Published:Friday | September 15, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Ernie Smith recorded I Can't Take It as a ballad at Federal Studios in 1967. Eight years later, Johnny Nash did it over as a lovers' rock track, naming it Tears on My Pillow. It was, for Smith, an unfortunate title change, as that was the name of a...
Published:Tuesday | September 12, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Luciano sang his wish for a One Away Ticket and Dennis Brown sang about the glories of the promised land Damian Marley adding details of the vision for Africa in Land of Promise, his remake of the reggae track with Nas featuring Brown's voice.Close...
Published:Friday | September 8, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Duppy Gunman, has got a deejay touch from Agent Sasco on Ernie Smith's most recent multiple song project, an EP of collaborations on previously released songs, as well as new tracks.In addition to the Duppy Gunman, remake, there is also a refreshing...
Published:Friday | September 8, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
If ever there was a case of a songwriter starting a song with the opposite of the real life situation which inspired it, it is Ernie Smith and Duppy Gunman.Written one Saturday night in 1974, recorded the following Monday at Federal Studios,...
Published:Friday | September 8, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
There are times when I believe that there is a deliberate collusion between performers of dubious ability and persons of similar dubious ability, determined to publicise Jamaican popular music content - and this includes journalists (print and...
Published:Tuesday | September 5, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
So much has been written about Bob Marley (maybe over 500 books), the preface of So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley says that it is hard to think what more could be written that is fresh and engaging.In addition, so many pictures...
Published:Thursday | August 31, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
There was a time when the albums which I have used to mark the progression - and also progress - of the Jamaican popular music I am in tune with were woefully thin on the ground. My tally began in the early 1990s with artistes who emerged when I was...
Published:Thursday | July 27, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
From 9 a.m. today to 2 a.m. tomorrow, the coastal town where electricity and the automobile were first introduced to Jamaica, will host its fifth annual Black River Day.Put on by the Black River Chapter of the St Elizabeth Chamber of Commerce, along...
Published:Thursday | July 27, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
While there are comedians who will gleefully let a Jamaican curse word - or two, or more - rip during a performance, Owen 'Blakka' Ellis is not one of them. And that was his stance even before his public statement of being a Christian earlier this...
Published:Tuesday | July 25, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
This is not going to be a glowing review of Morgan Heritage's latest album, Avrakedabra, a copy of which turned up on the surface of the desk allocated to me at The Gleaner's 7 North Street, Kingston offices, a couple weeks ago. However, should you...
Published:Friday | July 21, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Today, July 23, is the 125th birthday of HIM Haile Selassie.Sizzla is one of those who has recorded the monarch's coronation date in song. It is included in Mash Dem Down, on the 2002 album Da Real Thing.Mash Dem Down, a song of faith in the...
Published:Tuesday | July 18, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Kingsley 'King Omar' Goodison got a first-hand view of Jamaican popular music in the making from his childhood family home on Studley Park Road, St Andrew. He describes it as being a major gateway to a number of communities, among them Craig Town,...
Published:Friday | July 14, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
While Jamaica prepares to officially observe 55 years of political independence, Professor Mervyn Morris can also use August 6, 1962, as a marker for reflection on a markedly shorter time span. His stint as Jamaica's Poet Laureate - the first since...
Published:Friday | July 14, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The Sunday Gleaner recently spent a few hours with deejay Peter Metro, talking about his life in music. The songs have been many and the experiences varied,including making Cockney and Yardie. Officially, Jamaica and England share the same language...
Published:Friday | July 14, 2017 | 12:53 PMMel Cooke
Isn't it funny, how we can use 'funny' in so many ways? There is funny, as in strange or out of the norm, like when a woman says, 'it funny how Mark start come home late every Friday') and there is funny as in homosexual male (so we can get a...
Published:Thursday | July 13, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
For three consecutive evenings, today until Sunday, The Nexus Performing Arts Company of Jamaica will deliver its 2017 season with a title which is partly incongruous for an ensemble which presents music from several genres in myriad forms. For...
Published:Wednesday | July 12, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
In the era of the smartphone, the cellular phone, which cannot go online, is dismissed as the banger. But while the Samsung Galaxy, iPhone and other high-end models are prized, in his humorous way, deejay Peter Metro has recorded high praises for...
Published:Friday | July 7, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
The Sunday Gleaner spent several hours with Peter Metro recently, the deejay physically and verbally retracing the steps that have taken him to a a life in music from 1981 until now. From Kilamanjaro's Whitehall venue studio to his childhood home in...
Published:Friday | July 7, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Peter Metro emphatically describes Police Inna England as his biggest song. The song details an encounter with the police in England, and Peter Metro includes lines where he imitates a British accent, as he imitates the police's instructions....
Published:Friday | July 7, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
There is a way in which performers of the popular art are taken to be 'different' because they express in words or images extremes of what is already seen as normal.So they are somehow deemed 'revolutionary' because they take what is already...
Published:Thursday | July 6, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
As far as marking anniversaries goes, tomorrow's Startime concert at the National Arena could hardly have been better timed. For while the US group famed for its heart-tugging songs such as Kiss and Say Goodbye, We Never Danced to a Love Song and...
Published:Wednesday | July 5, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
Being touched by the Holy Spirit has not dampened the comedic spirit of Owen 'Blakka' Ellis, who recently publicly declared his growth into Christianity. The two rest easily in the same vessel for, as Ellis told The Gleaner, "God has a sense of...
Published:Friday | June 30, 2017 | 12:00 AMMel Cooke
I had reason yesterday to read a bit about this year’s renewal of the annual Reggae on the Rover festival in California from August 3 - 6. What caught my attention was not so much the line-up (although Agent Sasco, Sly and...
