The History of Jamaican Music: Part 2

Now they had something new; all it needed was a name, and that came from bassist Cluett Johnson, Barrow noted, "because he used to go around calling everyone skavoovie, and that was a made-up word, but it was a precedent for a name."

Buster couldn't have guessed he'd be charting the entire future course of Jamaican music. All he cared about was that the crowds at his sound system loved his new beat.

"Prince Buster used to sell copies of "Humpty Dumpty" for 50 pounds! You could buy a house for that in those days."

But the homegrown music, now readily identifiable, fitted in perfectly with the mood of the time. With Jamaica receiving its independence, national pride was running high, and anything uniquely Jamaican was embraced. Also, the new ska, made by the working classes, was definitely music of the people, really music of the Kingston ghettoes. The other sound system operators needed to make their own ska records to compete with Buster, which they very quickly did.

Discs were made primarily for sound systems, rather than for sale. So the product was on acetate (also known as pre-releases) which would quickly deteriorate - by which time they'dalready been replaced with something new. Still, those with money could buy the records.

"Prince Buster used to sell copies of "Humpty Dumpty" for 50 pounds!" said Morgan. "You could buy a house for that in those days. And if they did ever release the songs, they'd put them on white labels, with no artist credit. But the sound systems did motivate us to record. People used to come looking for the best, the most excitement, and they wanted the newest sounds."

Both Reid and Dodd began having their own ska hits, and soon there was another face on the scene, Leslie Kong, a Chinese-Jamaican who owned a restaurant called Beverley's, which proved inspirational to young singer Jimmy Cliff. "Jimmy wrote a song called "Dearest Beverley," remembered Morgan, "and he went to see Kong to get it recorded. They told him to look for me and said that if he found me, he could record his song. So he came to my house. His song was a slow ballad, and I told him no-one would like it, because we were all doing ska music. So we wrote "Hurricane Hattie" and "King Of Kings" and we went to meet Leslie Kong."

Although inexperienced, Kong was eager to enter the record business, and asked if Morgan, by then already well-known, would record a side for him, "so I recorded "Be Still." And he took on Jimmy Cliff, who was still Jimmy Chambers then - Beverley's changed his name. And I started recording for Beverley's."

For Morgan, it was a matter of economic reality. Most producers were offering musicians $10 a song, Beverley's upped the stakes to $20. And since no-one was paying royalties, people went where the money was and laid down tunes as fast as they could. Morgan's defection started a rivalry between him and Prince Buster.

"In 1962, after I'd left Buster, I made "Forward March!" which was the start of it. Buster said there was an instrumental break on the record that had been stolen from him." His response was to release "Black Head Chinaman," aimed directly at Morgan and Kong. The problem lasted for two years until "the government finally asked us to stop, because it was causing too much trouble."

While the feud continued, it fueled record sales for both artists. Not that Morgan needed the boost. Even as new acts like the Wailers and the Maytals, or solo artists such as Alton Ellis and Eric Morris came along, he remained the king. "There were a lot of hits," he said. "There was a time when I had seven of the top 10, number one to number seven. They used to call me 'The Hitmaker and the Hitbreaker.' Every producer used to come looking for me. And every Saturday whoever had hits in the charts used to go to a club called the Silver Slipper and sing. They'd pay two pounds a song. I ended up getting 14 pounds one week, and the other artists didn't like that. But it was me. I'd sing, and people loved it, and my records sold."

According to Barrow, Morgan was so successful "because he sang soulfully, he had that sound, but he sang Jamaican songs, things that could only have been written in Jamaica."

The ska sound swept through Jamaica the way beat music would take over England a few years later, and the number of recording acts proliferated to meet the demand. It offered a start to a numbers of artists whose careers still continue. The Maytals, led by Toots Hibbert, scored a string of hit singles. Ken Boothe.

It was also the beginning for a young Robert Nesta Marley who was part of a vocal trio called the Wailers. Marley had received his first push from Kong, but once he began working with Neville 'Bunny' Livingstone and Peter Tosh as the Wailers, recording for Clement Dodd at Studio One, the magic began. "Simmer Down" was one of the major hits of 1973; rumor has it that the record sold 70,000 copies in just a few weeks.

By now, sound systems had become big business (Dodd alone owned four), and that meant more and more records were needed. In turn, that required musicians. The main studios had their own bands to back singers and also release instrumental tracks - another of ska's backbones.

In 1962, tenor sax player Tommy McCook was asked to join the Studio One band, but "back then I was a John Coltrane disciple, I was into the jazz scene. I wasn't familiar with ska. I didn't start recording it until a year later, after listening to the music with Don Drummond. Then I thought I had the feel of it, so I decided to start recording. My jazz group had broken up and I'd joined Aubrey Adams's band, playing at the Courtleigh Manor hotel. We all played in big bands, we all came from a jazz influence. The ska that was being played changed when I joined the Studio One group. Before that it was a boogie kind of ska. After I joined it was a jazz-ska thing. I think "Exodus" was my first instrumental there, and then I started writing for Coxsone. People kept asking me who were the people on the records - they recognized my sound from the discs. So I'd tell them who was in the Studio One group, and when I went to the next session I told [the musicians] to form a group, because people were asking about them, and people would pay to say them. Jah Jerry said they'd form a group if I'd lead it. I said I couldn't, because I was still under contract to Adams. And they still said they'd only form it if I'd lead it. Eventually my contract with Aubrey was up, and I didn't sign back with him."

And so the most influential instrumental ska band, and certainly the most famous, began - the Skatalites.

Continue reading about the history of Jamaican music here: The History of Jamaican Music: Part 3

The History of Jamaican Music: Part 2

"Prince Buster used to sell copies of "Humpty Dumpty" for 50 pounds! You could buy a house for that in those days."

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