The Songs
Hail Mi Idrin - Ina Kamoze - When I visited Jamaica in 1984 Ina Kamoze was being hailed as an inheritor of the roots conscious legacy of the the recently deceased Bob Marley. Ini recorded Hail Mi Idrin and about a dozen stellar tracks at Sonic Studios with Sly and Robbie. I love Kamoze's chilled out minimalist approach and the spacey dub sounds on the cut. Ini Kamoze never lived up to his early expectations but his first album the self titled Ina Kamoze is a reggae classic.
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Dance In A Greenwich Farm- Cornell Campbell - Cornell Campbell was a big star in Jamaica but never broke through as an international star. His smooth falsetto voice reminds me a lot of Smokey Robinson. Dread In A Greenwich Farm is typical of of the the long string of hit records during his collaboration with producer Bunny Lee at King Tubby's studio in the Seventies. There about a two dozen Cornell Campbell songs from his Bunny Lee/King Tubby period that are seriously dread. You can hear those tracks and others on the 2 CD Natty Dread Anthology recently reissued on the indie label Sanctuary.
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Gunman - Michael Prophet Gunman was Michael Prophet's commentary on the violence by gun and machete wielding possies who caused a great deal of violence leading into the 1980 Michael Manley vs. Edward Seaga presidential election. Michael Prophet wrote this song after a gang of gunmen rousted him out of bed one morning wanting to know who he was voting for in the presidential election. Most Rastafarians were supporters of Manley but as a group they steered away from the partisan fussing and fighting that dominated the Jamaican political world throughout the Seventies and early Eighties.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt
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