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R.I.P. Lloyd Charmers, reggae pioneer and NSFW tunesmith

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Reggae singer/session keyboardist/producer Lloyd Charmers’s death in London a few days ago brings into sharp focus the steady passing of musicians from a generation that saw Jamaica become independent during their 20s. But it also sees the passing of one of the island nation’s premier producers of the dirty reggae song artform.

Charmers was born Lloyd Tyrell in 1946 in the Trench Town district of Kingston, Jamaica, and very little is documented of his early life. After getting his feet wet in Jamaica’s late-‘50s shuffle R&B scene, Charmers started his first group, the Charmers in 1962 with Roy Wilson, and after they split, he kept using the Charmers name for many of his subsequent records. 

When The Charmers split, he joined Slim Smith and Jimmy Riley in The Uniques, a group that unleashed a crucial clutch of hits like “My Conversation”…
 

 
…and others which in true Jamaican style would be redone and revived as a “riddim” countless times to generate a bunch of other hits for the dancehalls, as represented by this mix…
 

 
After the jump: More on the Charmers legacy…

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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12.29.2012
01:45 pm
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Rocksteady your soul: When the Old Grey Whistle Test went reggae

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Nicky Thomas delivers…
 
The Old Grey Whistle Test was only in its second year on BBC2 when producer Rowan Ayers presented this reggae showcase in Edinburgh in 1973.

The lineup is almost completely comprised of Jamaican artists who had settled in London after touring Europe off of hits they scored in the British charts. The notable exception is the specially flown-in MC Dennis Alcapone, who delivers two of the three original tunes in this collection of excerpts (the other is Winston Groovy’s “I’m a Believer”—the one written by Mulby Thompson of Trojan Records, not Neil Diamond). It’s pretty rare to see footage from this early on of a reggae MC like Alcapone in front of a live band—until the late ‘70s, they were pretty much relegated to chatting over instrumentals at sound system dances.

After the agile Cimarons cover Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine,” they back nearly all the other artists, until an all-white band pops up to back the Pioneers. The late Nicky Thomas offers up a compelling highlight with his paroxysmal covers of Syl Johnson’s “Is It Because I’m Black” and The Four Preps’ “Love of the Common People.”

The program was hosted by Alex Hughes, who as Judge Dread had just scored three charting British reggae singles of his own—the lewd nursery rhymes “Big Six,” “Big Seven,” and “Big Eight”—and was the first white artist to have a reggae hit in Jamaica.

One can imagine how many mods, skinheads, soul boys and other riff-raff this broadcast kept off the street at the time.
 
Part 1
The Cimarons - “Ain’t No Sunshine”
Winston Groovy - “I’m A Believer”
Dennis Alcapone - “Cassius Clay” & “Wake Up Jamaica”

Part 2
The Marvels - “Jimmy Browne” & “One Monkey”
Nicky Thomas - “Is It Because I’m Black” & beginning of “Love of the Common People”

Part 3
Nicky Thomas - end of “Love of the Common People”
The Pioneers - “Higher & Higher” & “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”
All Star Finale - “Freedom Train”

Pt. 1
 

 
Keep yr skank up: check out parts 2 and 3 after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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05.13.2012
03:17 pm
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Documentary on DJ Derek, reggae’s oldest living selector

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The original DJ Derek, a badman
 
Thanks to the great Mixmaster Morris for the heads up on this. For many years, white DJs have played a key role in popularizing black music in the US and Britain. In the British reggae scene, alongside pioneers in the sound system game like Jah Shaka, Jah Observer, Channel One, and others, paler-skinned music fanatics like the legendary David Rodigan have been working respectfully to promote the music became a worldwide phenomenon.

Just before Rodigan, however, a guy called Derek Morris from out of Bristol started his 50-year love affair with American R&B and Jamaican music, becoming an obsessed record collector. Here’s video director Jamie Foord’s excellent short vid documentary of the extremely charming and gruff-voiced DJ Derek—still spinning reggae, chatting patois on the mic, and rolling around England on the bus.
 

DJ Derek pt. 1 from Grand Finale on Vimeo.

 
After the jump: part 2 of the DJ Derek story…
 

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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08.28.2010
05:19 pm
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