European revival - Winston McAnuff enjoys reggae resurgence

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Fifteen years ago, Winston McAnuff was in danger of joining the list of roots-reggae acts from the 1970s to be swallowed by obscurity. But, thanks to some innovative albums, he has survived to become one of the biggest reggae acts in Europe.

McAnuff, whose frenetic performances earned him the moniker 'Electric Dread', was scheduled to perform last Friday at the Wicky Wacky club in Bull Bay, St Andrew, alongside the Uprising Band ,which includes his son, drummer Rashaun 'Kush' McAnuff.

Last week, during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, the laid-back singer spoke about the last decade which has been the most fruitful of his career.

"The fire was always burning, yuh nuh, I jus' met the right youth dem and things tek off," he said.

Nicolas Maslowski and Romain Germa, two young French reggae enthusiasts, are the youths McAnuff refers to. He met them eight years ago in France and learned of their admiration for his work.

They released a collection of his songs on the album Diary Of The Silent Years, which announced the Makasound record company Maslowski and Germa currently operate in Paris. Its catalogue has over 60 titles, several of them by McAnuff.

"Wi cyaah get caught up in hype. The most important thing to me 'bout all a this is that wi preserving the music," he said.

Since Diary Of The Silent Years was released, McAnuff has produced other albums that have done well throughout France, home to his biggest audience.

Headliner

Those albums, A Drop, Paris Rocking and Nostradamus have elevated McAnuff from club performer to festival headliner.

Inspired by the 16th century French seer, Nostradamus was a concept project produced by Clive Hunt, another Jamaican musician with strong links to the French music scene.

The Manchester-born McAnuff broke through in Europe 30-odd years after his contemporaries made inroads on the continent.

While many of them were touring, he was struggling and hanging out at the Aquarius studio in Kingston.

Owned by the Chin Loy family, Aquarius was a hot spot for singers like Beres Hammond and Tyrone Taylor. It is where McAnuff met Ian and Roger Lewis, the brothers behind the Inner Circle band.

They produced his 1978 album, What The Man a Deal Wid, which included a cover of Bob Andy's Unchained, the title track, and Hyprocrites and Parasites. McAnuff said it helped shape his career.

"Is a monster album in France. When I perform I still do songs from it," he said.

The seventh of eight children, McAnuff was born in the town of Christiana but moved to Kingston and attended Excelsior High School. He began his recording career with Derrick Harriott, who produced his first song, Ugly Days.

Malcolm X, his ode to the Nation of Islam icon, was his first major song.

McAnuff recorded it for Joe Gibbs but says the producer was not impressed by his voice, so he passed it on to his star performer, Dennis Brown, whose famous version appears on the Visions album.

McAnuff's change in fortunes is not unique. Other performers from reggae's golden age of the 1970s, like The Congos and Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, experienced a career renaissance when their early work was discovered by a new generation.

It has been McAnuff's new sound, however, which has caught on among European fans. He hopes to continue that trend with his latest album which is scheduled to be released there in January.

• Half-million expected to attend Lagos concert - Chevelle Franklyn makes yearly trip to Africa, her 'second home'

Once again, international artiste and minister Chevelle Franklyn prepares for her annual trip to Lagos, Nigeria, to minister to arguably the largest gospel concert in the world, with an expected crowd of over 500,000 people.

This would be Franklyn's third consecutive year at the event dubbed 'The Experience'.

The concert is convened and hosted by Pastor Paul Adefarasin of House on the Rock, it is an interdenominational gospel concert which features some of the best-known musical talents of today. The event, which debuted in December 2006 with over 70,000 persons in attendance, rapidly gained momentum at its second outing with a quantum leap in attendance of well over 250,000 people.

With last year's unprecedented crowd estimated at 500,000, The Experience has now become known as the largest musical concert in Africa.

The event runs through the night, starting at 7 p.m. and continues until 6 a.m. the following morning.

Franklyn will also be ministering in Calabar, Cross River State of Nigeria and later back, again in Lagos, at the 'Holy Ghost Prayer Night' hosted by Redeemed Christian Church of God Pastor Enoch A. Adeboye. This night attracts three million people, again arguably the largest Christian gathering in the world.

In 1986, Adeboye said he asked for a birthday gift from God and requested a miracle for each member of the church. He testified that God then instructed him to invite everyone to a special meeting called the 'Holy Ghost Service'. This subsequently evolved into monthly Holy Ghost Nights in Lagos, Nigeria.

Franklyn holds a special love for Africa, 'The Pleasant Land', and enjoys the diversity of the culture, the gifts and talents of the people and their intense passion and love for the Lord. May 2010 saw Franklyn in South Africa for an annual conference, while in September she ministering at a women's conference in Nairobi, Kenya. Franklyn considers Africa her second home.

"I am looking forward to 2011 with great expectation as God continues to open great and effective doors; and there are already talks of Australia, Zimbabwe and India 'For he has anointed me to minister to nations,'" said Franklyn.