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Bob Marley Legend

Bob Marley Legend – RIP May 11, 1981

Born on February 6, 1945, in St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Bob Marley helped introduce reggae music to the world and remains one of the genre’s most beloved artists to this day. The son of a black teenage mother and much older, later absent white father, he spent his early years in St. Ann Parish, in the rural village known as Nine Miles.

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Earl Lindo 9/2017

September 4, 2017 – Earl Lindo was born Earl Wilberforce “Wire” Lindo on January 7, 1953 in Kingston, Jamaica. His nickname “wire” over time became “Wya”.

While attending Excelsior High School in the late sixties, he played bass and classical piano, before he became interested in the jazz sounds of Lee Dorsey and Jimmy Smith.  With Barry Biggs, Mikey “Boo” Richards, and Ernest Wilson he then played in the Astronauts. Continue reading Earl Lindo 9/2017

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Hedley Jones 9/2017

September 1, 2017 – Hedley Jones (the Wailers) was born on November 12, 1917 in near Linstead, Jamaica, the son of David and Hettie Jones, and started making music as a child. He made his own cello at the age of 14, as well as a banjo. In 1935 he moved to Kingston, where he heard Marcus Garvey speak, and worked as a tailor, cabinet maker, bus conductor, repairing sewing machines, radios and gramophones. He said: “I was what people called a jack of all trades. I could fix everything.” His main work was as a proofreader, with the Gleaner and Jamaica Times.

He also played banjo in a Hawaiian jazz band, before forming his own Hedley Jones Sextet. Inspired by the recordings of Charlie Christian, but unable to afford an imported guitar, he built himself a solid-bodied electric guitar, and was featured with it on the front page of The Gleaner in September 1940, at about the same time that Les Paul was doing similar pioneering work in the US. Jones continued to build guitars for other Jamaican musicians in the years that followed. Continue reading Hedley Jones 9/2017

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Winston Samuels 8/2017

Winston Samuels of Desmond Dekker and the AcesAugust 24, 2017 – Jamaican Ska Authentic Winston Samuels (McInnis), a living legend in Jamaican Music, was born in Kingston, Jamaica to proud parents Winston D. McInnis and Mavis Davis-McInnis in 1944.  From the time he was born he loved to sing.  As a matter of fact his mother, Mavis would have Sunday family discussions followed by songs of worship.  There was such harmony in the household that it drew other tenants who loved to listen to him. Continue reading Winston Samuels 8/2017

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Errol Brown 5/2015

Errol BrownMay 6, 2015 – Errol Brown was born on December 11, 1943 in Kingston, Jamaica, but moved with his family, to the UK when he was twelve years old. In the late 60s, Errol and his friend Tony Wilson formed a band which was first called ‘Hot Chocolate Band’ but this was soon shortened to Hot Chocolate by Mickie Most.

Hot Chocolate started their recording career making a reggae version of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”, but Errol was told he needed permission. He was contacted by Apple Records, discovered that Lennon liked his version, and the group was subsequently signed to Apple Records. The link was short-lived as The Beatles were starting to break up, and the Apple connection soon ended. But it was in the disco era of the mid-1970s when Hot Chocolate became a big success.

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Bunny Rugs 2/2014

BunnyRugsFebruary 2, 2014 – Bunny Rugs (Third World) aka Bunny Scott was born William Clarke on February 2nd 1948 in Mandeville, Jamaica and raised in the capital of Kingston. In the mid 60s he joined Charlie Hackett and the Souvenirs, the resident band at the Kitty Club on Maxfield Avenue, before leading the early lineup of Inner Circle in 1969. In 1971 he did a stint in New York where he was a member of the dance band Hugh Hendricks and the Buccaneers and the Bluegrass Experience.

He returned to Jamaica in 1974 and recorded with Lee “Scratch” Perry, initially as a backing singer, then with Leslie Kong’s nephew Ricky Grant as the duo Bunny & Ricky. They released singles such as “Freedom Fighter” and “Bushweed Corntrash”.

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Lucky Dube 10/2007

lucky_dubeOctober 18, 2007 – Lucky Dube was born August 3rd 1964 in Ermelo, formerly of the Eastern Transvaal, now of Mpumalanga. While at school he joined a choir and formed his first musical ensemble, called The Skyway Band.

It was here too he discovered the Rastafari movement. At the age of 18 Philip joined his cousin’s band, The Love Brothers, playing Zulu pop music known as mbaqanga.

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Desmond Dekker 5/2006

desmond_dekkerMay 25, 2006 – Desmond Dekker was born Desmond Adolphus Dacres on July 16th 1941 in Saint Andrew Parrish, Kingston, Jamaica. Dekker spent his early formative years in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. From a very young age he would regularly attend the local church with his grandmother and aunt. This early religious upbringing as well as Dekker’s enjoyment of singing hymns led to a lifelong religious commitment. Orphaned in his teens following his mother’s death as a result of illness, he moved to the parish of St. Mary and then later to St. Thomas. While at St. Thomas, Dekker embarked on an apprenticeship as a tailor before returning to Kingston, where he secured employment as a welder.

His workplace singing had drawn the attention of his co-workers, who encouraged him to pursue a career in the music industry. In 1961 he auditioned for Coxsone Dodd (Studio One) and Duke Reid (Treasure Isle), though neither audition was successful. The young unsigned vocalist then successfully auditioned for Leslie Kong’s Beverley’s record label and was awarded his first recording contract. He auditioned before the stable’s biggest hitmaker, Derrick Morgan, who immediately spotted the young man’s potential. However, it was to be two long years before Kong finally took him into the studio, waiting patiently for him to compose a song worthy of recording.

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Judge Dread 3/1998

Judge DreadMarch 13, 1998 – Judge Dread was born Alex Minto Hughes on May 2nd 1945.

Although often dismissed as a novelty act, Judge Dread was actually a groundbreaking artist. Not only did he put more reggae records onto the U.K. chart than anyone else (Bob Marley included), he was also the first white artist to actually have a reggae hit in Jamaica. The Judge also holds the record for having the most songs banned by the BBC, 11 in all, which incidentally is precisely the number of singles he placed on the charts.
Judge Dread was born Alex Hughes in Kent, England. In his teens, he moved into a West Indian household in the Caribbean neighborhood of Brixton. Hughes was a large man, which helped determine his early career as a bouncer at the Brixton’s Ram Jam club. He also acted as a bodyguard for the likes of Prince Buster, Coxsone Dodd, and Duke Reid. There was a spell as a professional wrestler, under the mighty moniker the Masked Executioner, and even a job as muscle for Trojan Records, collecting debts.

By the end of the ’60s, Hughes was working as a DJ with a local radio station and running his own sound system. It was Prince Buster who provided the impetus for Hughes’ metamorphosis into a recording artist. The DJ was so taken by Buster’s seminal “Big Five” that he went into Trojan’s studio to record his own follow-up. Over the rhythm of Verne & Son’s “Little Boy Blue,” Hughes recited a slew of hilariously rude nursery rhymes. It was by sheer chance that Trojan label head Lee Gopthal walked by during the recording; impressed, he immediately signed the DJ. His song was titled “Big Six” and Hughes chose the name Judge Dread in honor of Buster. The single was released, aptly enough, on the Trojan label imprint Big Shot. Initially an underground hit, once Trojan signed a distribution deal with EMI later in 1972, the single rocketed up the charts, even though the distributors refused to carry the record. The song was also a hit with a radio ban as well, and Trojan’s disingenuous cries that it wasn’t about sex were met with the same scorn as Max Romeo’s “Wet Dream,” the first of the rude reggae hits. The ban was no more effective this time either, and the single rocketed to number 11, spending six months on the chart. “Big Six” was just as enormous in Jamaica, and before the year was out Dread was in Kingston performing before an excited crowd. Those nearest the stage assumed the white man milling around was Dread’s bodyguard or perhaps his manager, at least until he stepped up to the mic. An audible gasp arose from the crowd as no one in Jamaica had considered the possibility that the Judge was white.

Back in Britain, “Big Seven” was even bigger than its predecessor, thrusting its way up to number eight. It too was an innuendo-laced nursery rhyme, toasted over a perfect rocksteady rhythm and reggae beat. In the new year, “Big Eight” shot up the chart as well. Amazingly though, Judge Dread’s debut album, Dreadmania, failed to even scrape the bottom reaches of the chart. However, the British continued to have an insatiable desire for his singles. In the midst of all this rudeness, in faraway Ethiopia people were dying, so he helped organize a benefit concert starring the Wailers and Desmond Dekker, and also released the benefit single “Molly.” The single was the first of Dread’s releases not to boast a single sexual innuendo, but radio stations banned it anyway and the charity record failed to chart. In an attempt to receive some airplay, Dread released singles under the pseudonym JD Alex and Jason Sinclair, but the BBC wasn’t fooled and banned them regardless of content.

The artist’s second album, Working Class ‘Ero, which arrived in 1974, also failed to chart. “Big Nine,” released that June, and “Grandad’s Flannelette Nightshirt,” which arrived in December, turned out to be just as limp. Judge Dread seemed to have lost his potency and both singles lacked the thrusting naughtiness of their predecessors. However, the DJ shot back up the chart the following year with “Je T’aime,” a cover which managed to be even more suggestive than the original. The ever-enlarging “Big Ten” took the artist back into the Top Ten that autumn; and the “Big” series eventually ended at a ruler-defying 12. A new album, Bedtime Stories, just missed the Top 25, while the double A-sided single “Christmas in Dreadland”/”Come Outside” proved to be the perfect holiday offering. The hits kept coming, although none would again break into the Top 25. In the spring, The Winkle Man sidled its way up Number 35. The Latin flair of “Y’Viva Suspenders” proved more popular in August 1976, but failed to give a leg up to the Last of the Skinheads album.

Britain was now in the grips of punk, but Judge Dread was bemoaning the lack of reggae in clubs, and wishing to “Bring Back the Skins,” one of a quartet of songs on his February 1977 5th Anniversary EP. However, the artist was capable of writing more than rude hits. One of his songs, “A Child’s Prayer,” was picked out by Elvis Presley, who intended on recording it as a Christmas present for his daughter. However, he died before he had the chance. In the autumn, the delightfully daft barnyard mayhem of “Up With the Cock” scraped into the Top 50. Dread’s raging affair with the charts ended in December 1978, with the holiday flavored “Hokey Cokey”/”Jingle Bells.” It had been quite a run and 1980’s 40 Big Ones summed it all up.

Dread sporadically continued releasing albums, which were still bought by hardcore fans. He also continued touring, playing to small, but avid audiences. His last show was at a Canterbury club, on March 13, 1998. As the set finished, the consummate performer turned to the audience and said, “Let’s hear it for the band.” They were his final words. As the mighty Judge walked offstage, he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 52.

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Patrick Waite 2/1993

Patrick WaiteFebruary 18, 1993 – Patrick Waite was born on May 16, 1968 in the Birmingham area of England. His father had moved from his native Jamaica to England in 1966.

At age eleven he became a founding member of Musical Youth, a British-Jamaican pop/reggae band. The group originally formed in 1979 at Duddeston Manor School in Birmingham, England and featured two sets of brothers, Kelvin and Michael Grant, plus Junior and Patrick Waite.

The latter pair’s father, Frederick Waite, was a former member of Jamaican group The Techniques, and sang lead with Junior at the start of the group’s career in the late 1970s.
They were quickly signed to MCA Records and by that time, founding father Frederick Waite had backed down, to be replaced by Dennis Seaton, a kid their own age, as lead singer.

In 1982 they released there first and only hit. The pro-marijuana song called, “Pass The Dutchie” was based on “Pass The Kouchie” by ‘The Mighty Diamonds.’ The song sold over 5 million copies, but none of their future releases would gain as much attention as this one had. They went onto sing backup for Donna Summers until the career began to sour, eventually leading to the disbanding of the band in 1985.

An interview in England from March 2003 reveals that Musical Youth was Doomed from the start, in an industry that has claimed many legends, unprepared for great wealth, adoration and royalty theft. Here is that interview with singer Dennis Seaton and keyboard player Michael Grant.

Next Car & Van Rental sits opposite a council estate in Halesowen, a small town near Birmingham. It’s not the best area, but it’s not the worst either. The walls of the forecourt are spiked with broken glass. Inside, co-owner Steve Cooke offers a pulverizing handshake, the internationally recognized signal of a provincial businessman on the up. His partner, Dennis Seaton, is charming, yet seems faintly sheepish about being interviewed.

Next Car & Van Rental is a long way from the Grammy awards, where Seaton was nominated best newcomer the night Michael Jackson picked up eight gongs for Thriller, and from Los Angeles, where he was briefly top goalscorer on Rod Stewart’s celebrity expat Sunday league team. But it’s also a fair distance from signing on or delivering sacks of rice, which Seaton also did when his 15 minutes of fame ran out. Today, few of his customers know he was ever famous. “People aren’t going to rent a car from me because I used to be the singer in Musical Youth,” he says. 

Musical Youth’s 1982 single Pass the Dutchie sold 5m copies. They broke America. They were the first black artists to be played on MTV – beating Michael Jackson by several months. But their stardom never transcended its era. Seaton’s tales are thick with dimly remembered names. They were regulars on Razzmatazz, Tyne Tees’s unlamented pop show. They worked on a film with The A Team’s Mr T. Irene Cara, singer of Fame and Flashdance, guested onstage. Throw in a commentary by Stuart Maconie and some footage of people wearing deely boppers and you’ve got yourself a BBC2 nostalgia show. 

What started out as a jaunty celebration of multi-cultural British youth ended as a cautionary tale about the perils of naivety in the music industry. Like all tales from rock’s dark side, it involved drugs, mental instability, lawlessness, financial wranglings and premature death. In this tale, however, the people who got in trouble, went mad and died had barely hit puberty at the height of their success. 

Eating lunch in a gaudy Birmingham leisure complex, keyboard player Michael Grant is aware that Musical Youth has become a byword for child stardom’s misery. “Black artists get ripped off, child stars get ripped off,” he says. “We were doomed from the start, really.” 

Grant is the only surviving member of Musical Youth who still has a successful musical career. Remixes by his production team, 5am, have graced singles by Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes and Kelly Rowland. He manages a gospel duo called Nu Life and has recently produced an indie band, River Deep. “I want to produce the next Oasis album,” he says hopefully. 

Courteous to a fault, he is nevertheless noticeably angrier about Musical Youth’s demise than Seaton. The singer retains a curious ebullience even when accusing the music industry of racism. Perhaps that’s the legacy of being the frontman, spending your early teens grinning good-naturedly on gormless kids’ TV shows and in gormless pop magazines. 

Grant was nine years old in 1979, when he and his guitarist brother Kelvin, then seven, joined Musical Youth. They had formed at the behest of a family friend, Freddie Waite, once a singer in Jamaican vocal trio the Techniques. Waite had left the band in 1966, emigrated to England and ended up in Nechells, in inner-city Birmingham. Waite encouraged his sons, Patrick and Junior, to take up bass and drums respectively. When the Grant brothers joined them, they became his backing band. 

“We used to do a lot of pubs and clubs with this 35-year-old man when we were between the ages of seven and 12,” says Grant. “This old guy next to a bunch of kids! Kelvin’s hands were so small they could only just reach around the fretboard of his guitar. It was odd, but we got a favourable reaction. We could play our instruments.”

Reggae is a famously obtuse genre. It makes stars out of the most unlikely people. Freddie Waite and Musical Youth were certainly weird, but no weirder than, say, King Stitt, Jamaica’s cross-eyed, toothless, facially disfigured DJ. Outside reggae circles, however, Freddie Waite and Musical Youth were just too peculiar. An A&R man spotted them performing in Coventry, and offered them a deal – on one condition. “He said, you need a singer your own age,” Grant chuckles. “We held an audition and Dennis was the only one to turn up. It was pretty embarrassing.” 

Musical Youth signed to MCA records in 1982. “We would have been excited if we knew what it meant,” says Grant. “We thought it was par for the course – why shouldn’t we get a record deal? We didn’t really understand.” 

“The Fun Boy Three tried to talk to us about the business,” remembers Seaton. “But we were asking them questions like, ‘Are you going out with Bananarama?'” 

Musical Youth’s first single for MCA was a version of the Mighty Diamonds’ Rastafarian anthem Pass the Kouchie, with the lyrics and title famously altered to avoid any reference to marijuana. Driven by Kelvin Grant’s exuberant toasting – a kind of Jamaican proto-rapping, then entirely alien to a British pop audience – Pass the Dutchie entered the charts at number 26 on September 25. The next week it leapt to number one. It was a hit across Europe. It reached the top 10 in America. They recorded with Donna Summer. Michael Jackson took a shine to them. “I was one of those kids that’s been in his bedroom,” says Grant indignantly, “and nothing untoward happened.” 

The money was rolling in. Everyone except Seaton moved away from their council estate homes. “We had to set up our own companies,” he remembers. “We had to get accountants and sit in board meetings. I would ask questions, but I was 15 and I felt like I was bothering them.” 

In some ways, it’s surprising Musical Youth’s success lasted so long. In a market reliant on high visibility to keep fickle audiences interested, Musical Youth were restricted by guidelines protecting child performers. “We could only work 42 days of the year, and we were trying to compete against guys that toured for 18 months solid,” says Grant. 

In addition, once the excitement surrounding Pass the Dutchie died down, Musical Youth found themselves trapped in a musical no-man’s land, between frivolous teen pop and the sombre, grittily political world of reggae. They had honed their skills in Birmingham’s notoriously tough black clubs and recorded sessions for the John Peel show, but their age meant they would inevitably be viewed as a novelty, aimed not at serious music fans but children. “We were seen as a novelty, not just because of our age, but because of the colour of our skin,” says Grant. “There weren’t any role models around our age, there weren’t any black kids on TV, so we were setting a lot of trends.” 

The disparity showed in the songs Dennis Seaton penned with Freddie Waite. They awkwardly attempted to graft the language with which Rastafarian artists prophesied Babylon’s imminent collapse on to juvenile concerns. Pass the Dutchie’s follow-up, The Youth of Today, suggested its protagonist was “under heavy manners”, a phrase coined by Jamaican premier Michael Manley, when he introduced martial law in 1976. It wasn’t the first time the term had been re-appropriated by a reggae song (fire-and-brimstone Rasta Prince Far-I beat them to it) but it was presumably the first time it had been used to describe a child’s frustration at being unable to “buy a little bike”. The B-sides of their second top 10 single Never Gonna Give You Up further encapsulated their dilemma. One was a bass-heavy band original called Rub N Dub. The other was the theme to Jim’ll Fix It. 

Their record label was keen to capitalise on their US success. In America, Pass the Dutchie had become the biggest-selling reggae single in over a decade – testament both to the band’s commercial appeal and the fact that Americans didn’t buy many reggae records. “We started doing R&B because they wanted to make it accessible to America,” says Grant. “Even then, at 13, I was thinking, this isn’t what I want. We weren’t really in a position to argue. I should have been more assertive in hindsight, but I was a child. I had no influence on my career. To say we were manipulated is an understatement. We were led by everybody and anybody.”

It was to prove a disastrous miscalculation. Different Style limped to number 144 in America. In Britain, too, the novelty had worn off: 18 months after Pass the Dutchie, Musical Youth’s chart career was over. Its failure shocked their label, which hurriedly sent them – with their families – to Barbados for a massively expensive recording session with reggae star Eddy Grant. “My parents realised the money was running out, that we didn’t look as happy,” remembers Grant. “Nobody from the record company and the management came to explain to my parents about what was going on. Towards the end of Musical Youth, they got solicitors involved. Now, looking back, it was an absolute nightmare.” 

“It became the Grants versus the Waites and Dennis Seaton was caught up in the whole thing. The parents thought their career wasn’t being planned or controlled properly,” says David Morgan, who became Seaton’s manager in the late 1980s. “I think they thought they could do better themselves, but they had no knowledge of the business. When MCA saw this internal squabbling, they were pretty dismayed. Then when the label discovered the amount of money Eddy Grant had charged them, and heard what he’d done, that was pretty much the kiss of death.”

While the families and their respective lawyers battled with each other, the behaviour of both Waite brothers was becoming unpredictable. “Junior was showing signs of mental problems,” says Grant. “Stuff that should have been water off a duck’s back he was taking really seriously. If you asked him why he hadn’t shaved, he’d go beserk, ‘Why are you criticising me? Why don’t you mind your own business?’ Patrick was like that as well. I just thought, ‘We don’t need this.'” 

The reasons behind their decline are still mysterious. One band associate solemnly claims Patrick Waite’s problems stemmed from an incident in which he had “fallen over and bumped his head”. Seaton thinks they had something to do with the Waite family’s relocation from the estates of Nechells to Edgbaston. “They moved to this swanky apartment, a well-to-do area. That changed them because they were in surroundings that they weren’t used to. My family stayed in Nechells, my mum bought her house there. It keeps you grounded.” 

More prosaically, the Waite brothers had developed drug problems. Seaton and Grant profess ignorance as to precisely what drugs. “Obviously, we knew that he was smoking weed because we were his friends, but this other stuff, we had no idea,” says Seaton. “When I hear now what people are like on speed, I think that’s what it must have been. When Patrick left school, he was spending a lot of time in this pub that his dad owned, so I suppose he must have got it there. It wasn’t until we got out on the road that we realised he was going off the rails.” 

Patrick Waite’s erratic behaviour came to a head on a final, disastrous trip to Jamaica in the spring of 1985. “He completely lost it onstage,” Grant remembers. “He was totally spaced out, didn’t know where the hell he was, playing all kinds of crap. His dad ran onstage, took his bass off him and took him off the stage.”

Waite was hospitalised, and the rest of Musical Youth left Jamaica without him. Back in England, they were dropped by MCA and broke up in June, spurred by Seaton’s decision to leave: “The day before my 18th birthday, I became a Christian, and from that day everything changed. For the last four years, I’d lived, breathed, slept and shit Musical Youth. The decision to leave wasn’t planned. I didn’t even particularly want to be a solo artist. I just wasn’t happy.” 

Neither was Michael Grant. “After the band broke up, I read this article in one of the tabloids saying Musical Youth were has-beens. I was 16 years old. All my friends are leaving school, going into jobs, starting their lives, doing all that sort of thing, and you read this article saying you’re a has-been. I didn’t do anything for a couple of years. I got involved with different bands, but it didn’t bring me any peace.”

His brother, just 14 when the band split, was equally distraught. “He got bored and restless and didn’t have anything to do. Kelvin didn’t want to go back into the music industry, didn’t want to go back down that road. He felt a bit burned by the experience. He’s still trying to find some direction.” 

Today, Kelvin Grant is a virtual recluse; the brothers seldom speak. Various attempts to reform Musical Youth during the late 1980s floundered, usually because of the Waites’s unpredictability. Seaton tried his hand at a solo career. Despite songwriting help from Stevie Wonder, his 1989 album Imagine That flopped. Two years later, he was back in Birmingham, driving a delivery van. “I had to sign on when the money ran out. People were looking at me and laughing, but I had to do it.”

The Waite brothers’ lives unravelled far more dramatically. Patrick Waite began making local newspaper headlines as a petty criminal. Grant thinks his crimes had little to do with poverty. “Suddenly, there’s no rehearsals, you’re not going around the world any more. I think he was just bored out of his mind.” In 1987, he was jailed for four months for reckless driving, credit-card fraud and assaulting the police. In 1990, he was jailed again, for robbing a pregnant woman at knifepoint. Shortly after his release, he was arrested again, for marijuana possession. “I had words with him,” remembers Seaton. “I was trying to tell him it affected all five of us, that it was tarnishing whatever reputation the band had left. Every time he appeared in the papers it wasn’t Patrick Waite, it was Musical Youth. That was the last conversation I ever had with him.”

While awaiting trial in February 1993, Patrick Waite collapsed on February 18 and died at his uncle’s, the victim of heart failure brought on by a rare virus. He was 24 years old. 

At the time of his death, he was sharing a flat with his mother, sister and Junior, whose mental condition had worsened. “He just got more and more withdrawn,” says Seaton. “I suppose he had a breakdown. He used to sit at home all day watching Aswad videos. He was like a guy that retires, doesn’t have anything to do. It’s bound to affect you.” Junior Waite was eventually sectioned. Today, he is still under medical supervision, in the care of his mother.

By the late 1990s, Musical Youth had passed into history. The sound of Pass the Dutchie became a sort of musical shorthand for a less manufactured era of pop. In 1998, Seaton’s former manager David Morgan heard it on the soundtrack of 1980s-themed romantic comedy hit The Wedding Singer. “I rang Dennis and said, ‘You must be earning a lot of money. He said no. The members of Musical Youth had not received any royalty accounting from their record label since 1986, which was diabolical. Just the use on The Wedding Singer earned about £20,000.” 

It took him two and a half years to sort through Musical Youth’s business affairs.”Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ,” said Universal’s spokesman, when Morgan launched a £2m claim for unpaid royalties, damages and interest on the money owed Musical Youth. “I sent something like 10,000 letters,” he sighs. “They tried to wear me down by ignoring me.” In December 2002, MCA/Universal settled out of court. Morgan cannot divulge exact figures but claims “it amounts to close on a seven-figure sum. In the end, the record company were embarrassed about it.” 

In addition, he has convinced the label to release a Musical Youth compilation. Seaton and Grant plan to promote it with some club dates and a 1980s package tour. “Everyone remembers Musical Youth,” says Seaton. And indeed they do. Ever since Frankie Lymon, the teenage singer of Why Do Fools Fall in Love? overdosed on heroin in 1968, child stars whose careers go horribly wrong have exerted a morbid fascination. It may be that their stories confirm the public’s worst instincts about the music industry. It may be something to do with the gulf between the chirpy records children invariably make and the reality of their lives: child stars rarely sound like Joy Division or Nirvana, signposting doom in their music. Or it may be simple nostalgia for a more innocent era. “I still get emails from Holland,” smiles Seaton. “People saying we changed their life.” Then his telephone rings, and he arranges to pick up a Mercedes hatchback from a nearby industrial estate. 

Their recordings include “Children Of Zion,” “Rockers,” “Youth Of Today,” “Sixteen,” “Yard Stylee,” “Air Taxi,” “Blind Boy,” “Mash It The Youth Man, Mash It,” “Young Generation,” “Mirror Mirror,” “Heartbreaker,” “Never Gonna Give You Up,” “Schoolgirl,” “Shanty Town,” “She’s Trouble,” “Watcha Talking ‘Bout,” “Incommunicado,” “No Strings,” and “Tell Me Why.”

They received a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards of 1984. Their follow-up to “Pass the Dutchie”, “Youth Of Today”, reached number 13 in the UK Singles Chart, and early in 1983, “Never Gonna Give You Up”, climbed to UK number 6. Minor successes with “Heartbreaker” and “Tell Me Why”, were succeeded by a collaboration with Donna Summer on the UK Top 20 hit, “Unconditional Love”.

“To be honest we all had no preconceived ideas on how fame would be handled because it was only ever about playing as many gigs as possible. Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing but we were dealing with unknown territory of musical success on a world stage but yes there are some aspects of our new found fame could have been handled much better.”

In 2001, the band reformed, but the set of shows scheduled for the Here & Now tour of that year were cancelled due to the 9-11 attacks. Sadly, and according to your website, original band members Freddie ‘Junior’ Waite has since suffered a nervous breakdown, Kelvin Grant also suffers from psychological problems, and Patrick Waite died in 1993 at age 24 from heart problems!

Says Seaton: “Kelvin was supposed to come on the road with me but due to his erratic behaviour I decided to just work with Michael as he was more interested than Kelvin. It was ashame that the tour got cancelled but it spurred Michael and myself to carry on and do some live shows together because that’s what we started out doing. We have now toured the West coast of America, Slovenia some live shows in Netherlands and Germany. Things took a natural course for the band and subsequent events haven’t helped but then that’s ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ as they say!”

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Peter Tosh 9/1987

peter toshSeptember 11, 1987 – Winston Hubert McIntosh better known as Peter Tosh/Stepping Razor was a Jamaican guitarist and singer in the original Wailers of Bob Marley & the Wailers fame.  Born in Petersfield on October 19th 1944, he became a pioneer reggae musician, as the original guitarist for The Wailers and he is actaully considered as one of the originators of the choppy, syncopated reggae guitar style, and as trailblazer for the Rastafari movement and the fight to legalize cannabis.

He was a target for the police and underwent many beatings. In the early 60s Winston met Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer through his vocal teacher, Joe Higgs. Continue reading Peter Tosh 9/1987

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Carlton Barrett 4/1987

carly barrettApril 17, 1987 – Carlton “Carly” Barrett was born December 17th 1950. As a teenager he built his first set of drums out of some empty paint tins, and had initially been influenced by Lloyd Knibb, the great drummer from the Skatalites. He and his brother Aston were raised in Kingston and absorbed the emerging ska sound. Working as a welder he first tried building a guitar and playing. But he soon realised guitar wasn’t his thing and picked up the drums.

In the late 1960s Carlton started playing sessions with his brother Aston, the pair calling themselves the Soul Mates or the Rhythm Force, before settling on The Hippy Boys, a line-up that featured Max Romeo on vocals. Leroy Brown, Delano Stewart, Glen Adams and Alva Lewis also played in the band’s fluctuating line-up.

The Hippy Boys became one of Kingston’s busiest session bands; fittingly their first recording was “Watch This Sound”, backing the late Slim Smith. They also released a couple of albums for Lloyd Charmers, Reggae with the Hippy Boys and Reggae Is Tight. As well as playing on many sessions for Bunny Lee and Sonia Pottinger, the Barrett brothers also played on two 1969 UK chart hits, “Liquidator” for Harry J, and “Return of Django” for Lee “Scratch” Perry, with whom they had now taken root.

For Perry, they took the name The Upsetters, and knocked out a long run of instrumentals, including “Clint Eastwood”, “Cold Sweat”, “Night Doctor”, and “Live Injection”. It was while with Perry that the Barrett brothers first teamed up with The Wailers, then a vocal trio consisting of Bob, Peter and Bunny. After recording many now classic numbers, Carly and Aston decided to team up with The Wailers on a permanent basis.

The Barrett brothers recorded several singles with the Wailers in 1969–70: “My Cup (Runneth Over)”, “Duppy Conqueror, “Soul Rebel”, and “Small Axe”. Most of these songs appeared on two Perry-produced Wailers albums: Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution, and formed the early foundation of the one drop sound.

Though original Wailers Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston left the group in 1973, Carlton and Aston remained with Bob Marley and went on to record Natty Dread in 1974. Carlton has songwriting credits for two of Natty Dread’s songs: “Talkin’ Blues” and “Them Belly Full”.

Carlton remained with the Wailers in the studio and on tour until Bob Marley’s death in 1981. His signature style can be heard on every recording the Wailers produced since 1969, with the exception of the 1970 “Soul Shakedown Party” sessions produced by Leslie Kong.

On 17 April 1987, just as Carlton arrived at his Kingston home and walked across his yard, a gunman stepped up behind him and shot him twice in the head. He was dead on arrival at a Kingston hospital at age 36.

Shortly after his murder, Carlton’s wife, Albertine, her lover, a taxi driver named Glenroy Carter, and another man, Junior Neil, were arrested and charged with his killing. Albertine and Carter escaped the murder charge, and were instead convicted and sentenced to 7 years for conspiracy. After just one year in prison, they were released in December 1992 on a legal technicality.

Carlton is featured on all the albums recorded by Bob Marley and the Wailers with the exception of the 1970 “Soul Shakedown Party”.  As a famous and influential reggae drummer and percussion player, he was the originator of the one drop rhythm, a percussive drumming style. He wrote the well known Bob Marley song “War” and with his brother Aston co-wrote “Talkin’ Blues”.

With Carly’s beats and his brother Aston’s bass, the Wailer rhythm section planted the seeds of today’s international reggae.

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Bob Marley 5/1981

Bob MarleyMay 11, 1981 – Bob Nesta Marley – One of the world’s best-selling artists of all time with sales totaling to over 100 million albums and singles, Bob Marley is a true legend.  So much so that even 37 years after his death, his name recognition is higher than his landsman Usain Bolt, the three times Olympic Gold Medallist and fastest man in the world. (Bob was know to also be a very fast runner and great soccer player.)

The singer-songwriter, musician and guitarist achieved international fame starting out with his group the Wailers in 1963. The band lasted 11 years before disbanding and Marley began his solo career that gathered a quick following. He was known for infusing his spirituality into his hits like “No Woman, No Cry”, “Is This Love” and “Three Little Birds” to create true musical poetry. Continue reading Bob Marley 5/1981

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Jacob Miller 3/1980

jacob miller with bob marley23 March 1980 – Jacob Miller was born May 4, 1952 in Mandeville, Jamaica.
At the age of eight he moved to Kingston, Jamaica where he grew up with his maternal grandparents. In Kingston, Miller began spending time at popular studios including Clement Dodd’s Studio One. He recorded three songs for Dodd, including “Love is a Message” in 1968, which the Swaby brothers, (Horace, later called Augustus Pablo, and Garth) played at their Rockers Sound System. While the song did not garner much success nor maintain Dodd’s attention in Miller, it resulted in Pablo’s sustained interest in Miller.

After the brothers launched their own label in 1972, Pablo recorded a version of “Love is a Message” named “Keep on Knocking” in 1974. In the next year and a half Miller recorded five more songs for Pablo, “Baby I Love You So,” “False Rasta,” “Who Say Jah No Dread,” “Each One Teach One,” and “Girl Named Pat”, each of which became a Rockers classic with King Tubby dubs on their b-sides. These singles developed Miller’s reputation and ultimately drew Inner Circle to hire him as a replacement lead singer.
He first recorded with Clement Dodd. While pursuing a prolific solo career, he became the lead singer for reggae group Inner Circle with whom he recorded until his death in a car accident at the age of 27.

Inner Circle was an emerging reggae group made popular playing covers of American Top 40 hits. Band leader Roger Lewis said Jacob Miller was “always happy and jovial. He always made jokes. Everyone liked jokes.” Adding Miller as lead singer, the band’s lineup was Roger Lewis on guitar, Ian Lewis on bass, Bernard “Touter” Harvey on keyboards, and Rasheed McKenzie on drums. Coining Miller as Jacob “Killer” Miller, the group continued to build popularity. They signed with Capitol Records in 1976 and released two albums, Reggae Thing and Ready for the World. Their first hit with Jacob Miller was “Tenement Yard”, followed by “Tired Fi Lick Weed In a Bush”.

While recording, Miller continued pursuing a solo career, recording “Forward Jah Jah Children,” “Girl Don’t Com” produced by Gussie Clarke, and “I’m a Natty” produced by Joe Gibbs. He earned second place in Jamaica’s 1976 Festival Song competition with the song “All Night ‘Till Daylight” and produced his first solo album in 1978, Dread Dread. While most of Miller’s solo work were backed by Inner Circle members, his preferred rockers style diverged from the tendency of Inner Circle to experiment with other genres, including pop, soul, funk and disco. The track which has brought him the most lasting recognition is the rockers standard “King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown” with Augustus Pablo, a dub of “Baby I Love You So,” engineered by King Tubby. Other notable tracks with Augustus Pablo included “Keep on Knocking,” “False Rasta” and “Who Say Jah No Dread”, all produced by Pablo. The album Who Say Jah No Dread featured two versions of each of these tracks; the original and a dub engineered by King Tubby.

Miller was featured in the film Rockers, alongside many other musicians including Gregory Isaacs, Big Youth and Burning Spear. In the movie, he plays the singer of a hotel house band, (in reality Inner Circle), who are joined on drums by the film’s hero, Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace and play a live version of Inner Circle’s hit “Tenement Yard”.

In March 1980, Jacob Miller went with Bob Marley and Chris Blackwell to Brazil, to celebrate Island opening new offices in South America.

Two days after returning from Brazil on Sunday, 23 March 1980, Miller was killed in a car accident on Hope Road in Kingston, Jamaica, along with one of his sons. Miller and Inner Circle had been preparing for an American tour with Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the next album, Mixed Up Moods, had been recorded before his death.

Jacob Miller was reggae artist Maxi Priest’s cousin.