Jimmy Cliff, born James Chambers in April of 1948 in St. James Jamaica, is best known in the mainstream world for his songs like: “Sittin’ in Limbo”, “You Can Get It If You Really Want It”,”Many Rivers to Cross”. These tracks helped popularize Reggae around the world. He’s also well known for his covers of “Wild World” and “I Can See Clearly Now”. Cliff had difficulty gaining a broad audience; in fact, outside of the reggae world, he is probably best known for his film appearance in The Harder They Come. Even after a string of hits, the singer never quite managed to break into the mainstream, although in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he seemed poised to be an international star.
Bunny Wailer, also known as Bunny Livingston was born April 10, 1947, in Jamaica, is a singer songwriter and percussionist and was an original member of The Wailers with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. His father, Toddy Livingston had a daughter, named Pearl Livingston, with Bob Marley’s mother Cedella Booker. Being the least forceful of the trio, he tended to sing lead vocals less often than Marley and Tosh in the early years, but when Bob Marley left Jamaica in 1966 for Delaware, to be replaced by Constantine “Vision” Walker, he began to record and sing lead on some of his own compositions, such as “Who Feels It Knows It”, “I Stand Predominant” and “Sunday Morning”.
By 1973, each of the three founding Wailers operated their own label, Bob Marley was operating Tuff Gong, Peter Tosh with H.I.M. Intel Diplo, and Bunny Wailer with Solomonic. Bunny Wailer toured with the Wailers in the US and England, but soon became reluctant to leave Jamaica. He and Tosh became more marginalized in the group as the Wailers became an international success. More attention was increasingly focused on Marley, which led Bunny to subsequently leave the Wailers to pursue a solo career, which continues in the present.
By defintion Reggae is the popular music of Jamaican origin having elements of calypso and rhythm and blues, characterized by a strongly accentuated offbeat. Started in the 1960’s, during a time of radical political and cultural change. Reggae emerged with a sound so unique and rythmic, it’s popularity grew immensely. The Reggae beat is considered, the heartbeat of the people.
In the 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as “a recently estab. sp. for rege”, as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either “rags, ragged clothing” or “a quarrel, a row”.
The word reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit “DotheReggay” by The Maytals, but it was already being used in Kingston, Jamaica as the name of a slower dance and style of rocksteady. As Reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated:
We didn’t like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of “Fat Man”. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like ‘reggae, reggae’ and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic] and soon all the musicians were saying ‘reggae, reggae, reggae.
Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (“loose woman”) into reggae. However, Toots Hibbert said:
There’s a word we used to use in Jamaica called ’streggae’. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say ‘Man, she’s streggae’ it means she don’t dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, ‘OK man, let’s do the reggay.’ It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing ‘Do the reggay, do the reggay’ and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound it’s [sic] name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it’s in the Guinness World of Records.
Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for “the king’s music”.The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regis meaning “to the king.”
The Wailers, a band that was started by Bob Marley, Bunny Livingston, and Peter Tosh, in 1963, are generally agreed to be the most easily recognised group worldwide that made the transition through all three stages — from ska hits like “Simmer Down”, through slower rocksteady; and they are also among the significant pioneers who can be called the roots of reggae — along with Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker/Decker, Jackie Mittoo and several others.
Aston “Family Man” or “Fams” Barrett, (pictured at right) was born November 22, 1946, in Kingston, Jamaica. Fams, as well as his brother Carlie, played with The Wailers, and Lee Perry’s The Upsetters. It has been stated that Barrett was the ‘leader’ of the rhythmic backing band and responsible for many, if not all bass lines on Bob Marley’s greatest hits, as well as having been active in co-producing Marley’s albums and responsible for most overall song arrangements. He is an influential musician, and many famed bassists give him credit as one of the pioneers of bass guitar. Flea, from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, regards the Family Man as one of his biggest influences. Barrett was also the mentor of reggae session bassist Robbie Shakespeare and is considered one of the elder statesmen of reggae bass guitar playing. He started playing bass by creating one from an upside down wash pan attached by fishing cord to a stick, while Carlton used an upside down cheese pan as his drum set.
Family Man’s nickname derives from the fact that he has 52 children.
In this clip from ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test”, you can really hear the ‘walking bass’ which was perfected by Barrett and his unique rhyhthmic sound.
Toots and the Maytals, originally called The Maytals, are one of the best known ska and reggae vocal groups. Their sound is a unique, original combination of gospel, ska, soul, reggae and rock. Frederick “Toots” Hibbert, the leader, was born in Jamaica in 1945, the youngest of seven children. He grew up singing in a church choir. He moved to Kingston in 1958 at the age of thirteen. In 1962 he met “Raleigh” Gordon and “Jerry” McCarthy, forming a group whose early recordings were incorrectly attributed to “The Flames” and “The Vikings” by Island records in the UK. The Maytals first had chart success recording for producer, Clement “Coxsone” Dodd at Studio One. With musical backing from Dodd’s house band, the legendary Skatalites, the Maytals’ close-harmony gospel singing ensured success, at the time, overshadowing The Wailers.
Jimmy Cliff, born James Chambers in April of 1948 in St. James Jamaica, is best known in the mainstream world for his songs like: “Sittin’ in Limbo”, “You Can Get It If You Really Want It”,”Many Rivers to Cross”. These tracks helped popularize Reggae around the world. He’s also well known for his covers of “Wild World” and “I Can See Clearly Now”. Cliff had difficulty gaining a broad audience; in fact, outside of the reggae world, he is probably best known for his film appearance in The Harder They Come. Even after a string of hits, the singer never quite managed to break into the mainstream, although in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he seemed poised to be an international star.
Bunny Wailer, also known as Bunny Livingston was born April 10, 1947, in Jamaica, is a singer songwriter and percussionist and was an original member of The Wailers with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. His father, Toddy Livingston had a daughter, named Pearl Livingston, with Bob Marley’s mother Cedella Booker. Being the least forceful of the trio, he tended to sing lead vocals less often than Marley and Tosh in the early years, but when Bob Marley left Jamaica in 1966 for Delaware, to be replaced by Constantine “Vision” Walker, he began to record and sing lead on some of his own compositions, such as “Who Feels It Knows It”, “I Stand Predominant” and “Sunday Morning”.
By defintion Reggae is the popular music of Jamaican origin having elements of calypso and rhythm and blues, characterized by a strongly accentuated offbeat. Started in the 1960’s, during a time of radical political and cultural change. Reggae emerged with a sound so unique and rythmic, it’s popularity grew immensely. The Reggae beat is considered, the heartbeat of the people.
Aston “Family Man”
Toots and the Maytals, originally called The Maytals, are one of the best known 