Joseph Benaiah shines like a diamond on ‘Vision With Faith’

In February, Joseph Benaiah, a reggae singer and musician with more than 40 years in the business, released his solo project, the 15-track Vision With Faith. The album which has long been in the making and Benaiah, who is high on quality, teamed up with A-list musicians such as Dean Fraser, Sly and Robbie; Tyrone Downie; Robbie Lyn, Kirk Bennett, Mitchum ‘Khan’ Chin and Nambo Robinson.

He explained that the name was well-thought-out.

“Notice that is says ‘with faith’ and that’s because my mission is to tour the world and spread the message of reggae music – truths and rights – and to do that you have to have faith,” Benaiah stated.

His sixth album, it comes 16 years after his 2007 project New Beginning.

“And the album before that was titled Time Eternal,” he said, pointing out the continuation of a time-inspired theme. “And before that [it was] Children of Israel and before that We Nah Give Up … and that’s why we are pressing along with Vision With Faith.”

Although he is in full promotion mode for the album, Benaiah, who is based in south Florida, will be doing a few dates with legendary reggae band, Inner Circle, playing his instrument of choice, the guitar. One such gig takes place tonight at the Cadence Amphitheater in Atlanta and Benaiah’s fingers are ready. However, come September, he will be flying solo to Colombia, where he will make his debut. He is excited at his upcoming South American shows, which he said was an indication of the good promotion in place for Vision With Faith.

“I’ve been to Mexico and Brazil with Mighty Diamonds, but we didn’t do Colombia. I remember that festival in Brazil, there were so many people … I asked around for a estimate of the crowd size and most people said it was about 40,000,” he recalled.

CAPO DIAMOND

In another life, Benaiah was known as Capo Diamond, the name he used when he journeyed with the legendary, Grammy-nominated, reggae group, Mighty Diamonds, from 2015 to 2022. Actually, he had played guitars with them prior to joining full-time “as the third front singer”.

“I joined Diamonds when Bunny [Diamond] got a stroke. Judge [Diamond] called me and said ‘I need you to come tour with us, but not to play guitar.’ We toured Europe in 2018 and 2019 and we went almost all over the world,” he shared. But things came to a halt with the pandemic in 2020, the same year that Mighty Diamonds celebrated its milestone 50th anniversary in the business.

Reflecting on those days, Benaiah said that he didn’t have any rehearsals with lead singer Tabby Diamond, nor band leader Judge, but once they were onstage, nobody could ever guess.

“I learned the songs while on the plane … and people would tell me how I fitted in well with the band. But everything changed when Tabby was murdered,” Benaiah said with sadness in his voice.

Tragedy struck the group when Donald ‘Tabby’ Shaw and Fitzroy ‘Bunny’ Simpson died within days of each other in April 2022.

Benaiah, however, didn’t elaborate on the reason for him no longer being with the band, which has since found a male and female replacement singers, with Judge Diamond stepping in for Tabby as the new lead singer.

Instead, Benaiah – like many in the music business who enjoyed the Diamonds’ catalogue – spoke glowingly of Tabby Diamond’s voice.

“Tabby have the Voice of Jamaica … just like man like Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott, Beres Hammond, John Holt, Alton Ellis, Leroy Sibbles … dem man deh. Judge write most of the songs for Diamonds, but Tabby was the lead. Of course, I had to come to Jamaica to attend the funerals for Bunny and Tabby … and I have been back on one occasion since, but I’m due a visit soon,” Benaiah said.

Vision With Faith features tracks written by Hal Anthony Lewinson, Hopeton Lindo, and Joseph ‘Benaiah’ Williamson. There are collaborations with Dean Fraser, Nikki Burt, and Luciano .

“ Make Ends Meet is the Luciano collab … he is one of my favourite singers right now. Everytime we meet up the vibe is good, I want to do some more work with him,” Benaiah said of The Messenjah.

Born Joseph Williamson in Kingston, Benaiah, who has lived in the United States since the late 1960s, started his career in the early 1970s playing guitar in bands throughout the tri-state area. By the time he moved to south Florida in the mid-1980s, he was an established artiste and musician.

Benaiah, who has not swayed from his musical core throughout his career, had established his own band, Benaiah, decades ago. A highly successful contingent, in the early ‘90s Beniah was voted Best Reggae Band in Miami and also received recognition as the Best Live Band.

Vision With Faith is a product of Sphinx Records Inc, which is also the distributor worldwide.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com