Joe Higgs at Berkeley

If you don't know Joe Higgs, he was Bob Marley and The Wailers vocal coach on their rise to stardom.   When Bunny Wailer retired from touring with Bob and Peter, Joe Higgs took over for him.  Higgs was one of the real pros of the Jamaican music scene and was always available to mentor up and coming singers.

Find the Berkeley show and two others at www.VitalVibes.com

Here's the bio from his website (www.JoeHiggs.com)

The Father of Reggae

Joseph Benjamin Higgs

June 3, 1940 - December 18, 1999

 

Joe Higgs was hugely influential in the birth of ska, rock steady and reggae forms of Jamaican music, and was widely respected as a composer, arranger, and performer, but perhaps most of all as a teacher. Among those he tutored were Bob marley, Derrick Harriott, Peter Tosh, Bob Andy, The Wailing Souls and Bunny Wailer. One of the first recording artists in Jamaica, his debut single, made with partner Roy Wilson, was "Oh Manny Oh," which sold over 50,000 copies in Jamaica in 1960. It led to his signing by Edward Seaga, who later became Jamaica's Prime Minister during the 1980s. Seaga arranged for Higgs to be booked on local shows, alongside Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and other foreign stars. In 1964 he recorded "There's A Reward" for producer Coxone Dodd's Studio One, a song that became an instant classic of suffering and hope. 

Although Higgs claimed to have received no royalties from its sales, he was sanguine about the fact, claiming "I realize that the only person that can give me my reward and what I'm entitled to is the Almighty." It was in Higgs' Trench Town backyard that the young Bob Marley received years of private tutoring in vocal technique and stage craft from Higgs, years before he began recording with his group, The Wailers. Marley later admitted that "Joe Higgs was a genius," crediting him for his international musical success. In 1972, Higgs won the Jamaica Tourism Song Competition (presented by the Jamaica Tourist Board) with "Invitation To Jamaica," whose prizes included a trip to New York, where he performed for the first time. The bouncy tune was uncharacteristic of Higgs' more normal roots sound, which mixed rhythmic jazzy scat singing with heartfelt lyrics that expressed deep political awareness and a keen sense of history and classical lliterature.

 

Songs like "So It Go" and "Freedom" kept him on the local charts. In 1973 when Bunny Wailer quit The Wailers, Higgs was asked to accompany his former students, Marley and Tosh on their debut American tour as opening act for Sly and the Family Stone. They played critically acclaimed shows from New York to Boston to San Francisco and were chief among the first wave of musicians who brought the music to U.S. awareness. In 1974, another set of former students, The wailing Souls, joined with Higgs briefly to form the group Atarra. But it was his allignment with emerging superstar Jimmy Cliff, hot off his success in the landmark film "The Harder They Come," that brought Higgs mainstream attention as Cliff's bandleader and co-vocalist, often before huge crowds in venues like New York's Central Park and Madison Square Garden. Higgs' first solo album came out in the mid '70s called "Life Of Contradiction," and featured jazz guitarist Eric Gayle, solidifying Higgs' reputation as he often reminded audiences as the jazz connection for Jamaican music.

In the compelling 1977 reggae documentary film "Roots, Rock, Reggae," Higgs told director Jeremy Marre that "Reggae is a confrontational sound; Freedom - that's what it's asking for; Acceptance - that's what it needs." "Unity Is Power" followed in 1979. His 1983 single "So It Go," which called attention to the plight of the poor who have no mentors in high places, caused Higgs political problems with the ruling party in Jamaica, and so he left for Los Angeles, where he lived in self-imposed exile until his death. His later albums included 1990s "Blackman Know Yourself," backed by The Wailers Band. The collection featured Joe's most famous composition "Stepping Razor," which had become a signature song for the 6-foot 4-inch Peter Tosh. "The give away line," the slightly built Higgs always told people, "is 'Don't you watch my size, I'm dangerous.' There's no way no six-foot-something guy could write that!" At the time of his death, Higgs was working on an autobiography with this writer, and had been working on a cross-cultural project recorded at U2's studio in Dublin, to be titled "Green On Black," uniting Gaelic artists like Sharon Shanon and Donald Luney with Higgs, in lengthy Irish-jazz improvisions. His last L.A. appearance was Father's Day in Long Beach at the Old School Reggae Jam. His actual last show was in Brekley on June 26, 1999 at Ashkenaz. Prior to that he played Palookaville in Santa Cruz...

 

                                  - by Roger Steffens

SKA ROCKSTEADY REGGAE: History of REGGAE Music Pt 3

Part Two: SKA ROCKSTEADY REGGAE

Ska's large brass ensembles gave way to smaller groups and the debt to American Soul music became greater as Ska morphed into Rocksteady. Vocals came to the fore, and the tempo slowed; perhaps, as local folklore says, because the especially hot summer of 1966 led dancers to call for slower songs. Sam Cooke and Curtis Mayfield's Impressions were almost godlike in their influence. Many younger artists, like Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, and Toots Hibbert, made their first recordings dur­ing the Ska era, but only came into their own with Rocksteady.

Rocksteady was over almost before it began, but its artistic flowering produced many great records in a com­pressed time span. By 1968, Rocksteady was giving way to Reggae, but pinpointing the first Reggae record is no easier than pinpointing the first Ska or Rocksteady record. Unlike its predeces­sors, Reggae owed little to Fats Domino, the Impressions, or any American music. It was the heartbeat of an island just seventeen degrees from the equator, and it was the sound of country come to town. "Ivan Martin," played by Jimmy Cliff in the film The Harder They Come, was. the quintessential country boy adrift in Kingston 's mean streets. "Until Reggae," said producer lee Perry, who was himself from the country, "it was all Kingston , Kingston , Kingston . Then the country people come to town and they bring the earth, the trees, the mountains. That's when Reggae music come back to the earth."

Rocksteady, like Soul music, had the commercial discipline of white pop music, but Reggae rejected that discipline, and its retrieval of the Africanness in Afro-Caribbean music went hand-in­hand with the rise of Rastafari. The Burrus, who'd lived communally in Jamaica since slavery and held fast to their African roots, shared housing in the low-rent west Kingston district of Dungle with the Rastafarians, who believed that a black king would be crowned in Africa and lead the lost tribes out of Babylon . The music, the beliefs, and the dress of the Rastas influenced the sound, the spiritual agenda, and the look of Reggae.

The music played out against a disinte­grating social backdrop. Jamaica had become independent from Great Britain in 1962, but, as the promise of Independence faded, Reggae became politicized and angry. By the time this set closes in 1975, the music was past making compromises with the tourist trade and long past hoping to get on American radio.

The Trojan Records collection "Dawning of a New Era" chronicles a time during the late 60's when Ska, Rock Steady and Reggae were all blending and evolving, drawing in new fans worldwide. The 2-disc set pulls together prime records from 1968-69, a period when Skinheads were still largely an underground youth movement and not a violent newspaper headline.

The great thing about this set of tracks is you don't get stuck with more copies of Desmond Dekker's hits but rather, you get rare and in demand records. Many of the tracks on this set have never been issued since their original small pressings nearly thirty-five years ago. And with artists of the caliber of Rico Rodriquez, Lloyd Charmers, The Tennors, Lester Sterling, the Ethiopians and Tommy McCook featured, this collection is a great addition to your collection if you like Ska and the Skinhead sound.

The Skinheads were a youth movement that sprang up from the working class youth in Britain. They were seasoned with some angst that came from tough neighborhoods and they choose the Ska beat and Reggae sounds coming out of the West Indies and Black neighborhoods as their own. The beat suited their aggressive and sometimes angry attitude and here are the roots of bands like The Clash and punk rock. The Skinhead interest in Reggae in particular pushed the music into the awareness of the public at large and helped many Reggae artists break into the Pop charts in England. The Skinhead Movement only lasted about four years but it was an important key to mainstream success for Reggae Music.

Much of this "history" is included in the notes for "This is Reggae Music: The Golden Era 1960-1975" - a four CD set that provides a great musical overview of the genre - the selections and sound quality are excellent through out - a vital Ras John Reggae.com Pick! From the booklet included with the four CD box set, "This Is Reggae Music: The Golden Era" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00064LOV4?tag=sistamaureesrast&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B00064LOV4&adid=1PDH24Y48547AAWJJB4H&)

Day-O: History of Reggae Pt. 1

The following is from the booklet included with the box set, "This Is Reggae Music: The Golden Era" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00064LOV4?tag=sistamaureesrast&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B00064LOV4&adid=1PDH24Y48547AAWJJB4H&)

Nineteen-fifty-seven. The United States was in the grip of Calypsomania. and some were even going so far as. to predict that the calypso would soon eclipse Rock n’ Roll. Before it all blew over, Robert Mitchum, Maya Angelou the Norman Luboff Choir, and many others had made Calypso albums. Calypso, of course, was Trinidadian, but the two big Calypso era hits, "Banana Boat Song” and "Jamaican Farewell," were Jamaican; so Calypso was reckoned to come from Jamaica.

As the craze subsided, a Billboard magazine reporter sniffed out a free vacation and went to Kingston to see what the Jamaicans liked. To his surprise, it was rare R&B; not Calypso. "Local observers,” he wrote, "note that the local musical product is developing into a hybrid in which the strongest elements are calypso and rock & roll.” Understandably, the writer missed the pan-African underground springing up in Kingston’s slums, but ten years later pan-Africanism would merge with American R&B and Caribbean music in those same back alleys to forever change global music.
Around 1960, Ska evolved from Jamaican R&B. The Billboard article mentioned that Fats Domino was the most in demand artist on the island, so it was probably no coincidence that Ska arrived on the heels of three influential American releases: Fats Domino's "Be My Guest" (1959), Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City" (also 1959), and Rosco Gordon's "Surely I Love You" (1960). All three worked the offbeat for all it was worth. Bill Black's Combo figured some­where in the equation, too. Black's greasy instrumental hits featured a hugely upfront four-to-the-bar beat, and sold so well in Jamaica that he toured there - to the surprise of many who found out that he was white.

It's axiomatic that there are no facts in Jamaica , only opinions, so no one knows what "Ska" means and no one agrees on what was the first Ska record. But around 1960, Jamaican drummers began hitting the second and fourth beats in unison with the piano and guitar, while the bass played walking quarter-notes. That was Ska. Local musicians called it "Upside-down R&B." It had an under­ground following in England, but not in the United States. One giant Ska hit, Millie's "My Boy Lollipop," rode into the charts on the back of the British Invasion, and when it exited, Ska exited along with it.

'Whatever was happening in Jamaica didn't go away when Millie hit the remainder bins. The local industry was building inexorably. The 1951 Billboard article mentioned that there was just one record press on the island (not one pressing plant, but one press) although local entrepreneur Ken Khouri claimed to have two presses running by 1954· Around 1957; Khouri built a studio, and Dada Tawari opened the Caribbean Record Company with mastering facilities. From that point, the Jamaican industry was self-sufficient, albeit geared toward faux calypso LP’s for tourists.

"Alongside the tiny manufacturing industry, there were open-air deejays known as sound systems. “A cliff face of speaker boxes, each big enough to raise a family in, powered by amplification of intercontinental capability," is the way journalist Lloyd Bradley described them. There was life-and-death competition among the system operators to source the rarest American R&B and the best technology.

The systems were essential to the dissemination of music because the island’s two radio stations, RJR (launched in 1950 as a branch of British Rediffusion) and the government's JBC (which started in 1959), played it as safe as the BBC mothership; The payoff for the sound system operators, came in prestige and drink sales. Three sound system men ruled the early Sixties: Duke Reid, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Prince Buster. Both Reid and Dodd began operating from family liquor stores. The idea of producing records occurred first to Reid, who cut some instrumentals at Khouri's studio circa 1957. Around the same time, Dodd realized that Jamaicans didn't like rock 'n' roll, and began recording the kind of R&B that the Americans were no longer producing. In 1958, Chris Blackwell launched R&B Records (the precursor of Island ) and future Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga launched WIRL (West Indies Records Ltd.).

From the booklet included with the four CD box set, "This Is Reggae Music: The Golden Era" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00064LOV4?tag=sistamaureesrast&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B00064LOV4&adid=1PDH24Y48547AAWJJB4H&)