SAMBO: "Woman"
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Strut turns its magnifying glass onto the Caribbean for CALYPSOUL 70, a celebration of the magnificent array of crossover calypso, reggae, latin, Afro and soul styles that emerged, often from small studio and label stables, during the ‘70s.
Taking the listener on a non-stop island-hop, the album digs deep into Trinidad’s steel pan and marching band archives with a terrific pan cover of Gwen McCrae’s ‘90% Of Me Is You’ alongside tough social commentary by ‘rapso’ pioneer, Lancelot Layne. It features a sprinkling of Latin dynamite from Martinique legend Marius Cultier and Cuban salsa heroes Los Van Van and touches on island links with Africa courtesy of Eze Rockcliffe’s Yoruba Singers (Guyana) and an Afrobeat-inspired plea for freedom from legendary calypsonian, Duke. To finish, it adds in a strong helping of fascinating soul and disco fusions from short-lived island bands like Magic Circle Express (St Lucia), The Vibrations (Virgin Gorda) and Ophelia (Dominica).
As well as a valuable selection for diggers, the album is designed as an ultra-handy package for DJs with a host of playable tracks and rare cover versions. All in all, the perfect funky tropical Summer soundtrack for the beach, club or BBQ.
CALYPSOUL 70 features extensive sleeve notes and artist interviews by leading music historian Francis Gooding, alongside rare photos and album sleeves. Compilation by Duncan Brooker, the man behind Strut’s ‘Nigeria 70’ selections.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sleeve notes and track notes by Francis Gooding.
1. The Revolution Of St. Vincent – The Little You Say
St. Vincent gained independence from the UK in 1979. As in other British colonies such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, local Creole traditions were more rigorously suppressed than in the French Antilles; nevertheless, the musical landscape, while modest, was similar to neighbouring islands, with a strong “boom drum” percussion tradition and the familiar Lent carnival (‘Vincy Mas’, actually held in late June to avoid clashing with carnival in Trinidad). No exception to the pervasive influence of the US in the ‘70s, St. Vincent produced some noted crossover and fusion outfits, including the Trendsetters, St. Vincent Latinaires and The Revolution Of St. Vincent, whose dancefloor funk single ‘The Little You Say’ is a textbook example of the smooth integration of American soul and funk with the big-band calypso aesthetic of the small islands. “The song was originally planned with a band I was in called Mastermind. I then formed Revolution in 1970 and that band ran for around six years,” explains founder Harold “Ploomie” Lewis. “I earned some good royalties from the UK and US on that song. We had an album but the other songs never made it in the same way. We only ever toured locally around Barbados, Trinidad and St. Lucia.” Ploomie still plays and records in St. Vincent today. “I’ve just been recording two local rap acts, Pluck and Pistol. I sing the hooks for them.”
2. St. Maarten’s The Rolling Tones – It’s A Feeling
One of the Windward Isles, history has seen St. Martin variously ruled by the French, Dutch and British, each having dominion over the island several times. At present it is the smallest landmass to be divided between two powers: the north half of the island remains French as St. Martin, while the south – Sint Maarten – is still a Dutch colony. Adolphus Richardson’s cheekily named St. Maarten’s Rolling Tones hail, as their name suggests, from the southern Dutch area. The group was formed in the ‘70s by singer and trumpeter Richardson, and the self-titled LP from which we take the disco-tinged ‘It’s a Feeling’ was hand-distributed by the band. The Rolling Tones stayed together until 1992, playing a combination of reggae, calypso, soca and soul; after a brief split they reformed in 1994 and they continue to perform in Sint Maarten.
3. Juan Formel & Los Van Van – A Ver Que Sale
The first decade of the Revolution in Cuba saw no great interest paid by the government to the island’s music. After the heyday of the Cuban sound in the ‘50s, many musicians were already located in the US, and many others defected there following the fall of Batista. Music was neglected through the ‘60s, the record industry stagnated as many key players jumped ship, and releases on the state-run labels were patchy and inconsistent – it was a far cry from Che Guevara’s notion of ‘socialism with pachanga’. A combination of the US embargo and the refusal of the Cuban authorities to allow distribution of music by defectors and ex-pats lead to a home slump in the island’s musical fortunes. During the ‘70s and ‘80s, this situation began to change, and the government began to sponsor the arts more actively; Los Van Van, lead by influential and charismatic bassist Juan Formell, were one of the new bands who came to prominence at this time. Their songo sound, a fusion of Cuban forms such as son montuno and charanga with rock, jazz and disco, made them one of Cuba’s most popular acts, and paved the way for the more modern sounds of timba. They remain one of Cuba’s finest and best known outfits.
4. Clarence Curvan & His Mod Sounds – Calypsoul
Trinidadian bandleader Curvan was a fixture on the island’s calypso scene from the late 1950s onwards, leading one of the many popular large bands that played instrumental calypso and mainstream hits in clubs and hotels. His band recorded in Trinidad for various labels, including several sessions for the Cook Laboratories imprint founded by visionary engineer and inventor Emory Cook. Released on calypso mogul Granville Straker’s eponymous label, the blazing horn-led sound of ‘Calypsoul’ illustrates perfectly the intense energy that animated 1970’s Caribbean music. Its creator is still active in New York, playing as Clarence Curvan and Orchestra.
5. Lancelot Layne – Yo Tink It Sorf
One of the great unsung innovators and intellects of West Indian music, Lancelot Layne can lay claim to being the inventor of an original genre: rapso, a fusion of calypso's direct delivery and rhythm with radical politics and confrontational social commentary. The style was born of the social and political unrest in 1970s Trinidad and Tobago, and the fiery 'Yo Tink It Sorf?' contains a sophisticated and sharp criticism of escapist Caribbean youth who look to America for their culture. Layne lambasts those who talk of US ghettoes as if they were something to aspire to, and skewers the fashionably high “funky junky”. Things are bad enough here, he declaims over a heavy-hitting soca backing, and now you lionise the heroin addiction and depression of US slums? What, yo tink it sorf in a ghetto?
6. Boris Gardiner – Negril
Bassist and composer Boris Gardiner started his musical career as a singer. After stints in various combos and hotel showbands he found a place in Carlos Malcolm's Afro-Jamaican Rhythm, where he played bass and learned how to write music and compose. Various prestigious gigs followed during the 1960s, including time both in the Upsetters and as a Studio One session musician, and during the 1970s he scored major chart hits in the UK and Europe. The meditative sound of 'Negril' is taken from his 1975 soundtrack to the film Every Nigger Is A Star. While the album is notoriously rare, the film might even be rarer still – despite apparently starring Bahamian-born actor Calvin Lockhart (star of UK cult ‘70s horror flick The Beast Must Die), debate remains open as to whether or not the film actually exists at all.
7. Magic Circle Express – Magic Fever
St. Lucia’s Magic Circle Express, lead by organist Arthur Tisson, had recorded one album prior to the release of their Calypso Corner set. Their earlier effort, recorded in neighbouring Martinique, was focused on French Antillean sounds such as beguine and cadesse; Calypso Corner, recorded in St. Lucia, has a more anglo-Caribbean sound, featuring selections in calypso, reggae and soca styles, as well as the unique and experimental funk sound of ‘Magic Fever’. Over a heavily syncopated beat and a gully-deep bass line, the squelch of Tisson’s keyboard delivers a humid, tropical riff inspired by Herbie Hancock’s ‘Chameleon’ before the drummer kicks into double time and the horns and effects take the track up and away. Tisson now runs his own sound P.A. company in St. Lucia.
8. The Checkmates – Disco Groove
Not to be confused with St. Lucian-born Emile Ford’s UK chart-toppers of the same name, Barbados’ Checkmates give us the uptempo sounds of ‘Disco Groove’. While the title gives a clue to current fashions, the track itself is far from standard disco fare. The calypso-band horns are typically bright, pushing the track along with an unusual minor key arrangement, while the energy of the rhythm section owes more to the spouge style popularised on the island by Jackie Opel than it does to the sounds of New York.
9. Biosis Now – Independent Bahamas
After achieving majority rule in 1967, the 700 or so islands and cays that make up the Bahamas achieved full independence from the UK in 1973. As part of the national celebrations, the government sponsored the production of an LP ‘A Nation is Born – A Musical History of The Bahamas’. It featured a cross-section of Bahamian performers, from the funk outfit The Beginning of The End (who had achieved some success in the US with their hit ‘Funky Nassau’) to popular traditional goombay artist Blind Blake. According to producer Ron Albert, Biosis Now’s loosened-out goombay funk jam ‘Independent Bahamas’ was recorded impromptu at the Britannia Hotel during the evening of the independence day celebrations; the band was hastily put together and made no other recordings. But the track itself, with its distorted organ and message of political liberation, is undoubtedly a success, and its fizzing energy is a fitting testament to a proud moment for the island nation.
10. Tyrone Taylor – Move Up Blackman
Renowned reggae singer Tyrone Taylor contributes the only pure reggae sound to ‘Calypsoul 70’ in the form of the stridently soulful 'Move Up Blackman'. Taylor would score a massive international hit in the early '80s with the reggae ballad 'Cottage in Negril', but 'Move Up…' from 1976 finds him in more serious mood. The song's political message continues the conscious musical stance he had taken at the beginning of the decade in recordings for Clancy Eccles, a producer affiliated to Michael Manley's socialist PNP (People's National Party) which had been elected to power in Jamaica in 1972. The decade would see deadly external interference in the country’s internal politics as the island become a cold war theatre, with the proxy battle of world superpowers being played out by opposed PNP and JLP (the right-wing Jamaican Labour Party) gunmen in the island’s most deprived ghettoes.
11. Amral’s Trinidad Cavaliers Steel Orchestra – 90% Of Me Is You
From the 1950s, as the sound of the pan gained international currency and the tourist trade secured itself as the central plank of Caribbean economies, it became increasingly common for large companies, including oil giants and airlines, to sponsor steel band ensembles. Shell, Esso, Pan Am, Coca-Cola, Angostura and many other companies all had steel bands on their books, providing money for pans, uniforms, floats and other essentials. Sponsorship also encouraged the panmen to give up the organised violence that went along with the pan clashes. The Trinidad Cavaliers Steel Orchestra was supported by successful (and still running) Trinidadian travel agency Amral’s. Pan LPs typically featured covers of recent international hits as well as Caribbean standards and popular calypsos. The unusual track selection for the Cavaliers’ LP Heat serves as a good gauge of the kind of US sounds that were reaching Trinidad, whether through imports and radio, or tourism and economic migration. As well as Gwen McRae’s soul classic ‘90% of Me is You’, the record features covers of songs by funk-rock group Ripple, jazz saxophonist Lou Donaldson and funk outfit War. The Cavaliers’ sound is characteristic of the modern steel band ensemble, which adds conventional bass and drums to the full pan group to round out the sound.
12. The Hondells – Raycan
The Hondells give us a blast of pure carnival sound in the form of ‘Raycan’. By the early 1970s, calypsonians from islands other than Trinidad were achieving celebrated successes across the Caribbean. Prominent among them was Antigua’s prolific King Short Shirt, who scored major hits throughout the islands during the decade. ‘Raycan’ was one such hit, and the Hondells’ instrumental version of the tune was the flip side to his follow-up single ‘Treat Me Nice’. King Short Shirt is still royalty: he beat all comers at Antigua’s 50th anniversary carnival celebrations in 2007 to be crowned Caribbean Calypso Monarch.
13. Marius Cultier – Guanavaco
Taken from the Trans-World Canada LP ‘Marius Cultier A La Place Des Arts’ (TWF 9010). Composed by Marius Cultier. Published by Sevy Music (BMI). Produced by Yves Vincent. Recorded 27th June 1970 at La Place Des Arts, Montreal. P 1970 Trans World Canada
Marius Cultier was a central figure in the development of modern French Caribbean music, working intensively to produce an original Caribbean sound which would organically fuse pan-West Indian influences with African-American jazz. He spent time in Canada, France and the United States, attempting with some success to establish himself as an international pianist, but returned to Martinique in 1976, where he became increasingly disillusioned with island life. Despite his talents and efforts, he remained under-appreciated in his homeland, and trouble with work and his career saw him spiral into alcoholism and depression. Liver disease took his life in 1985.
14. Gemini Brass – You Don’t Love Me
Willie Cubb's r'n'b mover 'You Don't Love Me' falls into that category of songs which are best known through a cover version. In this case, it is Dawn Penn's immortal Studio One cut and Penn's instantly recognizable 'no no no' refrain that elevated Cubb's song to its evergreen status as a certified reggae classic. But whether it was Cubb's original, Penn's take, or some combination of both that they worked from, Trinidad's Gemini Brass rendered the composition in a completely new image – as a frenetic funk workout led by their trademark bright horns and augmented by a careering organ solo.
15. Sambo – Woman
The mysterious Sambo, responsible for this little known cover of Barrabas’ latin-rock classic 'Woman', billed himself as 'The Obeah Man': a practitioner of those African-based arts of herbalism, healing and magic known as obeah, mostly found in anglo-Caribbean islands. Frowned upon by Christians, and often wrongly associated with evil magic, obeah is not dissimilar to other Caribbean mystic beliefs and religions which have their roots in Africa, such as the Vodou of Haiti and the Santeria and Palo of Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
16. Wadadli Experience – We See Jah
Borrowing the island's Amerindian name ('Land of Wadadli'), the Wadadli Experience were Antigua's first reggae outfit. 'We See Jah' announces a unique Wadadli mixture of island influences, the sweet flute and ferociously over-driven organ laid down over a stuttering, soca-inflected rhythm. Soca and kaiso may still have pride of place on Antigua's airwaves, but the popularity reggae continues to grow and the island's reggae scene is currently experiencing something of boom. Wadadli Experience stand at the base of this scene, and members of the band are still involved in Antiguan reggae production. “The whole band lived together at the time,” remembers band original Charlesworth “Obadiah” Sebastian. “It was a struggle back then. Our manager at the time made away with all of our instruments before we made the ‘Came From Afar’ album and money was tight.”
17. Duke – Freedom In Africa
Legendary calypsonian Mighty Duke (his moniker cut to just plain 'Duke' for this 1980 release) began composing calypsos professionally in the 1950s and, by the early ‘60s, he had a place in the Southern Brigade calypso tent in San Fernando with luminaries such as Stalin and Shorty. In 1964 he left his home town of Point Fortin for Port of Spain to join the most influential calypsonian of all, Mighty Sparrow, in the latter's Original Young Brigade. By the late '60s Duke's star was in the ascendant, and the years '68-71 saw a run of four consecutive victories in the annual Calypso King contest, ended only by Sparrow himself in 1972. 'Freedom in Africa' is taken from his highly regarded 1980 LP ‘Harps Of Gold’ and features Duke in militant mood. Against the backdrop of escalating conflicts for independence and equality in South Africa, Namibia and Angola, Duke is in no mood for compromise on the issue of African freedom: “Dialogue is over/ If is war / it is that you asking for / tell dem you will get that, sure / in every terrain / 'til all whites are slain / unless we get – Freedom in Africa.”
18. Cedric Im Brooks – Blackness Of Darkness
Jamaican saxophonist and bandleader Cedric Im Brooks is a true original, responsible some of the most compelling Jamaican music of the 1970s. His radical musical vision (partly inspired by the magic worlds of Sun Ra, whose Arkestra he almost joined) effortlessly encompassed jazz, latin and afrobeat, as well as the music of the islands. He formed the legendary ensemble Light of Saba in the mid-‘70s; they recorded four extraordinary albums which epitomize the absorptive and transformative power of the Caribbean tradition. Brooks' journey was toward a reggae music without boundaries: heavy roots sounds which the music of the world would both enrich and be enriched by. 'Blackness of Darkness' is taken from the extremely obscure 'One Essence' session, recorded at Treasure Isle and featuring many of the Light of Saba musicians. The unique 'Blackness of Darkness' fuses elements of disco, jazz and afrobeat before dropping down into the deep and mystic roots sound which underpins all of Brooks' music.
19. Ophelia – Red Light Lady
Dominican producer and singer Gordon Henderson is often credited with an important innovation in '70s Caribbean music: the invention of “cadence-lypso”. As the name suggests, cadence-lypso was a potent fusion of the kadans-rampa of Haiti with the calypso sounds of Trinidad and the Lesser Antilles. Henderson's Guadeloupe-based band Exile One exported the sound worldwide, and it would have a decisive influence on the development of zouk. His label, Saultone (“Cadence-Lypso Is Our Business”), was home to several Henderson-produced artists including celebrated Dominican singer Ophelia Marie, from whose self-titled LP we feature the in-the-pocket funk sound of 'Red Light Lady'. Ophelia has had an illustrious career: known as Dominica's Lady of Song, the recognised founder of the popular zouk-love style is one of the few Caribbean women artists to have enjoyed lasting local and worldwide success. She has won many major awards both at home and abroad, and her signature tune 'Ay Dominique' remains an anthem in her native Dominica.
20. The Goretti Group with Dennis De Souza Trio – Of My Hands
Guyana-born pianist Dennis De Souza, whose three-piece accompany the church singers of Maria Alonzo’s Goretti Group, has had a long and successful career in music, recording dozens of LPs in Trinidad, the US and Canada. The Goretti singers were also successful in their native Trinidad well into the 1980s. Their joint LP ‘Shake a Hand’ laid claim to having introduced ‘the New Folk Gospel Sound’, and we round this collection off with ‘Of My Hands’, a downtempo soul-gospel number which is undoubtedly original and certainly unusual, even by the eclectic and restless musical lights of the 1970s Caribbean.
