If you’ve known me for a lengthy amount of time, you’ll know one of the things I hate about the direction of the world is the flourishing of unnecessary industries. One example is employment agencies, where companies are set up with the premise of making staff recruitment easier, but end up fleecing money out of important sectors such as health and education. In Sydney, I’m directly contacted by a school for work, but in London the school will pay a fee to an agency of up to half my daily wage on top of what they pay me. A quick calculation suggests to me that a single school would be giving over 80 000 pounds ($170 000 AUD) per year to an agency, not including the money that goes to the supply teachers. “Gap-filling” industries are, for me, a result of the capitalistic nature of our world, where it is important for someone to be in work, no matter what they are doing and even if they are contributing nothing to society.

The most annoying gap-filling industry for me lately, is the ticketing agency industry. Remember the days when the advertised ticket price covered it all? That ten bucks changed hands, you saw the band, and the venue took a small percentage of the ten bucks or made all their money from alcohol sales. Strangely enough, part of running a venue was selling tickets.

I am aware it isn’t a new thing for a venue to charge a fee for ticketing, but that was usually restricted to large capacity venues and often you had the tickets sent out to you in the post. In the last two years in Sydney, Australia, that began to change, with more and more venues choosing to use a ticketing agency called Moshtix. Even little pubs wanted to charge you a “booking fee” when you saw a few local acts. The preposterousness of this booking fee is that even if you bought a ticket on the night of the gig, you’d have to pay the fee anyway, and having put on gigs in such cases, it wasn’t the bands or me receiving that extra money.

Alton Ellis is definitely in my top five when it comes to Jamaican artists. Rocksteady really is my main tickle and with his dominance in this genre, it isn’t surprising I like his music so much.

Ellis was born in 1944 and like many reggae artists grew up in Trenchtown, Kingston. He attended Kingston Senior School with the likes of Slim Smith and Jimmy Riley and began his recording career with Coxsone Dodd doing a duet with Eddie Perkins titled “Muriel”. (sources vary – some say it was in 1959 while others in 61). When ska came along, he’d moved into Duke Reid’s stable and in 1965 recorded the very popular song Dance Crasher. It was with vocal group The Flames, made up of Winston Jarrett and Eggar Gordon. Rocksteady was upon them by 1966 and it really suited the laidback style of Alton Ellis’ voice. He and The Flames recorded one of the most well known rocksteady songs, Girl I’ve Got A Date in 1966 and it led to much success. Ellis would go on to record a sting of songs with Duke Reid at Treasure Isle and back at Coxsone including Cry Tough, Rock Steady, Can I Change My Mind, I’m Just a Guy and Ain’t That Loving You. His peak period also included a tour to England with the Soul Vendors. Following his success in rocksteady, Ellis went in a more conscience direction which resulted in songs such as Back to Africa and Lord Deliver Us for Lloyd Daley and Keith Hudson.

Yet another feature of Alton Ellis's career were the duets he performed with the queens of rocksteady. I’m just a Guy and Why Did You Leave Me to Cry with Phyllis Dillon and an entire album on Coxsone’s Studio One with Hortense Ellis.

It is with great disappointment to hear that Desmond Dekker has passed away. Dekker was born Desmond Adolphus Dacres on July 16, 1941 and died Thursday morning at 4 am May 25th in London of a heart attack. He was 64.

Dekker made an impact on the Jamaican music scene with his song Honour Your Mother and Father for Leslie Kong on the excellent Beverley’s label. It was a cracking upbeat ska number that set his path as a Jamaican musical icon. This was 1963, right in the thick of Jamaica’s indigenous music beginnings. He followed this song up with a number of others including the well known King of Ska (backed by The Cherry Pies) and Get Up Edina (backed by The Four Aces). The Aces would be his vocal group for his next stint of recordings, made up of Wilson James and brothers Clive, Carl, Barry and Patrick Howard (not necessarily all at the same time). In 1967 they recorded the rocksteady number 007, which went to #14 on the UK charts. This was followed by winning the 1968 Jamaican Festival Song Competition with the song Music Like Dirt, better known as Intensified. The year after in 1969, on the back of the UK skinheads’ love of reggae music and Dekker’s touring in the UK, their song Israelites went to #1 on the UK charts. It was also Dekker’s only US charting song, reaching the top ten.

Birthdate: May 7th, 1942
Birthplace: Steertown, Jamaica
Backing Singers: The Dominoes
Main Genres: Reggae, ska and rocksteady
First No. 1 Hit: "Carry Go Bring Home", 1963

You could be forgiven for not having heard of Justin Hinds, but after hearing his unique voice, it is one voice you won't forget. He may not have the profile of other Jamaican artists of his time such as Bob Marley, Desmond Dekker or Prince Buster, but he was equally as talented as a lyricist and singer, this being reflected in his record sales. It is his love for country life and his religion, as well as being disillusioned with the music industry that has kept him out of the public eye. Hinds is unique in that his lyrics were more spiritual than other artists of the time and his voice has a large gospel influence. This uniqueness had a wide appeal and he had hit songs throughout the ska, rocksteady and reggae days of Jamaica and is still well received when he occasionally performs today.

I debuted the Jamaican legend profile in issue #5 of my former zine The Skammunicator with a profile of Justin Hinds. It is an obvious decision to continue with the Jamaican profiles seeing EC2 is the Laurel Aitken issue (and even though Laurel was born in Cuba).

Laurel Aitken was born in Cuba in 1927 before moving with his family to Jamaica at the age of 11. His career started in the 1940’s, choosing singing over masonry – a decision ska and reggae fans the world will agree was a wise one.

His main influences, like many of the early Jamaican singers, were the American R & B or Boogie-Woogie singers such as Roscoe Gordon. Early in his career, Laurel Aitken tried his hand at boogie, R & B and mento. In 1958, Laurel’s recording success began with double A sided single “Little Sheila”/”Boogie in My Bones”. “Little Sheila” was the first indigenous song to go to number one on the Jamaican charts and stayed there for 11 weeks. Concurrent with the emergence of Aitken came Chris Blackwell’s Island Records, which had released “Little Sheila”.

From there came the mix of calypso (mento) and R & B. Ska was created. Laurel Aitken migrated from Jamaica to England in 1960 and took with him the ska beat, where a Jamaican population in Brixton waited for him. His confrontation of Melodisc for releasing pirated copies of his songs while he was still in Jamaica led to them creating a label to release ska music in the UK. The label was called Blue Beat, a name that was then occasionally used interchangeably with ska. After recording with Blue Beat, he moved on to record other songs with EMI, Ska Beat, Nu Beat, Direct Records and Doctor Bird Records including the great Bartender and It’s Too Late amongst many others.

I was fortunate enough to see Owen Gray perform in Melbourne in November 2004. Though a decent age he performed with great gusto and showmanship. Before that moment I hadn’t come across Gray very often – he was really overshadowed by other Jamaican artists. Seeing him perform with the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, a 27 piece band of Melbourne ska identities, created a new interest for the artist, particularly in me. I quickly discovered he was someone with a wealth of experience to match his performance skills. He obviously had a deep passion for the music and this had lasted over 45 years in the business. Though he probably doesn’t have the string of hits like artists such as Jimmy Cliff or Desmond Dekker, his appeal lies in his passion and humility.

Owen Gray was born in 1939 and grew up in Trenchtown, Jamaica. He attended the Alpha Boys School alongside many other great music names and began performing from a young age as well as trying his hand at drama while at University. He has the claim of being the first to record a dubplate and was the inspiration for many other musicians. Having heard Gray on the radio (and knowing him as was the nature in Kingston at the time) many others wanted what he had. In 1960 he recorded Please Don’t Let Me Go with the Caribs, who contained Ernest Ranglin’ and also some Australians living in Jamaica. On the Beach, a song recorded shortly after is another of his most well known tracks. He was very much the first recording star in Jamaica releasing the popular American R&B style. His songs were also gaining popularity with the Jamaican community in the UK and he relocated there in 1962.

Phyllis Dillon remains in a class above all other female Jamaican artists and rates alongside any of the classic male Jamaican artists too. Her sweet soulful voice made so many of her songs hits of the time that are now classics. She was the Queen of rocksteady, evident by her presence on so many rocksteady compilations. It really is essential for all Jamaican music lovers to have at least some Phyllis Dillon in their collection and let’s face it, most of you probably do. I speak of rocksteady, but funnily enough my favourite Phyllis song is the more soul sounding Make Me Yours. Other favourites include Don’t Touch Me Tomato, A Thing of the Past and Right Track. Any time I hear Phyllis I am and will always be drawn to the dancefloor and for that as well as all the beautiful songs you have given to the world I say thank you Phyllis Dillon, you will be sadly missed.

Phyllis Dillon – the bio.

Phyllis Dillon was born in 1944 and grew up in Linstead in the parish of St Catherine, Jamaica. Like many other singers of her period in Jamaica she began singing at school and in church. It was Lynn Tait who discovered her, singing as part of the Vulcans, at the Glass Bucket club. He took her to meet Duke Reid in 1965 and Dillon cut her first record for Duke Reid’s treasure Isle label. It was the song “Don’t Stay Away”, a Dillon original, and was released in 1966, beginning a short yet prolific period for the singer.

Fellow singer, Alton Ellis was a great supporter of her. Their relationship, as well as Reid’s eye for a hit record, led to duets such as Love Letters (1967) and Why Did You Leave (1968). She also sung with other great rocksteady hit-maker Hopeton Lewis on such tracks as Right Track (1968) and Love is All I Had (1969). It was these and other hits such as Rock Steady (1967) and Thing of the Past (1967) and Perfidia (1967) that gave her the title the Queen of Rocksteady.