Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Bobby Kalphat’s Soul Sounds Label

A New Gaylads Track on Bobby Kalphat’s label with Willi Williams at the Producer Helm

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays, and, to celebrate, we had a food themed Thanksgiving edition of Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady. All sets outside of the spotlight on Bobby Kalphat’s dazzling Soul Sounds label were related to food in some way, and to start off the Thanksgiving cheer, we presented two sets of ska, beginning with a 19 year tradition of starting the Thanksgiving edition with Prince Buster’s excellent track, “Thanksgiving,” a super ska from the Hard Man Fe Dead LP. Then, Laurel Aitken kicked off the second set with his “Mash Potato Boogie,” a rollicking track that should make you dance anytime you are mashing potatoes (regular or sweet!). Given the food theme, there was no way that we would forget to include “Night Food” by Alerth Bedasse or “Night Food Recipe” by Chin’s Calypso Sextet in the mento set. After some fun and salacious mento, the last set of the first hour featured food related rocksteadys, including “Coconut Water” from Desmond Dekker and “Food of Love” from The Inventors.

At the top of the second hour, we presented a two set spotlight on Bobby Kalphat’s label, Soul Sounds.

Bobby Kalphat, the mighty melodica player, began performing as a vocalist. Upon realizing that his voice was not quite the best, he began to perform as an instrumentalist, first as a keyboard player and then gaining enough of a reputation to become a member of Bobby Aitken and the Carib-Beats. He first recorded for Lloyd Bell’s President Hi Fi sound system before heading over to Lyndon Pottinger’s SEP label. And after recording for other producers and saving up his salary from being a correctional officer as he honed his craft as a musician, in 1968, Kalphat began producing his own tracks, debuting with, “Rhythm and Soul,” which he released for his own label, Soul Sounds.

We began the spotlight on “Rhythm and Soul,” which was distributed in England through Pama, whose purchasing payment did not include a royalty agreement but did allow Bobby to purchase a Wurlitzer keyboard he would use in the coming years.

While Bobby founded the label and even designed its logo, Willi Williams, who was a member of the Set Takers, a band that Bobby performed with, would eventually take over the Soul Sound label, releasing his own recordings on it along with his own productions. One of those Willi Williams’ productions of note is “Revenge,” credited to Youth Winston. Youth Winston would become Dr. Alimantado, but Willi Williams met him before those days and gave him the name Youth Winston in order to evoke a similarity to Big Youth, who was rising in popularity.

Beyond Soul Sounds, Bobby Kalphat continued to produce records and open up his own imprints. Some of note are Roots Rock Inc./International, which released tracks in the late 1970s, Hit Vibes, which released recordings in the 1980s, and Music Mania, which released productions in the 2000s.

After the trek through Soul Sounds, we closed off the show with some sensational reggae, including I Roy’s “My Food Is Ration” and Skin, Flesh and Bones’ “Bammie Fe Fish.”

You can listen to our full show from November 24, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud; it’s FREE, and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when we post a new show.

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Love,

Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: BB Seaton’s Soul Beat Label 11-17-15

A Great Ken Boothe Cut On Soul Beat!

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners,

We had a blast with this week’s (11/17/15) episode of Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady which featured a spotlight on BB Seaton’s Soul Beat Label but before we get to that in the second hour, we started the show with two sets of explosive ska, beginning with Ernest Ranglin’s Selected Group and their killer instrumental for Kentone, “Skalvouvia!” Our second set started with yet another dazzling Kentone cut, “I Am Blue” from Alton Ellis’ singing partner from the Jamaican R&B days, Eddie Perkins. Our frantic mento set featured a “Round Dance” from the St. Ann Quadrille Band and Count Lasher’s version of the classic “Slide Mongoose.” Our final set for the first hour was of the rocksteady variety and started with a rare instrumental from Skatalites saxophonist, Lester Sterling for the Merritone label called aptly enough “The Lester Sterling Special.” At the end of this set, we went right into our SOUL BEAT LABEL spotlight…

While we know BB Seaton best as a member of the Gaylads, he was also a producer, songwriter, and A&R representative. Consequently, it is of no surprise that he opened up his own record label, which is still active, Soul Beat. BB Seaton started as a multi-talented musician early in his career. He first arrived at Studio One in early 1960 as a solo artist, recording the first track he wrote, “Only You,” as Harris Seaton. Before recording further as a soloist, BB met Delano Stewart, and together, they recorded as the Diamond Twins and Winston & Bibby for Coxsone. Inspired by The Impressions, Winston and BB added Maurice Roberts to the duo, thus becoming the Gaylads. The group would stick exclusively to recording for Studio One from 1964 to 1967, with BB producing, writing, and even auditioning everyone from Pat Kelly to the Kingstonians for Studio One.

However, after a couple of disputes tied to royalties and the decision to take Alton Ellis and Ken Boothe to England for a tour rather than The Gaylads, who had been completely loyal in their recordings to Coxsone Dodd, the group left Studio One and went over to Sonia Pottinger and her Tip Top label. While at Tip Top, Delano left the group to move to America, so when the group next went to Leslie Kong’s Beverley’s label, BB and Maurice would recruit an extra member. After experiences recording for other producers and labels, BB opened up Soul Beat, which began releasing original recordings in Jamaica in 1971. Soul Beat also had a branch in the UK, and as a result, both released productions of each other in their respective countries. Consequently, some productions have BB Seaton at the producer helm, and others do not. We appropriately kicked off this spotlight on the Soul Beat label with a track from The Gaylads.

For the original Soul Beat recordings, the Conscious Minds performed as the house band. The Conscious minds were: Arnold Brackenridge on trumpet, Derrick Hinds on trombone, Derrick Stewart on drums, Joe White on piano and vocals, BB Seaton, Ken Boothe, and Maurice Roberts on vocals as well.

Again, can listen to our full show from November 17, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud, it’s FREE and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when our new show goes up.

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Love,

Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Ken Khouri’s Kentone Label 11-10-15

A Top Instrumental By Byron On Kentone

Welcome Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners,

After two weeks where Lily and I covered both Comikaze and the amazing films of AFI Fest for Forces of Geek, we had a blast playing programming tunes we love on the radio show! Thanks for listening in…If you missed it, check out the November 10th Bovine Ska and Rocksteady on Mixcloud!

We started this week off with a massive version to version to version to version excursion that we always send out to our dear departed friend Magnus. We versioned the 1971 hit by Count Prince Miller, “Mule Train” with covers from Roland Alphonso, Dennis Alcapone, and Derrick Morgan! Our second set began with The Bassies on Studio One in 1969 with “Things A Come Up To Bump” and the version, on Coxsone in 1969, “More Scorcha” from Count Machuki and Sound Dimension. We then gave you our weekly mento set and to get you ready for the Kentone Label spotlight, we began a long set of rare ska with the Federal Singers and their 1965 cut for Khouri’s Federal label, “My Love.” We ended that ska set with Bongo Man Byfield doing a borderline nonsensical cover of Sam Cooke’s pop hit “History” that he called “Bongo Man” which was good fun. We then immediately went into the Kentone spotlight…

Kentone comes from a major lineage in Jamaican music history. Owned by Ken Khouri, it is an example of Khouri’s own evolution of the record industry in Jamaica. Born in Kingston, Khouri’s father owned dry goods and furniture shops in Kingston. A family friend also owned a dry goods store, and, after the sons inherited the shop, Ken would work for them. This family owned jukeboxes that were placed across Jamaica, igniting Ken’s interesting in the record business. Consequently, when he found a disc recorder in Miami, he purchased it and brought it back to Jamaica and started to record mento. With the recorder, Khouri would send tapes to London, and they would send back 78s. After working with this method for some time, Khouri realized that it would be helpful to have his own pressing plant, so he purchased the equipment from California and setup a recording studio and pressing plant to his studio, Records Limited, in the late 40s. And with this record pressing plant and recording studio in place, he started Time Records, his first label that was distributed by Alec Durie’s Times Variety Store.

By the mid 50s, Khouri created Pioneer Company, which pressed Jamaican recordings and distributed foreign records as well. When the Pioneer Company moved to the Industrial Estate at Marcus Garvey Drive in the late 50s, Pioneer became a subsidiary of the mighty Federal Records. At Federal Records, plenty of the major soundsystem operators and producers used the studio to record tracks for their labels. Khouri also used his studio for his own record label, Kentone, where Byron Lee and the Dragonaires produced many recordings and also served as the house backing band. We kicked off the spotlight with one of the earliest Kentone releases from The Techniques, “No One,” which was originally recorded for Curtis Mayfield for Columbia Records and only released in the UK. It is unclear if the Kentone release is a Jamaican distribution of that Columbia track, or if The Techniques re-recorded the track for Khouri. A clue could be that the Byron Lee and the Dragonaires were listed as the backing band on the Kentone release, but the answer is not clear.

As stated earlier, many of the Kentone releases featured Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. Circa 1963-1965, the members were Ken Lazarus on Guitar, Byron Lee on Bass, Tommy Ismay on Saxophone, Chester Power on Trumpet, Barry Lloyd on Drums, Victor Chung on Bongos and Percussion, Carl Brady on Bongos and Percussion, Leslie Butler on Organ, Vernon Muller on Trombone, Frank Anderson on Trumpet.

Again, can hear our full show from November 10, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud, it’s FREE and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when our new show goes up.

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Love,

Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Rupie Edwards Success Label 11-3-15

Excellent Cut On Success By The Concords

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners,

Thanks to you all for the kind words and listens to our Jamaican Halloween show last week. It was super fun, and has inspired Lily and I to some more investigations into the different kinds of floating specters!

This week was a less spooky Bovine Ska and Rocksteady as we did a spotlight on Rupie Edwards’ Success Label. That spotlight starts in the middle of the show. We started off with two sets of rare ska, featuring “You Made Me Warm” a punchy ska from a seldom recorded band known as The Sharks which came out on Kentone in 1965. “What To Do” fr0m The Federal Singers was another rare ska from 1965 which began the second set. That one was recorded at the Federal label of course. We started our mento set with a slow and lovely bamboo sax led cut from the king of the bamboo sax, Sugar Belly! You heard the classic mento of “Land Of Sea and Sun” After the three song mento set, we played a long set of rocksteady that began with a version to version excursion using Buster’s “Judge Dread” rhythm..”Musical College” and “Barrister’s Pardon.” We ended with a pretty cut Merritone as The Merritone Singers sang “House Upon The Hill” which was released in 1967. It was then the second hour and the spotlight on Rupie Edwards’ SUCCESS LABEL.

Known for many roles in the music industry, including being the co-songwriter of Judge Dread’s Big 7, Rupie Edwards began his career in music as a singer, recording his first single, “Guilty Convict” in 1962 at the age of 17. After recording further as a soloist, he created The Virtues with Junior Menz, Lloyd Robinson, Basil Gabbidon, Eric Frater and Dobby Dobson. After working extensively as a recording artist since 1962, by 1968, Edwards began to dedicate more time as a producer of his own label, most likely first working on his own track with The Virtues, “Falling in Love” and with Karl Bryan, also known as Cannonball Bryan on the track, “Sweet Nanny.” In Jamaica, Rupie was releasing his productions on his own imprint, and in England, he gained the interest of the gargantuan Pama label, which distributed his productions with a Success UK imprint. Success label engineers were Syd Bucknor and Lynford ‘Andy Capp’ Anderson, and together with Rupie, the team created a distinctive sound and rhythm for the label, one that we are thrilled to have shared with you, beginning with the earliest known Success recording from Rupie Edwards himself. Here’s “Falling In Love.”

We played more than a few instrumentals and backing all of the vocal artists are The Rupie Edwards All Stars which featured: on san, Tommy McCook, trombone Vin Gordon, drums: Carlton ‘Santa’ Davis, guitar: Hux Brown, piano: Gladstone Anderson, bass: Clifton ‘Jackie’ Jackson and on organ: Winston Wright.

You can hear our full show from November 3, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud, it’s free and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when our new show goes up.

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Love,
Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Jamaican Halloween Reggae And Ska 10-27-15

Halloween Without King Horror? Never!

Happy Halloween Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

Truthfully, back in 1996 when I put together my first Jamaican Halloween radio show at WMBR, I couldn’t find more than a couple of sets spooky reggae and ska from 1955 to 1975 but year by year just like the lost souls rising from the beyond, we have found a coven of rare Jamaican cuts to make a two hour show of eerie sounding reggae, ska, mento, and rocksteady happen! This year’s show was a blast as we mixed those cuts that feature horrifying screams, corpses rising out of graves, and heavy rhythms with some haunting sounds of our own, and Lily’s explanations of the different types of undead apparitions which was pretty mind-blowing! In years past we always did a half-hour spotlight of the enigmatic vocalist known as King Horror but being that Mixcloud does not allow so many tracks glued together from one artist, we played a greater variety of Halloween reggae and ska than ever before!

Of course, we did start the show with King Horror with what could be the most bizarre organ intro of any track we will play this evening…The Joe Mansano produced 1969 classic, “Dracula Prince Of Darkness!” In fact, the first set of four songs was a tribute to the former Vlad The Impaler and his urban counterpart, Blacula! We followed King Horror with a creepy one from the Crystal label house band, The Crystalites with “Blacula” from 1973, The Vulcans 1973 cut for Trojan, “Dracula,” and The Upsetters ending that set with their homage to our fanged friend, “Dracula” from 1970. We had a mento set that began with an appropriate selection from Chin’s Calypso Sextet, “Woman Ghost Fool Man” and ending with the classic “Zombie Jamboree” performed by Lord Jellicoe in 1966. We ended the first hour with a ska set that included such holiday wonders as Byron Lee and The Dragonaires “Frankenstein Ska” from 1964, and our favorite dark ska cut, Lloyd Clarke’s “Living Among The Dead” which Lloyd recorded in 1964 at Federal.

The second hour featured a six reggae tribute to satan with a highlight being “Dr. Satan’s Echo Chamber” by Rupie Edwards from 1974, and a nine song version to version laden set of “duppy” (Jamaican for ghost) including four versions of Bob Marley and The Wailers Duppy Conqueror performed by The Wailers, Dennis Alcapone, and The Joe Gibbs All Stars.

You can hear our full show from October 27th, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud, it’s free and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when our new show goes up.

Happy Halloween!!! Please help us and spread the word and repost if you liked the show! Repost anywhere you see fit.

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Love,
Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: 1968 Only! The 19th On-Air Birthday Show 10-13-15

A Top 1968 Release From The Consumates

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

This show this past week had a singular purpose, and that was to celebrate Generoso’s birthday the only way he knows how: By playing only Jamaican cuts from the year of his birth, 1968. He has been doing exactly that since the show started on WMBR, 88.1FM in Cambridge in 1996. As for 1968, that was a tumultuous year in history as it saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The shooting of Andy Warhol by Valerie Solanis, the May 1968 riots in Paris but in the positive was the successful Apollo 8 mission, Shatner laying a kiss on Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek, and the end of rocksteady and the birth of reggae in Jamaica!

We began Generoso’s birthday with two sets of rocksteady and reggae that feature “1968” in their title. In the sets you heard cuts like The Three Tops track for Coxsone, “Great 68′ Train.” Lord Creator’s “Come Down ’68” which he recorded for Vincent Randy Chin. Some of the sensational 1968 rocksteady and early reggae cuts that made it onto the show are “Soul Day” from The Ethopians on Merritone, “Fun Galore” a top side from The Kingstonians on JJs and many many more. Between these songs, we played promos from 1968 television shows, we talked about the big records in the United States that year. A silly, fun, program that we hope you will enjoy!

You can hear our full show from October 13th, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud, it’s free and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when our new show goes up.

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Love,
Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Phil Pratt’s Sounds United Label 10-6-15

Top Tune From Roy Shirley On Sounds United

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

After beginning last week with all that version to version madness, we decided to hit the ground running with some terrific skas beginning with The Maytals and their wonderful cut for the Kentone label in 1964, “One Look,” and we ended that first set with the offbeat drumming behind Norma Fraser’s terrific vocals on “Come On Pretty Baby,” a top tune for Vincent Randy Chin in 1963. The second set of ska featured a killer solo from the late Don Drummond on “Garden Of Love,” which was released on Treasure Isle in 1964. After that set, we gave you a mento set with one of the best versions of “She Pon Top,” done here by Baba Motta. Ending the first hour was a long set of rocksteadys that included one of the meanest breakups songs of all time, “Tripe Girl” by The Heptones. Listen to the lyrics on that one friends, as that relationship must have ended extremely poorly to invoke that kind of hatred. We then started the second hour with our tribute to Phil Pratt’s sensational reggae imprint, SOUNDS UNITED.

Born as George Phillips, Phil Pratt is a regular favorite in the Fierro house. Originally trained as an upholsterer, French polisher, and cabinet maker, Pratt got his foot into the music industry as a box carrier for Coxone Dodd’s Downbeat soundsystem. After hearing him sing and produce, Roy Shirley introduced Pratt to Bunny Lee, who would then take him to Ken Lack of Caltone, the man who really jumpstarted Pratt’s work as a producer, releasing his productions and eventually giving him his own imprint, the Jontom label. After Jontom, Pratt opened up his Sunshot label on Orange Street. Along with Sunshot, Pratt had another label of his own called Sounds United, with many of the releases being produced and arranged by Pratt himself, and this is the label we are shining a light on in this episode of the Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady, beginning with Pat Kelly’s reworking of The Techniques hit, “I Wish It Would Rain,” from 1971.

Of the artists who spent time with Phil Pratt and the Sounds United label, one of the most productive artist-producer collaborations occurred with Al Campbell. Oddly enough, when Pratt decided to record Al Campbell, many people were surprised, believing that Al did not have a singing voice suitable to be recorded. However, Pratt felt he had something and worked with him to shape up his vocal style for records, and that faith and trust between Pratt and Campbell can be heard in the recordings.

In 1982, Pratt bowed out of the music industry. He lives in London and spends his time today in his two restaurants.

You can hear our full show from October 6th, 2015 HERE. Subscribe to our show on Mixcloud, it’s free and you’ll get an email every Tuesday when our new show goes up.

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Love,
Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Prince Buster’s Islam Label 9-29-2015

A Top Tune From The Maytals on Islam

Welcome Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

This week’s program began with a massive triple version of Johnny Clarke’s 1974 tune,”None Shall Escape The Judgement.” We followed that set with another set of early reggae gems beginning with two awesome versions of The Impressions gem, “You Must Believe Me” performed by Ninety and Dennis Alcapone and the Rupie Edwards All Stars. Our mento set began with an awesome track from Roy Shurland and the Trenton Spence Quartet who gave us their take on the classic which was released on the Kalypso Label, “Matty Belly.” After two more mento cuts, we played you a set of skas which featured one of our favorites from the smooth voice of Ken Parker, “Before and After” which he recorded for Studio One in 1966. We ended the first hour with another Coxsone Dodd production, this time from Winston Stewart from 1964,”Leave Me Alone.” We started the second hour of the show with our spotlight on Prince Buster’s ISLAM label.

Another Prince Buster label for the spotlight you ask? Why yes! Two months ago, we featured the earliest Buster imprint, Wild Bells and this week, we are looking at his Islam label. In 1964, Prince Buster, under the invitation and encouragement of Muhammad Ali, attended a Nation of Islam talk at Mosque 29 in Miami. Upon returning to Jamaica, he converted from his original Christian faith to the Islam faith. Upon this spiritual change, Buster created a new imprint in honor of his conversion, appropriately named Islam. We begun the spotlight on this Prince buster label with a full set of tracks from the year of the Islam label’s foundation, 1964. One of the reasons why we selected the Islam label was the variety of artists who recorded for the label, including Lord Inventor, who you just heard from Lord Inventor was a Guayanese singer who traveled to Jamaica to cut some sides for notable producers, including Prince Buster. We also played a track from The Watermen, who were actually The Royals and they were: Roy Cousins, Errol Green, Berthram ‘Harry’ Johnson, and Maurice ‘Professor’ Johnson. For some odd reason, the pressings of Save Mama at the time, for Islam and the English press on Blue Beat listed group under the name of The Watermen, and this would be the only single for The Royals under this pseudonym. Also played in this spotlight were The Charmers, the duo of Lloyd Tyrell and Roy Willis. They were super prolific in 1964, recording for Coxone Dodd, Duke Reid, and that one for Prince Buster on the Islam label in its primary year. As the duo’s career continued, they would also record for Sonia Pottinger while continuing their recordings with Coxsone.

You can hear our show from September 29th, 2015 HERE.

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Love,
Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Pat Hardy’s Kismet Label 9-22-15

A gem from the late great Freddie McKay

Welcome Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners!

This week we have a spotlight for those of you who love rocksteady and reggae as we delve deep into Pat Hardy’s KISMET LABEL! We opened up the show with two sets of ska featuring a rare release by Vic Taylor on the Pussy Cat Label entitled “Yes.” Another gem from the first two sets of ska that opened the show is “You Say, She Say” from the Sneer Townersl, a fun vocal group that we always wish had recorded more. That cut came out on Kentone in 1965. We also realize that we rarely mention the background disco albums on this blogpost and as this week contained two gem LP, we must mention Lalomie Washburn superb 1977 LP on Parachute Records entitled, “MY Music Is Hot.” The second hour featured the Eurodisco sounds of La Pamplemousse from the self-titled record that came out on AVI in 1976. After a mento set and a long set of rare rocksteady tracks, we went into the Kismet Label spotlight which began the second hour of the show.

Little is known about the Kismet label, even though it was quite prolific.Some represses of Amalgamated records also existed on the label, making us suspect that Kismet may have been a Joe Gibbs imprint. We do know that Pat Hardy was the owner of Kismet, which emerged as an avenue for releases of The Progressions, his vocal group. The Progressions original members were Pat Hardy, Tony Russell, and Milton Henry with Derrick Bucknor and Rudy Mills joining as later members. As a result of the label’s focus on the group, multiple members would take a stab at producing and arranging for the label. The group and many other Kismet recordings were introduced to England with the Pama compilation, Reggae to the UK With Love. On early tracks from The Progressions, you’ll hear Lynn Taitt and the Jets backing the vocalists and Timmy George as the producer, including the track that opened the spotlight entitled, “Give Me Love.” You’ll hear some amazing cuts on this spotlight from Dave And Ansel Collins, Freddie McKay, The Emotions and more!

You can hear our show from Sept 22nd, 2015 HERE.

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Generoso and Lily

Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: Ronnie Nasralla’s BMN Label 9-15-15

The Brilliant Maytals On BMN

Hello Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners:

First, we wish Happy Birthday to our dear friend and Studio One artist Dudley Sibley. Over the years Dudley has been a source of vital information to our show and we really appreciate it. In honor of Dudley, we began this week’s show with our favorite track that he recorded, “Message Of Old.” We followed with two sets of rocksteady to begin the show before going into a mento set that featured another gem from Chin’s Calyposo Sextet “Woman’s Tenderness.” We ended that first hour with a set of rare ska beginning with The Monarch’s 1965 cut for Kentone Records, “All Of Me” and ending with Roland Alphonso’s mighty instrumental “Jazz Ska” from King Edwards. We then began the second hour with our spotlight of the BMN Label…

Owned and founded by Ronnie Nasralla, BMN is an acronym. B for the Blues Busters. M for the Maytals. And, N for Nasralla.

A high school classmate of Byron Lee, Ronnie was an early member of the Byron Lee’s Dragonaires. The group received their first major moment of fame when featured as the house band seen in Dr. No. Then, in 1964, Ronnie as the manager and Byron as the band leader arranged for a special dance at the Glass Bucket, an uptown Kingston club, to promote ska to Edward Seaga and executives from Atlantic records in order to represent Jamaican culture to America. With this promotion, the group traveled to America to perform on TV and in American clubs and would eventually represent Jamaica at the World’s Fair, with Ronnie choreographing the dancers for the performance.

On a more production side, Ronnie worked with George Benson, the owner of WIRL after Edward Seaga sold it to him, in order to build a recording studio in the backyard of the WIRL building. In turn, he developed the knowledge for production and began to produce the bands he managed, including the major two in the name of his label and many others that you will hear on this BMN label spotlight.

Ronnie formed the Federation of Musicians with Byron Lee and Sonny Bradshaw to prevent musicians from getting exploited, creating new rules to prevent overlong hours and new standards to creating recording contracts and paying salary. In 1966, the label won the festival song of the year with Toots and the Maytals Bam Bam Festival song. Winner of the first ever Jamaican Independence Festival song competition. Ronnie received the Order of Distinction in 2013.

Listen to the entire program from September 15th, 2015 with the BMN spotlight HERE:

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XO
Lily and Generoso