Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Prince Tony’s High School Label 6-7-16

The Clarendonians On The High School Label

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners,

As the Bovine Ska veered towards its 20th Anniversary on June 14th, 2016, we decided to stay the course and do a traditional show (traditional for us) that you have heard these last twenty years. Our spotlight, which occurs midway through the show as always, was on Prince Tony’s reggaerific HIGH SCHOOL LABEL!

The show began with two sets of superb rare ska beginning with a Maytals cut which has never before been played on The Bovine Ska, a gem from Toots from Rolando and Powie in 1963 entitled, Make Me Do. We are still celebrating Toots’ return to the stage this summer after a three year absence. Do check him out when he comes to your town! Starting our mento set was Harold Richardson and The Ticklers’ cover of Don’t Fence Her In on MRS in 1952 and we ended our first hour with a long set of rare rocksteady included a version to version on Studio One of Alton Ellis’ Mad Mad Mad. After that set we started on our thirty minute spotlight on Prince Tony’s High School Label.

Prince Tony is the king of the deejays and the version, so this spotlight on the High School label had plenty of both! Known as Prince Tony as a producer, Tony Robinson began his production career in reggae. Many of his productions would make their way over to England, where plenty of his artists would see success. Though the High School label releases did get decent distribution through Trojan and Pama subsidiaries, Prince Tony’s production legacy is often tied to The Gladiators’ LPs Trenchtown Mix Up and Proverbial Reggae and Big Youth’s LP Dreadlocks Dread, so we are excited to show the brilliance of his earlier productions for the High School label. This spotlight has many major names in it, and we were excited to kick it off with one of the biggest deejays out there, Dennis Al Capone, here known as Young Al Capone and his recording “Girl Called Clover” and its version.

One of the deejays that spent a lot of time at High School was Winston Scotland. Believed to be the brother in law of U-Roy, another fine deejay and an artist who also stopped by the High School label, Scotland got his start toasting over the selections at the Sound of Muzik and the Soul King sound systems. As a recording artist, Scotland worked with Joe Gibbs and Phillip Monroe before heading over to the High School label. At High School, Scotland recorded some of his best tracks, including “Buttercup,” which Prince Tony had great ambitions for with his licensing of the track over to the Philips label in the UK for major distribution.

For our disco background for the first hour this week was The Tee Cee’s 1978 LP on AVI, Disco Love Bit and for the second hour, Barbara Mason’s Lady Love LP superb 1973 release on Buddha.

XO
Generoso and Lily

For your listening pleasure, here is our June 7th, 2016 Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady:

Bovine Ska and Rocksteady 8/11/2015: Coxsone Dodd’s Tabernacle Label

Great Jamaican Gospel From The Marvetts

Howdy there Bovine Ska listeners!

For this past week’s show, we decided to take the spotlight in a bit of a different direction by focusing on the Gospel recordings of Coxone Dodd’s Tabernacle label. We’ve always talked about how some of Studio One’s stars recorded beautiful tracks for the Tabernacle label, and we realized it was time to shine a light on a genre of Jamaican music we’ve only briefly touched upon in the past. But, before that spotlight, we had two sets of ska, one set of mento, and one set of rocksteady to build up to the midway spotlight. In the first hour, we shared two skas from Prince Buster’s Islam label: “Country Girl” by The Charmers and “The Soldier Man” by Prince Buster himself. We also were thrilled to play the airplane opening “One Minute to Zero” by Karl Walker & The All Stars. In our rocksteady track, we included the lovely vocal stylings of The Heptones with “Cool It Amigo” and The Wrigglers with “Get Right.”

Then, we proceeded to the Tabernacle spotlight, starting off with “I Left My Sins,” a stunning Gospel recording from none other than Bob Marley and The Wailers.

As many know, Coxone Dodd was a major fixture of the Jamaican music industry. Originally trained as a cabinet maker and auto mechanic, Coxone Dodd was inspired to enter the music industry after spending some time in America as a farm laborer and then returning to Jamaica with jazz and blues records in hand, allowing him to get a jump start on his Downbeat sound system and marking his arrival into Jamaica’s music industry. From his initial sound system emerged plenty of record labels as he began to record artists. Beyond Studio One, the other familiar imprints are Worldisc, D. Darling, Muzik City, Allstars, Supreme, and C&N. While most of Coxone Dodd’s productions focused on secular music, Coxone did have a gospel label, appropriately named Tabernacle. As a lifelong Christian, Coxone recorded Tabernacle tracks on Sundays, and many artists from his secular music labels would record a gospel track for Tabernacle on those Sundays.

And after the Tabernacle spotlight, we closed off the show with a reggae set filled with outstanding cuts, including the sensational “Face Your Trouble” from Vin Morgan and The Soul Defenders.

Listen to the Tabernacle spotlight and the ska, rocksteady, mento, and reggae tracks of the August 11, 2015 edition of the Bovine Ska and Rocksteady on Mixcloud HERE.

Subscribe to the show on Mixcloud to get reminders when we post up the show, and join us on Facebook to get updates on upcoming spotlights, record discoveries, and upcoming Jamaican music performances and shows in the Southern California area!

Enjoy!

XOXOXO Lily & Generoso

Bovine Ska and Rocksteady 8/20/2014: Ken Parker Spotlight

On the August 20th edition of the Bovine Ska and Rocksteady, we started off the show with two sets of ska, which included the track, “Can the Poor Survive” from the Four Aces, a single never before played on the BSR. After the mento set of the week, we were delighted to present an interview with Ken Parker to commence the spotlight on the great vocalist.

Though Ken Parker eventually had a fantastic set of tracks as a soloist, he began his music career as a backup vocalist. When he left Westmoreland Parish and arrived in Kingston, Ken matched up with two men named Bill and Gil to back up vocalists at Studio One as the backing group, The Blues Blenders. During this time period, they would audition for other labels and would cut a few tracks for Coxone’s competitor, King Edwards.

When the Blues Blenders eventually got the chance to audition as a spotlight vocal group, Bill and Gil did not show up for the audition, and Ken went for the audition as a solo artist. After a successful try out, he would stay at Coxone as a soloist for Studio One, where Coxone would give him Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, and Jim Reeves records in order for Ken to pick the singer’s style that most appealed to him, and the influence of these artists can definitely be heard throughout his recordings. In addition, Ken credits Coxone Dodd as the man who taught him how to sing in the reggae style as compared to a gospel ballad style, which was the way that Ken was most familiar with.

The Ken Parker spotlight includes his recordings with the Blues Blenders and his solo tracks for producers Coxone Dodd, Duke Reid, Bunny Lee, Joe Gibbs, and Lloyd Charmers. It includes Ken Parker’s ska and reggae recordings and two of his most beautiful gospel tracks.

Here is the archive link for this special Ken Parker spotlight, which will be available via the WMBR website until 9/1/2014. LISTEN NOW

Our show can be heard live in the Boston area on 88.1FM, WMBR Cambridge from midnight to 2 am ET on Tuesday nights/Wednesday early mornings or anywhere online at WMBR.ORG.