- Home
- Music / Interview
- music
- biography & autobiography
- Words of Our Mouth, Meditations of Our Heart
Words of Our Mouth, Meditations of Our Heart
Pioneering Musicians of Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, and Dancehall
Music / Interview
Sales Date: 2016-05-10
Celebrating the legendary studio musicians of Jamaican popular music through personal photographs and interviews
This is the first book devoted to the studio musicians who were central to Jamaica's popular-music explosion. With color portraits and interview excerpts, over 100 musical pioneers—such as Prince Buster, Robbie Shakespeare, Sly Dunbar, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and many of Bob Marley's early musical collaborators—provide new insights into the birth of Jamaican popular music in the recording studios of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Includes a listening guide of selected songs.
Give Thanks
Introduction
WORDS AND IMAGES
Lammy Palmer and Emmanuel Palmer
Alerth Bedasse
Arthur Robinson (Bunny)
Cecil Campbell (Prince Buster)
Owen Gray
Jerome Haynes (Jah Jerry)
Evan Lloyd Richards (Richard Ace)
Ivanhoe Wilson and Members of the Zion Hill Congregation
George Dudley (Bunny)
Rafael Griffiths and Members of the Congregation of the African Reform Church of God
Lloyd Clayton (Bro. Job, Baba Job)
J. McLaughlin
Donald Manning
Herbert Armsby
Winston Grennan
Linford Brown (Hux)
Edgar Reid
David Powell (Lapi)
Neville Baker, Lucille Forbes, and Company
Vira Brown
Derrick Bell (Gus)
George Matthews (Kwabi)
Estavan Callaghan
Derrick Morgan
Headley Bennett (Deadly Headley)
Freedom Mento Band
Radcliffe Bryan (Dougie)
Kew Park Mento Band
Jackie Robinson
Owen Emmanuel (Count Owen)
Stanley Hunter (McBeth)
Kenneth Lara (Lord Laro)
Stanley Beckford (Stanley Turbyne)
Mount Peace Mento Band
Claudelle Clarke
Lloyd Robinson (Sarge)
Rev. Otis Wright
Derrick Harriott
George Fulwood (Fully)
Vincent Morgan
Winston Francis (Mr. Fix It)
Bertram McLean (Ranchie)
Alvin Patterson (Seeco)
Michael Henry (Ras Michael)
Noel Simms (Skully, Zoot Simms, Mr. Foundation)
Allena Robertson (Polly)
Eric MacDonald (Brother Joe)
Albert Hewitt (Brother Jack, Pa Jack)
Cedric Myton (Cedric Congos)
Glen Adams (Capo)
Bobby Aitken
Carlton Davis (Santa)
Roy Smith (Spar)
Clifton Jackson (Jackie Jackson)
Filberto Callender (Fil)
Larry Marshall
Earl Lowe (Little Roy)
Lee Perry (Scratch)
Joseph Hill
Leroy Wallace (Horsemouth)
Ansel Collins
Michael Richards (Mikey Boo)
Peter Austin
Johnny Moore (Dizzy Johnny)
Keith Anderson (Bob Andy)
Leroy Sibbles (Leroy Heptone)
Charles Cameron (Charley Organaire)
Leonard Dillon (The Ethiopian, Jack Sparrow)
Wilburn Cole (Stranger Cole)
Nearlin Taitt (Lynn Taitt)
Cecil "Sonny" Bradshaw
Cedric "Im" Brooks
Ronald Robinson (Nambo)
Eric Donaldson
Harris Seaton (B.B., Bibby)
Kenneth Farquharson (Ken Parker)
Dudley Sibley (Duds)
Maxwell Smith (Max Romeo)
Alva Lewis (Reggie)
Brent Dowe
Justin Hinds
Lloyd Parks
Samuel Scott
Joe Isaacs
Robert Shakespeare (Robbie)
Winston Riley
Robert Lyn
Lowell Dunbar (Sly)
Bobby Ellis
Ernest Ranglin
Gladstone Anderson
Tony Chin
Val Douglas (Dougie)
Michael Chung (Mikey, Mao)
Boris Gardiner
Larry McDonald
Joel Brown (Bunny, Noel)
Emmanuel Rodriguez (Rico)
Paul Douglas
Dwight Pinkney
Uzziah Thompson (Sticky)
Wycliffe Johnson and Cleveland Browne (Steely and Clevie)
Appendix A: Recommended Listening
Appendix B: Locations and Dates of Interviews and Field Recordings
Glossary
Further Reading
Index
KENNETH BILBY is an ethnomusicologist, writer, and lifelong student of Jamaican music. He is the former director of research at the Center for Black Research at Columbia College Chicago and currently a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution. Author of True-Born Maroons and coauthor of Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae, his collection of field recordings of Jamaican traditional music is one of the largest in the world.
"[Bilby] writes with a hard-won gravitas that is increasingly rare, and which announces him as a significant new (at least outside academia) voice on black music. The fastidious research recalls another excellent book springing from exhaustive academic research, Michael Veal's Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs In Jamaican Reggae."
~Derek Walmsley, WIRE
""[A] lovingly rendered new book Word Of Our Mouth takes a non-standard look at reggae's broader evolution, delivered through brief textual passages and evocative colour portraits, drawn from interviews conducted with a range of music practitioners from across the island, both familiar and unknown. And much of the material collected here is priceless.""
~David Katz, Riddim Magazine
"Bilby celebrates his roots in Jamaica in this magnificent book through beautiful photographs and interviews with musicians. Bilby unveils the backstory of Jamaican music, and his work will be cherished by all who love Jamaican music."
~William Ferris, author of Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues
"An essential work of Jamaican musical scholarship. The interviews are engrossing on multiple levels. Our understanding of the black musics of the New World would have fewer gaps in it if there were more of the kind of thorough oral history that Bilby does here. He proves himself to be not merely a good collector but a good listener.""
~John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
"Bilby doesn't just tell the story that's never been told—delivering an homage to the heroes who helped shape Jamaican music—he lets these heroes tell the story in their own words, writing their own chapter in history.""
~Baz Dreisinger, producer and writer of Black & Blue: Legends of the Hip-Hop Cop and Rhyme & Punishment
Related Books
