The reggae priest (cont'd)

This week, we will continue a series of excerpts from Father Ho Lung's bio, written by Joseph Pearce - 'Candles in the Dark' - Chapter four

As Sinner was shooting up the charts, a curious reporter from the Daily Gleaner interviewed the young priest who had become the talk of the town. The photograph that accompanied the published article shows a young, broadly smiling priest, in clerical garb, hands in pockets, with shoulder-length hair cascading down from beneath a trendy hat. He arrived at the recording studio carrying a pear and sandwiches and spoke readily to the reporter of the philosophy that had inspired the hit song: "In Jamaica you have people who are very poor, and others who are the opposite. Although not all rich people are oppressors, some don't really care, like employers who give their employees very little wages." He explained that 'Father Ho Lung and Friends' consisted of about ten people who had got together to record an album, Bread and Wine, a year or so earlier. Sinner and the planned follow-up single Babylon a Catch Me were taken from the new album, Jasmine and Jeremiah. He also told the reporter that his priestly duties prevented him from making live appearances and that all profits from the recordings went to the work of the church.

Jamaican charts

A month or so later, on November 18, Sinner had risen to number three on the Jamaican charts, its highest position. Marvin Gaye held the top slot and Father Ho Lung's single was selling better than other American artistes on the charts in the same week, including Smokey Robinson, the Manhattans, the Chi-Lites, the Eagles, and Al Green. He was also higher in the charts than the giants of the Jamaican pop scene, including Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh, and the Maytals. In the same week, the Jamaican Daily News carried the headline 'Father Ho Lung Does Not Sing Sinner', quoting a distressed Father Ho Lung who was at pains to make it plain that the vocals on the track were actually sung by a singer named Danny Harrison, whom the newspaper erroneously claimed was "a cousin of the ex-Beatle George Harrison". He was, in fact, an unknown Canadian singer who had married a Jamaican, was living on the island, and had just happened to be hanging around the studio when Father Ho Lung and Friends were recording Sinner. "He walked through the studio while we were working on the track, and asked if he could try the vocal," Ho Lung explained. "He tried it and then we tried other singers afterwards. We felt that his was a perfect fit. It's sort of an anomaly." Harrison's growling Canadian accent accompanied by the Caribbean rhythm was certainly anomalous, creating an odd cross-fertilisation between American country music and Jamaican reggae, as though Johnny Cash had collaborated with Bob Marley. It worked well and it is little surprise, in hindsight, that the record proved such a success.

fundraising venture

It was, however, a huge surprise to everyone involved at the time. Father Ho Lung explained that the record was made as a fundraising venture for a newly formed interracial charity, the Brotherhood of Man, of which he was chairman. Founded to promote racial harmony in Jamaica, its purpose was to show that people of all races could unite to alleviate the island's social problems. It was hoped that any money raised from sales of the record would be used to provide care for abandoned children and help to find foster homes for them. With this greater vision in mind, the disparate elements that came together to make Sinner such a success serve as a metaphor for the vision itself: an ethnically Chinese priest writes a reggae song about social problems which is sung by a Caucasian Canadian immigrant, married to a native Jamaican. The song was itself the very incarnation of interracial harmony!

Unfortunately, the media had dubbed Father Ho Lung the 'singing priest', leading many to the understandable conclusion that he was the vocalist on the track. Anyone who compared the rasping aggression of Harrison's vocals with the sing-song softness of the priest's gentle Jamaican lilt would have realised instantly that Father Ho Lung could not have been the vocalist.

Nonetheless, the general assumption was that he had been the vocalist and he was determined to dispel the myth. He told the reporter from the Jamaican Daily News that because Sinner was a fundraising venture and nobody involved expected it to be such a howling success, credits were not considered terribly important. It was agreed that the record should be released with credits reading simply "Father Ho Lung and Friends" and that this had been the source of the subsequent confusion. The reporter described Father Ho Lung as stunned by the record's success. "Nobody expected it to take off," he told her. "It is a complete shock. We only expected it to sell 500 or so."