingston and introduced it to a wealthier and more influential audience. Lee’s operation benefited from superior promotion and, since Edward Seaga had introduced him to the attorney Paul Marshall, he had made important connections in the overseas recording industry.

Before long, people like Ahmet Ertegun and Tom Dowd from Atlantic Records were visiting Kingston nightclubs such as the Glass Bucket at Half Way Tree. Lee’s Dragonnaires were subsequently invited to play at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York as part of a delegation including Prince Buster, Jimmy Cliff, and Eric “Monty” Morris. Lee’s group also made several TV appearances and played at the city’s Singer Bowl and the Peppermint Lounge, the scene of the Twist explosion. The Dragonnaires were the first to exploit ska’s commercial potential and to recognise how important dance steps were in broadening its appeal to mainstream audiences. Celebrities like Jackie Kennedy were caught on camera doing the ska, which helped generate considerable media interest in the infectious dance beats coming from the West Indies.

The choice of those who’d represented Jamaica at the World’s Fair was a cause of contention among other Kingston musicians. Neither Kes Chin & the Souvenirs or Carlos Malcolm and his Afro Jamaican Rhythms were considered well known enough, while the Skatalites didn’t possess the right image, as by all accounts they didn’t care what they looked like, or how they presented themselves. Certain members also smoked herb and were Rastafarians. In the words of Lee’s right-hand man, Ronnie Nasralla, “the show element just wasn’t there.” This didn’t bother the Barrett brothers, who were more concerned with the music than presentation, although Family Man was already beginning to express an interest in Rastafari by this time.

“The [Skatalites] bass player Lloyd Brevette, he’s a Rastaman and he was the first dreadlocks musician in the studio. He wasn’t the first I’d met, but them man stick to their roots and his playing was an influence on me too of course, because you know how one good artist always inspire another. That’s because I realise this bass player is something else and how he’s got such a unique style.”

Practising their instruments while still living with their parents in Rollington Town proved a little difficult at times, but the Barrett brothers were determined to continue, despite having to make their livelihoods elsewhere.

“I wasn’t playing professionally as yet, but it was starting to become a whole different venture,” says Family Man. “Because after I leave Chin’s, I get a job at Gauntlet Engineering at Last Street and then I go to Samson’s Engineering Works on Rum Lane. I work at Samson’s about three different times! And whilst I know I have to work, I need to have a job that I enjoy doing and that gives me some incentive. I mean I love engineering and things like that, but I don’t want to be working in that kind of way forever. But I do welding, I do engineering and I even turn blacksmith for a while when I start making some of these gates and window grills that you see all over Jamaica. My father did blacksmith work and wanted me fi do that too. He was pleased to see me go to school, but him see me as his apprentice and he wanted me fi take it serious, y’know?

“But I used to do a lot of things like that, before I try to bring out the music full-time. I was still doing welding work when I see in the paper how local recordings were getting more popular and that was a step up for Jamaica now, because we could hear them on the radio. And I knew by then that to get your song on the radio, you had to put it on a record first, so I decide that when I’m ready to get involved, then I’ll take it from there to the next stage, which I did. Except in the meantime I start to work from home, independently, because anytime you look in my front yard you’d see about a dozen bikes, like these NSU Quickly mopeds from London and also scooters like the Lambretta and Vespa. I loved how those bikes were constructed, because it’s like those mechanics were made for us! It was nice, y’know?”

In 1964, the airwaves teemed with the sounds of young Jamaica and the hit roll call included Carlos Malcolm’s ‘Bonanza Ska’, Justin Hinds & the Dominos’ ‘Carry Go Bring Come’, Jackie Opel’s ‘Cry Me A River’, Eric “Monty” Morris’ ‘Sammy Dead’ and several tracks by Prince Buster, including ‘Wash Wash’ and ‘Wings Of A Dove’. None, however, emulated the success of Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’, produced by Chris Blackwell, which would become Jamaica’s first-ever crossover hit when it roared up the UK national charts, peaking at number two that March. The overseas ska and blue beat invasion had begun, but there were other, earthier and more rootsy voices starting to make an impact that had far greater resonance with the elder of the two Barrett brothers.

“There was a very young voice out there in the music belonging to Delroy Wilson that I liked very much. I hear the Clarendonians and Eric “Monty” Morris, also Stranger Cole, Ken Boothe, the Maytals, and Derrick Morgan, who I like for sure. But then I was at a party once when somebody sitting near me said, ‘Come and hear this new group here.’ And we went inside and punch the jukebox and guess what song it was. It was the Wailers and the song was called ‘Simmer Down’! Well I tell you, I listened to that music so deep, I feel like I was a part of that group and that it was me and my brother who do that song! And believe you me, no other record played in that jukebox for the rest of the time we was inside there, because it was strictly ‘Simmer Down’ all the way! Hearing that record gave me my first real start to penetrate the music, because I think if these people are playing like this, then I can play it too. All I could think was, ‘I’ve got to get involved, because it’s my kind of thing.’

“But that record was a different kind of rap. It was a different kind of music and carried a different kind of harmony with expression, because no one does it like the Wailers. After that, I always hear their music on the radio and the jukebox and feel like I’m part of the syndicate, because when I hear them, it’s like I fall into a trance! I never see them onstage or in the studio though, because I’m still finding my way at that time.”

The Wailers’ next hits included ‘It Hurts To Be Alone’ and ‘Lonesome Feeling’. Bothlacked the raw excitement of ‘Simmer Down’, but served to keep the group’s profile reasonably high as they brushed shoulders with such groups as the Maytals (‘Never You Change’) the Techniques, the Blues Busters (‘Wide Awake In A Dream’) and the Paragons on the local charts. Alton Ellis’ ‘Dance Crasher’ was also popular, as were the vibrant sounds of the Skatalites’ ‘Ball Of Fire’, ‘El Pussy Cat’, and ‘Guns Of Navarone’. Despite Millie Small’s fade in popularity after ‘My Boy Lollipop’, ska managed to sustain its early success on the world stage and Byron Lee wasn’t the only JA producer to begin sending tracks to New York for additional overdubs and final mixes in order to win a share of the rapidly expanding overseas market.

In 1965, the Impressions featuring Curtis Mayfield (who’d previously toured Jamaica with Jerry Butler) recorded in Kingston. Mayfield’s clear falsetto was widely influential on local artists with Slim Smith, Pat Kelly, and Cornell Campbell all attempting to sing like him.* This was around the time Coxsone procured the franchise for Berry Gordy’s Tamla-Motown label in the Caribbean and would regularly get his artists to cover the sounds of the Motor City. He even adapted Motown’s slogan, ‘The Sound of Young America’ to ‘The Sound of Young Jamaica’.

Coxsone recorded a session with a group called the Regals during this period, featuring singer Hopeton Lewis who came from Mountain View Avenue in east Kingston and who went to the same youth club as Sam Mitchell, who took him to Federal. After auditioning for Ken Khouri and being told to write his own material, Lewis returned a week later with the songs ‘Take It Easy’, ‘Sounds And Pressure’, and ‘Music Got Soul’. All three became hits on Winston Blake’s Merritone label, which Federal used for their own releases, since it was popular among Jamaica’s middle classes. Lewis struggled to sing over the fast ska beats he was given at first, so session musicians Lynn Taitt and Gladstone Anderson slowed down the pace a little so he could voice the songs more comfortably. This arrangement promptly reaped dividends and ‘Take It Easy’ not only became a runaway hit but heralded a fresh change of direction in Jamaican music.†

With ‘Take It Easy’, arranger Taitt had brought the bass line of a song into focus for the first time. Aston’s ears pricked up at the sound of Jackie Jackson’s electric bass guitar, as prior to ‘Take It Easy’, most ska bass was played on the acoustic stand-up instrument, while the rhythm had been an accompaniment to whatever the horns were playing, simply holding down the chords. Taitt, from Trinidad, got his chance to go to Jamaica for the independence celebrations at the instigation of Byron Lee. He joined the Sheiks and the Cavaliers before forming Lynn Taitt & the Comets. Family Man calls Lynn Taitt, “a wicked lead guitar player and arranger.

“He’s not from Jamaica originally, but Trinidad, so the kind of music he played over there, he blended that with the Jamaica vibes and just floated on that. He put the Trinidad influence with the Jamaican sound and made it one and then it exploded. Yeah, I just used to keep my ears on top of the new sounds from Lynn Taitt, because his first band was called Lynn Taitt & the Comets, and with Lloyd Spence on bass. I used to follow them around a lot. In fact, I used to dress up like them, like I was one of the officers. Those were the days when my favourite parties were in session. You just warn me about a wedding and I’d say, ‘Where?’ Because we’d go to the place before the wedding party come from church and when the cars arrive with the bridesmaids and everybody, we’d put on our white gloves, open the car doors and the people them were shocked. They thought we were the ushers and they’d say ‘I don’t remember those people.’ But we’d escort everybody right in and then set up a table for ourselves. The tallest one out of our group, he’d then go up to the caterers and say, ‘You make a mistake with that table over there, ’cause it hasn’t been dealt with as yet.’ So, we’d be there drinking champagne and eating all these expensive treats, being well taken care of. We were the wedding crashers and we master the art of disguise so well, I think even the bride and bridegroom was tricked. It come like a surprise to find that we were behind it, but they just think we’re part of the service …”

The Comets didn’t make any recordings but were a popular live attraction. Taitt also recorded sessions with the Skatalites prior to forming Lynn Taitt & the Jets in 1966. The Khouris thought so highly of them they kept the band on a retainer, even supplying them with a van and equipment.

Federal was then Kingston’s premier studio. This was right at the beginning of the rocksteady era, which coincided with the break-up of the Skatalites. McCook became musical director at the new Treasure Isle studio above Duke Reid’s liquor store on Bond Street after the Skatalites split, while Alphonso based himself at Studio One, owned by Coxsone. Alphonso called his new band the Soul Brothers, while McCook formed the Supersonics, featuring organist Winston Wright, a.k.a. “Brubeck”, who’d earlier played with the Comets. By then, rocksteady was fast gaining popularity thanks in part to Charlie Babcock of RJR (“the cool fool with the live jive”) and other influential radio deejays such as Rodney Butler, Winston Williams, and Jeff Barnes.

Record producers like Coxsone and Duke Reid sponsored their own weekly radio shows. The Treasure Isle show was especially exciting as McCook led the island’s top session musicians on a round of hits featuring Alton Ellis, the Paragons, Phyllis Dillon, the Melodians and many others. All of them were writing good songs with catchy, memorable lyrics that would ensure lasting appeal.

Family Man Barrett: “At that time, my brother and I were still practising and getting a little better. And of course, we used to listen to all the music we could. I even listen to Boris Gardner, ’cause he used to play a nice bass too, even though he was a tremendous singer as well. I listen to Byron Lee too, who had his own style, which is good! But I never used to hang out round the music too much, because I was still learning at the time. I just used to hang out with my brethren around the cabinetmaker’s shop or in the gully bank, ’cause that’s where we meet up a lot. We’d go there to reason and smoke the herb, because it was a cooler ghetto in those days and not so much like the Wild West! Those were the happy days, because you could just smoke and play music and the vibes was nice and smooth.”

CHAPTER TWO

Rudie Don’t Fear

AN estimated 100,000 people – one in ten being Rastafarians – welcomed Emperor Haile Selassie I at Kingston’s Palisades Airport (later renamed the Norman Manley International Airport) on April 21, 1966. It was a wet and windy morning, but the rain had stopped as the Emperor’s DC6 plane taxied to a halt on the runway. Thousands of people rushed onto the tarmac, which meant the Emperor was unable to leave the plane for over 30 minutes. Rasta spokesman Mortimer Planno finally led him down the steps, whereupon the assembled multitude showed their approval with an undulating sea of flags and banners. At least 60 Rastafarians were invited to official meetings with the Emperor during his four-day visit and it’s said that he advised them to seek liberation before repatriation. He also spoke of the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) in his address to the Jamaican parliament and described Africans and Jamaicans as “blood brothers”.

Aston says he heard people talking about Emperor Selassie in the Rasta camps. “I heard this and that, like how they were pressurising this man and heard how great he is and how his line is coming down from King David, because even the Bible tell you about it. I heard how he was of the highest rank and that every country recognised him as such.

“On the day itself, I heard of the big crowds at the airport, so I get on my bike and ride up Mountain View Avenue, and I’m having to skip over people, ride up on the banking and all that to follow him, because he’s in this open back car. Mountain View Avenue, wasn’t a dual carriageway like it is now. It was just a two-way, up and down road, and I see him trying to go through a whole mass of people. Then when I almost reach up to the National Stadium, I see him go to turn inside and me just stop on the bank and say, ‘Bwoy, through all the confusion and excitement, this man can’t get in the stadium.’ There’s no way he could get through all these people, ’cause it was way too crowded in there! I forget all thoughts of the National Stadium and just decide to watch everybody instead, so I sit down and just as I start to meditate, his car turn off from the stadium and head back too. I stand up on the bank now and as I’m stood there Selassie see me from out of the corner of his eye. I say, ‘Look there. I’ve seen His Majesty in person.’ And he was well dressed, sharp and neat with light skin and a little grey in his beard. Man, it was like he was speaking to me. It was like he said, ‘Just relax. You don’t have to follow the crowd. Just wait here and I’ll pass by.’”

According to drummer Winston Grennan (as quoted in the book More Axe 8: Mud Cannot Settle Without WaterKaya