The History of Jamaican Music: Part 3

"I formed the group in June of '64, and we did pretty good," McCook continued. "We were going all over Jamaica. We did 14 months on the road before we disband in '65."

Apart from live shows, they recorded a number of hits, like "Guns of Navarone." With reputations as skilled soloists, the Skatalites were the main 'band' in a young industry. Most were graduates of the famous Alpha Boys' School, a Catholic institution which seemed to churn out musical talent - Roland Alphonso, Jackie Mittoo, and Lester Sterling, any number of instrumentalists who'd become famous in Jamaican music. And there was also Don Drummond, perhaps the most gifted of them all, who'd meet a tragic end in an insane asylum after murdering his common-law wife.

"Ska might not have caught on in America, but in England it was a different story."

By 1964, ska had become the pre-eminent music in Jamaica, its identity closely entwined with the country. So closely tied, in fact, that for the World's Fair that year in New York, the Jamaican government sent over Jimmy Cliff (as well as bandleader Byron Lee, Prince buster, and Carole Crawford, the reigning Miss World) in an attempt to export ska to the U.S.. There were performances, and classes were offered in dancing 'the ska' and 'the shuffle.' As history shows, it didn't work.

Ska might not have caught on in America, but in England it was a different story. But Britain, particularly England, had a growing Jamaican population. World War II had left the country decimated, both physically and psychologically. The servicemen who returned came back to a place that needed rebuilding, both in physical plant and infrastructure, to really make it a land fit for heroes. The only way was to import labor, so in 1948 the doors were opened to citizens of the Empire. The money promised was far more than they could have earned in the colonies (although no mention was made of the higher cost of living, or the lack of availability of so many things in a country still living in austerity), that people arrived from all over.

Unsurprisingly, each nationality gravitated to its own, both socially and in living areas. They needed each other in this foreign place, especially when the immigrants discovered the promise of riches was no more than words and they found themselves doing jobs the natives didn't want.

Around people from home, though, things were easier. For the Jamaicans, that meant importing ideas from the island, one of which was the sound system. By 1956, the first one was operating in England, and soon 'blues dances,' as they were known, were a weekend feature of Jamaican communities through out the country. Once ska hit at home, it made its way across the Atlantic, where it proved popular with the expatriates. In 1962, three labels were releasing Jamaican music in the U.K. - Melodisc, which created the Blue Beat label for ska, with Prince Buster and Laurel Aitken as their main artists; Island, Chris Blackwell's creation; and R&B. As more and more Jamaicans moved to Britain, it became a more lucrative market for artists than Jamaica itself.

"You might sell five thousand records in Jamaica, but you'd sell a lot more over there," Morgan observed. Aitken, a Panamanian, was one of the first ska musicians to make his home in England, where his records always sold well, sometimes staggeringly so - "Mary Lee," an early single, shipped 80,000 copies in England alone. He also made frequent live appearances in the country.

It took a couple of years, but ska, or blue beat as it was also known, did manage to break though briefly into the British pop mainstream.

"My Boy Lollipop," by Millie Small was a cover of an old Barbie Gaye R&B tune. The record became a true international sensation, climbing to #2 in both the U.K. and U.S., which was enough to make part of a generation of Britons aware of the underground movement happening around them. The Mods listened hard. For them the music of choice was soul, but there was also a definite attraction to ska, with its irresistible beat, and also to the sharp looks of the rude boys, the most fashionable Jamaican youth. Shaved heads, good clothes, pork pie hats - the rude boys had style, and the mods - some of whom became skinheads a few years later - copied much of it. There was an affinity of sorts between the two groups that transcended race. Both were working class, and had a taste for the good life and strong dancing music. The rude boy phenomenon had begun in Jamaica and was soon exported to Jamaicans overseas. At home they were youth who'd flocked to Kingston after independence, only to find no opportunity in the city. With no work, and no money, they found themselves existing in the ghettoes of Trenchtown and riverton City, making money any way they could, often turning to crime (as in the film The Harder They Come), forming gangs, making their way in the underworld and even into some of the armed political groups which were gaining in influence. They were cool, and 'bad,' as they said. Rude boys lived on society's fringes, outsiders, and expressed themselves through their dress and their dance. Ska, with its quick beat, demanded a lot of energy from its dancers. But rude boys didn't like to move that fast. "They used to dance half-speed to certain ska records," explained Barrow, "and the music changed to accommodate that."

Which was the birth of rocksteady.

Ska desperately needed to move on. By the summer of 1966 it had been around for more than half a decade, and while the songs had grown in sophistication, the basic rhythm and arrangements hadn't. There was still the defining off-beat emphasis over a walking bass pattern. The rock steady concept brought the new idea ska sought.

Continue reading about the history of Jamaican music here: The History of Jamaican Music: Part 4

The History of Jamaican Music: Part 3

"Ska might not have caught on in America, but in England it was a different story."

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