ska history
 
 
 
 

In the 1950's, the world of music was metamorphosing. The start of a music industry, which made it possible for American popular music to be spread throughout the free world, was bringing the music of America abroad. Cultures in many of the countries around the globe would be greatly affected by this change, and this new form of communication would make the world seem much smaller. In Jamaica, an island in the West Indies located 500 miles from Miami, the popular music at the time was Mento. Since the average Jamaican could not afford to fly overseas and learn of the music of other cultures, Jamaica had been unaffected by the music of America until large radio stations from the bigger south-eastern American cities such as Miami, Jacksonville, Nashville, and New Orleans, began to broadcast. Since the ocean created little interference with the signal, the stations were easily reachable on clear days. Jamaicans became exposed to new forms of music. Rhythm and Blues, Jazz, and boogie-woogie were totally new to these people and had a danceable beat. The need for more American music grew as the people continued to listen. Some of the dancehall owners and entrepreneurs, such as Clement 'Coxone' Dodd, Leroy Riley, Headley Jones, and Jack Taylor, went out of their way to help satisfy the needs of the quickly changing musical culture in a place where their music was one of the only affordable social activities. Radios that were capable of picking up distant radio stations were not easily accessible to the average Jamaican, leaving the spread of music largely dependent on the sound systems of their dance-halls. These sound systems would travel to various parts of Jamaica and spread the newest dance music. American musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Smiley Louis, and others were played from Friday Nights to Monday mornings in all of the dancehalls in Jamaica. The big sound system operators at that time were Tom the Great Sebastian, Roy White, V Rocket, Duke Reid the Trojan, and Sir Coxsone's Downbeat. When Rock & Roll emerged from the United States, a puzzled Jamaica looked on. This new music identified with the white American youth and for the Jamaican people, it was more difficult to dance to. This would not have been a problem if the music hadn't begun to overpower rhythm & blues. Jamaicans began to find it more and more difficult to acquire r & b records for their dancehalls. Clement Dodd, a sound system operator, record producer, and retailer, was the one who came up with the concept of creating a new Jamaican popular music. It would encompass all of the components of the music that was being played at the dancehalls: mento, r & b, jazz, and boogie-woogie, combined into one new form. Dodd passed his ideas on to Cluet Johnson, the bass player for one of the most popular Jamaican dance and recording bands, Clue J and the Blues Blasters. All of the supporters of the "Coxsone Downbeat," were considered to be the 'heppest' in the music scene. Clue J would greet these supporters with the word "Skavoovie." The new music that was created, was said by many to have a "ya ya" sound. In honor of Clue J, the music took on an abbreviation of Clue J’s favorite buzzword. This is how ska came about. In the mid to late 50's, Calypso and American British Pop Style music were the only recordings coming out of Jamaica. Near the end of the 50's, Dodd was recording Jamaican entertainers doing a jazz and r&b sound. The ska sound wasn't officially created until late '60 or '61. The sound was totally different from any of the previous Jamaican forms of music. "Musically, Ska is a fusion of Jamaican mento rhythm with r & b, with the drum coming in on the 2nd and 4th beats, and the guitar emphasizing the up of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th beats. The drum is therefore carrying the blues and swing beats of the American music, and the guitar is expressing the mento sound." (Julian Jingles) Ska music became Jamaicans’ first popular music. Ska even developed its own dance, which came from the middle class of Jamaica. New names immediately rose to the top of this new Jamaican art form. For vocalists, there was Lascelles Perkins, Owen Grey, Laurel Aitken, Clancy Eccles, Higgs and Wilson, Bunny and Skitter, and the Jiving Juniors. Jah Jerry Haynes became the most famous guitarist, and Aubrey Adams was the popular pianist. The big bass players of the time were, of course, Clue J and Lloyd Brevett. Lloyd Knibbs and Drumbago were the drummers, while Raymond Harper, Jackie Willacy, and Dizzy Johnny Moore were the popular trumpet players. As for trombone, Don Drummond and Rico Rodriguez were a hit. On tenor sax there was the incredible Roland Alphonso. In 1962, Tommy McCook, one of Jamaica's greatest tenor saxophonists, returned to live in Jamaica. He soon became one of the key players in the shaping of ska music. McCook was an accomplished jazz saxophonist, whose musical discipline greatly enhanced this growing form of music. A year later he began recording with a group of leading musicians: Don Drummond, trombone, Roland Alphonso, tenor saxophone, Lester Sterling, alto, Jackie Mittoo, piano, Lloyd Brevett, bass, Lloyd Knibbs, drums, and Jah Jerry, guitar. Later on, Dizzy Johnny Moore was brought into the group on trumpet. This group recorded in Studio One, a famous Jamaican recording studio. The response was overwhelming, leaving the fans of the music curious as to whom the musicians were. McCook then suggested that a band should be formed. Lloyd Brevett asked McCook to lead them as a band. McCook eventually agreed and they became the Skatalites in June of 1964. They broke up after only fourteen months. The kind of ska that the Skatalites played was different from the original boogie-woogie sound that Clue J and his Blues Blasters had created. Tommy McCook explains: "The drop, the 2nd and 4th beat where the drum dropped was the key to it. In rhythm and blues it was the same drop, but also the ska was a little faster, and the background was different to R & B. The guitar was playing a different thing and the piano wasn’t playing as much r &b just ska-ing strictly and keeping the music lively. It was a foundation really. It was a good vibe, and the singers wanted to show their appreciation of the beat, so we used to fire hard on that beat. When the horns weren’t riffing, we would come in on the ska and add more weight to it." (Tommy McCook) In 1967, a great heat wave crippled the West Indies. This made dancing to ska difficult and naturally the pace of the music was slowed as a compromise. Eventually the music slowed enough to be an entirely new sound. Ska had evolved into rocksteady. The rocksteady sound was much different from the ska. The horns of the rocksteady were turned down, and the emphasis was more on the bass rhythm. This brought forth many artists who were in the backdrop during ska’s time. Desmond Dekker, Keith and Tex, the Jamaicans, Laurel Aitken, and others, swept the island off it’s feet and could even be heard as far away as England. The first Jamaican band to hit the British pop charts was Desmond Dekker in 1967 with a #11 hit ‘007 Shanty Town.’ He also reached #1 in 1969 with ‘Israelites .’ This became the music of the British working class, who were then evolving into skinheads <https://members.tripod.com/StomperOfNazis/StomperFanClub.html>. The desire for this rocksteady sound by the Jamaicans and skinheads made it possible for a new type of music to be started that was focused around skinheads. This was called skinhead reggae. Bands such as Symarip, Derrick Morgan, Desmond Dekker, and others pumped out songs to appease the skinhead masses. The skinhead reggae bands would eventually fade, as would rocksteady in Jamaica, but the UK had been exposed to a new form of music, and it was only a matter of time before something would be done about it. In 1979, the British music scene took a liking to a Jamaican music called ska. Many new bands formed to play this music in its revival. Bands and crowds, alike, often dressed up in black and white clothing as a ‘rudeboy’. Rudeboys were gangsters that existed from the middle of 1966 to early in 1967 in Jamaica. During this time period, almost every artist in the West Indies wrote at least one song that referred to these gangsters’ exploits. These gangsters were nothing more than victims of the poor social conditions in which they had lived, and often had no choice but to resort to crime. The rudeboy fashion in Britain was more of a ‘happy dancing guy in a stylish two-tone suit and pork pie hat.’ However, the British rudeboy was dressed more like the mods of the sixties than the original Jamaican rudeboys. According to Pauline Black from The Selecter, who was quoted in an article written by Scott Isler in September of 1993, "2 Tone was basically about black and white people playing together." The 2 Tone movement was symbolic of the struggle against racial tensions between blacks and whites in British society. The two colors, black and white, were used together on all of the artwork and checkered patterns that decorated the second wave to symbolize black and white unity. Ska bands formed all over the UK, often of mixed ethnic backgrounds, to play a danceable beat and to try to stop the racial discrimination that had been going on for quite some time. The British record label 2 Tone was started in 1979 by Jerry Dammers, an Indian immigrant who played organ, percussion, and sang for a band named The Special A.K.A. They consisted of Dammers, Lynval Golding, guitar, and Horace Panter, bass. The band had been known as The Automatics, and started out playing punk rock mixed with heavy reggae. This sound had also been pulled off by the Clash on occasion, so it wasn’t quite a new creation. After finding that the two types of music did not quite blend in the way that they had intended, the band decided to try a ska beat instead. A year after forming as The Automatics, they added on guitarist Roddy Radiation, and singers Terry Hall and Neville Staples. At this point, they changed their name to The Special A.K.A. This was done to avoid confusion and legal conflicts with another band also called The Automatics who had recently made a record deal. Their big break came when The Clash offered them the chance to play as the opening act on their British tour. The Clash manager, Bernard Rhodes, took a liking to them and offered the band his services. Unfortunately, Dammers and Rhodes did not work well together. Dammers decided to start a new record label for the band’s recordings. They borrowed just enough money to record one song, "Gangsters." The song was about the music industry and borrowed a sound effect from Prince Buster’s "Al Capone." When the time came for the flipside of the record to be made, there was no money left. Lynval Golding, a backup singer for the band, knew of guitarist Neol Davies, who had taped an instrumental at home a year earlier. Dammers got a hold of the track and overdubbed a ska rhythm guitar and they called it ‘The Selecter.’ Having a strong background in art, Dammers designed a logo for their new label. Five thousand copies were pressed and the records were then distributed independently. As a result, 2 Tone records took off, along with The Special A.K.A. The single became an underground hit and their stage presence attracted record company executives from all over, including Mick Jagger. Although Dammers did not intend on selling out, the band finally agreed to be signed on Chrysalis on the condition that 2 Tone would still exist as a subset of Chrysalis and still be managed by The Special A.K.A and The Selecter, which was now an existing band formed by Davies when the single became a smashing success. This would make it possible for all of the ska bands sprouting up all over England to have their own ska music record label. Once Chrysalis took over, "Gangsters" hit the British Top 10. 2 Tone released another single, this time from a new band called Madness. "The Prince" went to the top 20 in Britain, and Madness was then signed to Stiff Records. The third release "On My Radio" by The Selecter, discussed their contempt for radio. The irony is that the song was destined for the Top 10 and would be played on just about every radio in England. Special A.K.A. came out with a second single, "A Message To You Rudy," a cover of the Dandy Livingstone classic. This record added on Rico Rodriquez on trombone, and the band changed their name to the Specials. About a month later, the record label produced another single, this time from The Beat (known in America as The English Beat). They released a ska rendition of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles’ "Tears Of A Clown," shortly after the band set up their own label. After three albums, the Beat stopped, and later formed General Public and Fine Young Cannibals. Seven 2 Tone singles were released by 1980, each selling at least a quarter-million copies. The Specials had actually made it to number one on the British Top 10 with their song "Too Much Too Young." American filmmaker Joe Massot filmed a concert documentary of six of England’s top ska bands playing various shows throughout the country. The British ska scene had really taken off, and many of the bands became overwhelmed by the popularity. Dammers and Davies decided that 2 Tone was becoming way too popular for them to handle. The Selecter left the label. Dammers and The Specials stayed on, believing that their popularity would soon fade. The band continued to produce hits. "Rat Race" hit the Top 5, and "Stereotype" did just as well. But the big hit for the band was the release of "Ghost Town" which sold over a million copies. A few months later, Hall, Staples, and Golding left the band to start The Fun Boy Three. Soon after, guitarist Roddy Radiation left the band to play for the rock ‘n’ roll band called The Tearjerkers. At this point, The Specials were forced to revert back to Special A.K.A., since they were basically no longer the same band. The Bodysnatchers, an all-female band headed by Rhoda Dakar, had recently disbanded, and Rhoda joined Special A.K.A. in a release called "The Boiler." Other ex-Bodysnatchers formed another band called The Belle Stars. After a disappearance for two years, Special A.K.A. released the album "In The Studio," which missed the charts completely and forced the band into debt. The rest of the releases from 2 Tone at this point were watered down, and the label began to suffocate. The last release to come out of the label came from J.B’s Allstars, a group led by ex-Special A.K.A. drummer John Bradbury. With the subtle disappearance of 2 Tone, the ‘second wave’ of ska slowly drifted into nothingness. It didn’t last very long, but people were listening all over the world. Just across the Atlantic in America, the downbeat didn’t stop. 2 Tone was gone and all seemed lost for ska. Unforgiving popular music overran the scene and just kept going, but the music was not dead. People all over still had the offbeat sound stuck in their heads, and new ska bands began to form. The London band The Potato 5 played an authentic ska sound, and lead the new ska following for a good five years with such bands as Maroon Town, The Hotknives, The Riffs, The Loafers, The Trojans, and the Deltones. Back in Jamaica, a monumental event also occurred in the history of ska music during the summer of 1983. The Skatalites, after being disbanded for 18 years, reunited at the Reggae Sunsplash Festival in Jamaica. The Skatalites stole the show, and would go back to recording and producing more material as well as touring all over the world. Ska had not just sprouted in the U.K. and Jamaica. In 1983 at 171A studio in New York City’s ‘lower east side’, members of Buck’s Forbidden Planet Crew and The Cooties got together to form a new ska band. They originally recorded in 1983 under the pseudonym ‘Not Bob Marley,’ but today they are referred to as the Toasters. At the same time, in Boston, a new ska band called Bim Skala Bim formed during mid-summer of 1983 and played their first show two weeks later. The Toasters were led by their guitarist and singer, Rob ‘Bucket’ Hingley. The band would not become well known until a four-song demo, produced by Joe Jackson, was recorded in 1984 and released to the public. This was later to be known as the "Recrimitions" EP during it’s rerelease in 1985. This demo paved the way for the New York ska scene, giving the Toasters the exposure to headline shows at CBGB’s, and making room for more ska bands such as Second Step, The Beat Brigade, and The Boilers. Hingley and The Toasters would later record under Moon Records, a new label created by themselves in the spirit of Jerry Dammers’ 2 Tone Records. Bim Skala Bim, though having difficulties with finding a permanent drummer, continued playing and just like Dammers with 2 Tone, started their own record label called Fonograff Records. This didn’t last, however, and shortly after they released ‘Bim Skala Bim,’ which was also released in the UK as ‘Boston Bluebeat,’ they signed on to Razorbeat records. More bands emerged in various locations. Bands like Burma Jam (Richmond, VA) and Let’s Go Bowling (Fresno, CA) came out of nowhere and lit a spark that made it possible for people all over America to hear ska. New variations on ska came about, and American bands began to experiment. The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones started playing the skacore sound in 1985, skacore basically blends the ska sound with harder metal, punk, and sometimes even a hardcore sound. They were originally called ‘The Bosstones,’ until they discovered that this was the name of a 1950’s Harvard acapella group. Another group called Fishbone, also took on a ska sound and blended it with funk. Their smash hit ‘Party at Ground Zero’ greatly increased the public’s awareness of the ska scene. Most of the spread of the third wave of ska should be attributed to the bands that played music that borrowed from ska. Many modern day rudeboys would be lying if they were to say that they were not made aware of the music originally from The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones or maybe The Clash. Once 1986 came around, enough ska bands existed so that it became as much of a challenge to find an interesting name as it was to gain publicity. Bands with humorous names such as the Skeletones, Mephiskapheles, and others caught the ska scene’s attention with their unique names and styles of music. A new record label would soon be created called Moon Records. It’s sole purpose was to make it possible for ska bands of the time to have their own record label. One that would not be a major recording label, but basically a distributor of ska. Many of the popular ska bands were signed to Moon Records and the label boomed to be to ska music what Epitaph Records is to punk and Victory Records is to hardcore. This label would host many of the better-known ska bands and distribute for them. With all of different variations on ska that were pumping out of the scene, many of the loyal fans to the music became turned off. To compensate, many bands started playing a traditional sound. These bands would avoid playing pop, punk and funk styles and would stick to the original ska. Bands like Hepcat, Let’s Go Bowling, The Allstonians, The Isrealites, Stubborn All-Stars and others were accepted with open arms by the die-hard ska fanatics. Compilations were sprouting up all over the scene. Compilations such as Skarmageddon, Skanarchy, American Skathic, and others, pumped out tunes from the latest up-and-coming ska musicians. Many bands would get the boost they needed to kick off a successful music career from a single that they had released on one of these albums. The boom of the ska scene in recent times has not only generated many new bands. It has also created a huge surge of public interest. Interest in the ska movement has grown to the point where the more popular bands in the scene are making videos for MTV and occasionally getting airplay on some of the major radio stations of the United States. Many people fear this trend, and blame the bands that play variations on ska for the surge in popularity. Often people will become confused in today’s vast music culture as to what is ska and what isn’t. A major modern day misconception is to assume that horns are all that is required to play ska. Newsgroups, magazines, compilations, and such, spend most of their time explaining the concept of ska to the uninformed listener. As the music becomes more and more popular, many wonder whether or not ska will be the ‘next big thing’ to take over the pop charts of America. Jamaica and the United Kingdom could not resist it, how about the MALAYSIA?
 

arzlan
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