'Oliver Yuh Large Oh' was no joke - Actor thought Fab 5 was pulling his leg to do a song

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

As an actor, Oliver Samuels is accustomed to curtain calls and post-performance interaction with those who wish to know the man behind the character. However, in the mid-1980s, after a theatrical performance in Kingston Samuels got a visit from a band of musicians which not only opened up a different performance stage but also cast him as a different character, one who 'cut a tune'.

The song Samuels recorded that night was Oliver Yuh Large Oh, penned by Grub Cooper with music by the Fabulous Five Incorporated Band, the song eventually becoming the title of Samuels' only album. And it has become Samuels' personal statement on his magnitude in Jamaican culture.

"At around that time the 'Oliver at Large' series was going on. I had always been mouthing Grub and Frankie (of Fab Five), asking them why they don't carry me to the studio make me cut a record. I was just joking and I thought they were," Samuels said.

He found out that it was a 'serious joke' at that post-performance visit when they said "we ready for you".

"Me say 'for what?' and they said 'to go studio'," Samuels said. And off they went to Half-Way Tree.

Outside of the theatre Samuels had never sung or deejayed previously, and he found the quicker pace of the music-making process a bit disconcerting.

"Me never know you jus' go into studio and ride a riddim. Me think you have to rehearse for weeks. It was a startling experience," he said.

eye-opening experience

Unlike theatre, though, in the studio there are many chances to get a line right. So Oliver went through the song line by line and, in recalling his first studio session, delivers the lines "Oliver yuh large oh, an' yuh name gone abroad". Samuels said for his debut solo session "it never so bad. Little patching go on".

Samuels also did not realise that there could be different songs on the same rhythm, so he says "it was eye-opening to me."

He heard the completed Oliver Yuh Large Oh a few days after the session, when "them clean up the thing and about to send it to the radio stations. I loved it. I did it for fun. It was wonderful to hear it. Then I thought how the people going to receive it."

There was no need to worry, though, as "they loved it. It was well received."

He may not have anticipated what the public saw as the next logical step. "Peopl'e on the street were stopping and talking to me, asking when I was going to go on stage. The disconcerting thought was going on the stage to perform it," he said.

He first did so on a show in Montego Bay, to very good effect. However, Samuels says "me can't remember all the song. Even to now I don't know all of the song fully. The whole thing of my theatrical experience is me had to learn it, go through rehearsal for two months, so it embedded in your brain."

Still, he is very clear about his favourite lines, which he reels off for The Sunday Gleaner:

"Me know sey me large,

Me know sey me no small,

Me ram theatre, me come fe ram dancehall."