Spear and the Garvey factor

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Today marks the 123rd year of pan-African leader Marcus Garvey's birth. It is also 35 years since Burning Spear recorded 'Marcus Garvey', one of the seminal albums of popular music.

Singer Winston 'Burning Spear' Rodney was cooling out at the Key Largo Beach in his hometown of St Ann's Bay in 1975 when he ran into Lawrence Lindo, a sound system operator popularly known as Jack Ruby. Their meeting was pivotal.

In a 1999 interview, Spear said Ruby spoke of his admiration for his work at the famed Studio One and expressed a desire to work with him. Ruby, who reportedly had ties to the illegal drug trade, said he would put up the funds to record the singer's debut album.

Spear agreed, and in a matter of weeks, he and back-up singers Rupert Wellington and Delroy Hines were at Randy's studio in downtown Kingston, where Ruby had assembled several of Jamaica's top musicians to record Marcus Garvey, a passionate homage to the country's first National Hero.

Trumpeter Bobby Ellis was one of those musicians. During a 2003 interview, he hailed Spear's ode to a forgotten hero.

"There was nobody talking 'bout Garvey at the time even though everybody was into black consciousness," Ellis recalled. "Spear felt Garvey was the right man for the times because that's what he stood for, black consciousness."

Born in 1887, Garvey was also a St Ann's Bay native. He left Jamaica in the 1900s and eventually ended up in Harlem, New York which had become a mecca for black thinkers like writers Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

Fraud charges

Garvey became a leader of the Harlem Renaissance but, hounded by United States law enforcement, he was imprisoned on dubious fraud charges, then deported to Jamaica. He died from a stroke in London in June 1940.

His body was exhumed and shipped to Jamaica in November 1964. He was also officially recognised as a National Hero.

Spear, who took his moniker from Kenyan freedom fighter Jomo Kenyatta, had been inspired by Garvey's teachings. His early recordings were done for producer Clement 'Coxson' Dodd at Studio One, but though songs like Door Peep, Swell Headed, Foggy Road and The Sun were well received, they were not big sellers.

With little happening for his career, he retreated to St Ann's Bay. Four years after leaving Kingston, he met the jocular Ruby who was eyeing a new career as a producer.

At the time, roots-reggae was taking off internationally through Bob Marley, another St Ann-born singer/songwriter. Most of the musicians who worked on Marcus Garvey had done session work, or toured, with Marley.

They included guitarists Tony Chin and Earl 'Chinna' Smith of the Soul Syndicate Band; bass players Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and Robbie Shakespeare; keyboardists Tyrone Downie, Earl 'Wya' Lindo and Bernard 'Touter' Harvey.

The drummer was Leroy 'Horsemouth' Wallace while the horn section was completed by saxophonists Richard 'Dirty Harry' Hall and Herman Marquis, and trombonist Vin Gordon.

Ellis remembers the Marcus Garvey sessions taking three weeks to complete.

He says they were special.

"It was great, yuh know, everybody was striving for excellence in those days," he explained. "Spear is more of a chanter an' he doesn't use a lot of words, so that gives the musician an opportunity to express themselves."

Marcus Garvey was a revelation. It included the title track, Old Marcus Garvey, Slavery Days and Tradition, militant songs which introduced Spear to an audience that follows him to this day.

The album was picked up for distribution by Chris Blackwell's Island Records, and helped solidify reggae's emergence.

Garvey has been the unwavering focus of Burning Spear's music for over 35 years. He has won two Grammy Awards for Best Reggae Album and in 2007, was awarded the Order of Distinction (Jamaica's fifth highest civic honour) for his contribution to his country's music.

Jack Ruby, who is the grandfather of pop sensation Sean Kingston, died from an heart attack in 1989. Bobby Ellis, now 78, recorded six albums with Spear and toured as his musical director for 10 years.