Ghost town

I guess the best way to keep people coming in to read my blog is to write more often than every ten days or so. I still have more pics of books to post and to write about but I think the book thing needed a little break. I haven't gotten a chance to take anymore pics of more cool stuff so, that left me pondering what to write about. I'm still groovin' on the same bands (Los Lobos, Jimmie Vaughan, ZZ Top, Stones, etc.) and I've written plenty on them for the time being (even though JV will be in town 3 days after my birthday...). Well, inspiration hit me by the way of Facebook. One of my friends writes a great blog on the Clash (The Clash Blog) and he posted a video he put together of a Joe Strummer song. While the images flashed by me, suddenly there was the line about the Skatalites. Hey! Let's check that out! Well, it's some great stuff and that's what I'm gonna write about.

The Skatalites were formed in Jamaica (where else?) in 1964, bringing together the best musicians around and working in the studios of Kingston, as well as performing live and backing the heavyweight vocalists there at the time. Many of the original and future band members attended The Alpha Cottage School, which was run by Roman Catholic nuns. "It was a good school. If you had ambition you could learn a trade: printer, carpenter, bookbinder, tailor, shoemaker, electrician," recalls Lester Sterling. "You also could choose your instrument and tell the band leader... trumpet, sax, drum. Sometimes the bandleader would put you on the instrument he needed. Ruben Delgado was our teacher for band. A good teacher, he had studied in England and been in the military band." When fellow future band member Dizzy Moore heard a friend playing music he asked where he learned. The boy said, "Alpha, but you have to be bad to go there." Dizzy replied, "That's easy, man." Two years later, Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore was a pupil at Alpha; his folks glad to be straightening him out, Dizzy just happy to play music. Recording back then usually consisted of the band on one track and the vocalist on the other. This helped produced the tight groove the band would develop. The group played their last gig in August 1965, splitting into two groups after that. They reformed with their core members in 1983, backing Bunny Wailer in 1989 on his Liberation Tour featuring 7 original members.

Now I'm just discovering these guys and have a lot more to dig into. Like a lotta folks my age, I got introduced to Ska with the Specials. They not only were a hot band but made you realize how much music you listened to in the past was really Ska. So, I'm gonna check out some more Skatalites and other bands that came out of that movement (gotta expand those horizons!) and if you dig Ska or Reggae, this is a cool place to check out. 'Til we groove again...

(Quotes courtesy of the Skatalites official website)