REGGAE INNA INGLA So just what has Britain, this cold European island, got to do with a musical style born in the hot Caribbean island of Jamaica? For those who think British reggae is a contradiction in terms, or that the only reggae worth talking about comes from Jamaica, check this claim out; without Britain, there wouldn't be reggae! Alright, that's an exaggeration. However, reggae could have ended up as just one of the many little-known world music styles, if it wasn't for the British influence. How can one make such a seemingly contentious claim? Between the late '50s and the very early '60s, when Jamaican record producers such as Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, Chris Blackwell and Prince Buster began making records, the market was essentially a local one. Because of very low session fees, no restrictive copyright law or union rules, the Jamaican recording industry literally exploded with a terrific turnover of new releases. It doesn't take much to see that all this activity could not have been sustained solely by the local market. It probably would have imploded upon itself, had the producers not found a market in Britain. The British dimension Let history unfold... The '40s At the end of the Second World War, Britain's economy was in ruins, compounded by a serious deficit in its Labour force. The British Government enticed people from the Caribbean from the late '40s onwards to come to the 'Mother Country' to make up the labour shortfall. Jamaicans formed the overwhelming majority of the Caribbean contingent that kept coming right through to the early '60s, when anti-immigration laws began to take effect. The '50s The first wave of Jamaican (and other Caribbean) immigrants soon discovered that the 'Mother Country' was cold in more ways than one. Discriminated against and denied much access, they mostly relied on themselves for things like housing and entertainment. Shebeens or blues, which were parties or clubs held in domestic properties, offered entertaining distraction. Naturally the music played was the popular Jamaican music of the day. In 1959 Melodisc, an independent label that had been releasing specialist music such as calypso and jazz since the mid-'40s, became the first to begin releasing Jamaican music. All the key Jamaican producers such as Duke Reid and Prince Buster had their first international releases on Melodisc's Blue Beat label. The '60s Ska became very popular in the early '60s, and Blue Beat was so successful selling it that its name became an alternative term for the music. Prince Buster was one of the biggest Blue Beat artists, scoring many underground hits, and eventually going top 20 in 1967 with 'Al Capone'. The label also had success with British-recorded material by Jamaican artists such as Laurel Aitken and Derrick Morgan, who had moved to Britain. Another Jamaican music veteran who had relocated to Britain was Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. His production of 'My Boy Lollipop' by Millie Small, recorded in London, was the first ska record to make a huge international impression. It went all the way to the number two position in both the British and American pop charts in 1964. It was the young, stylish white youth group known as mods who helped propel ska music outside of its black confines. Though American R&B was their favourite music, a faction took to ska and the Rude Boy fashions. And in the late '60s, another white group known as skinheads adopted reggae. There were some beginnings of a British reggae infrastructure by the mid-'60s. Initially, outlets such as black hairdressers and markets used by Caribbean people were often the places to buy the records. One of the earliest specialist shops, Peckings's Studio 1 in West London, was run by Daddy Peckings, who came to Britain in 1960 to set up an outlet for Coxsone Dodd's prolific Studio One releases. Also, sound systems began operating in London and towns with sizeable black populations such as Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester. Duke Vin operated a sound system from Ladbroke Grove, the very multi-cultural West London area which gave birth to the Notting Hill Carnival in the late '60s. In addition to Island's Blackwell, the other record label proprietors who pushed reggae music from the mid-'60s, helping to turn it into a popular style across the world, included: producer Sonny Robert Roberts, owner of Planitone (later becoming Orbitone); Lee Gopthal, a businessman who took over the Trojan label, in which Blackwell initially had a stake; and the Palmer brothers, who run Pama Records, which changed its name to Jet Star in the late '70s. All the key Jamaican producers dealt with one or more of these men. Indeed, whilst much is made of Blackwell's signing of Bob Marley & The Wailers to the Island label in 1972, Island had been releasing Marley records since 1963 via its licensing deals with Marley producers such as Leslie Kong ('Judge Not') and Coxsone ('Simmer Down'). However, it was Trojan which continuously turned reggae into pop hits, including the first British chart-topper - Desmond Dekker's 'Israelites'. Dekker, along with other Jamaican artists like Jimmy Cliff, subsequently based themselves in Britain to further their career. Probably the first British-made reggae to dent the pop charts was 'Rudi's In Love', a top 25 hit in 1968 for Midlands-based group The Locomotive. Among the earliest credible local reggae groups were The Cimarons. They, like many others, were often used as backing singers for visiting Jamaican artists, whilst British reggae found its own voice. The next decade was the turning point. > | 1 | 2 | 3 |