Publication date : Friday, July 19th 2013 - 10 510 views
The Original Delroy Melody
In the world of reggae, you always come across forgotten artists. For most fans of Jamaican music, the name Delroy Melody means nothing. Seasoned connoisseurs and lovers of 70s and 80s roots probably have the artist’s rare singles in their record boxes, such as the terrifying Ease Up The Pressure, or his album "Dread Must Be Fed", released on a mysterious Canadian label, Big Mac Soul Power. For the first time, Delroy Melody talks to a European outlet about a musical journey full of pitfalls and great encounters…
Like all teenagers his age, Delroy Melody (real name Lassive Jones) sings in his school choir. The ‘Melrose Primary School’ teaches many young people, among them a certain Jacob Miller. Delroy remembers: "We went to Melrose School, which was on Little Kew Road. Jacob Miller lived on Russo Road, I was on Tarrant Drive. Jacob was a year younger and I was 14." Jacob and Delroy are approached in the choir benches by Lawrence Choir and by Norris Weir, then lead singer of The Jamaicans. Norris Weir suggests that Jacob and Delroy form a group with Lawrence, as they sound good on harmonies. What is more, Lawrence already knows how to play the guitar... The group gets going and calls itself the Young Lads, with The Jamaicans as its model.
Christened by Bunny Lee
After school, they rehearse together in the street, and it is Junior Byles, with his first group The Versatiles, who puts the idea to the Young Lads that they are good enough to record. In 1968, Bunny Lee holds his auditions at Greenwich Farm. One Saturday, they all go together to the place where the chance to record is decided in less than a minute. When the Young Lads arrive, it is Slim Smith who is running the auditions. After a few harmonies, the late member of The Techniques and The Uniques loves what he hears and sends them straight to Bunny Lee.
The Young Lads present themselves to Bunny Lee, but he comes up with another name for the group: "Bwoy, you still go to school, you're schoolboys, you'll be the School Boys," he tells them. "Bunny Lee thought there were too many groups with ‘Lads’ in the name, and that for a group of young schoolboys, it sounded good." (There were several groups called School Boys between 1963 and 1970. The bible Roots Knotty Roots credits some fifteen titles to probably three or four different line-ups using this stage name, editor's note).
"'Look mama, it's a yellow record!"
Some time later, the School Boys go to the Treasure Isle studio, run by the formidable Duke Reid and rented by Bunny Lee for his sessions. The School Boys have two songs ready, the band is in the studio and plays the riddims. The session starts with Jacob Miller on lead vocals and Delroy and Lawrence on harmonies. The two tracks recorded are Guilty Of Love and Oh Tell Me. Bunny Lee goes straight to pressing the two tracks on yellow vinyl, an uncommon thing at the time: "Duke Reid would put out coloured pressings from time to time. Bunny Lee knew it was a good recipe for getting a record known when the singer or the group was unknown, and it always impressed people in the dance. When I got home, I shouted to my mother: 'Look mama, it's a yellow record!'"
You can hear the track Oh Tell Me and see that famous yellow record on the YouTube channel of Thegreatwugawuga:
A word to collectors: Delroy Melody remembers that Bunny Lee also pressed those two tracks on green vinyl, and later gave the English label PAMA the chance to release the 45rpm single as well.
You can also listen to the second track, Guilty Of Love:
The School Boys recorded no other tracks for Bunny Lee, but Delroy Melody remembers that the group recorded two or three tracks for Coxsone, which were never released. The School Boys carried on singing in hotels and clubs in Jamaica with bands such as Tommy McCook & the Supersonics, Lynn Taitt & The Jets and the Sonny Bradshaw Orchestra, but shortly afterwards the group split up. Jacob Miller goes to Coxsone and takes up Guilty Of Love, turning it into Love Is A Message, the world-famous version that would come out in 1972 on one of Coxsone's sub-labels, Money Disc.
Melody & Marcus
For his part, Delroy Melody also records his first solo track, Tears, for the Abeng label. In 1978, he makes an important encounter with Winston Martin of the Emperor Marcus sound system, which at the time played Papine, Dung Di Hole, Tavern, Hope, Flat & Kentyre. "He had artists like Brigadier Jerry (before he joined Jah Love Muzik), Danny Dread and plenty of others." Marcus wanted to get into production, and it was Sylvan Morris, renowned as one of the island's best engineers (Treasure Isle, Studio One, Harry J Studio, Dynamic Sounds…), who helped him take his first steps. Marcus enlists Delroy Melody for a session. They record Miss Brown, which comes out as a single on his own Marcus label. "The song got quite a lot of support," Delroy remembers. One day at home he gets a call from Alfanso Walker, the host of "Where It's At", a TV show on J.B.C (Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation), the only TV channel. He likes Miss Brown and the channel wants a live performance from Delroy. This springboard brings him several offers and tours across the island in clubs such as the Boehema, Tropics and Tit-For-Tat. "In those places the atmosphere was really huge back then."
Dread Must Be Fed
Marcus quickly wants an album from Delroy. With Sylvan Morris, they assemble the finest line-up of musicians available at the time to build the riddims. Flabba Holt reinforces Robbie Shakespeare on a few basslines, and Style Scott and Sly Dunbar handle the drums and Syndrums. Many instruments rarely heard nowadays dress the riddims, notably thanks to Bubbler on clavinet and Bongo Herman & Sticky on percussion. The horns are played by the dangerous trio of David Madden, Dean Fraser and Nambo Robinson, lead guitar by Willie Lindo, rhythm guitar by Bingy Bunny, organ by Winston Wright, and piano by Bubbler and Gladstone Anderson. There are also The Tamlins and Wellesley Braham on backing vocals, and everyone works at Harry J studio. With such a team, the result is a timeless roots album with magnificent tracks such as Oh Jah. It was Sly Dunbar who composed the song Dread Must Be Fed a few years earlier for Delroy Melody, and it would give the album its name.
Marcus wants his album to have an outernational reach, as the Rastas say, that is, outside Jamaica, but he is a novice in the distribution business. He turns to Leslie Guy, a member of Bunny Wailer's family, who was reputed to have a good knowledge of the music industry at the time.
In search of Big Mac Soul Power
Marcus entrusts her with the recordings of "Dread Must Be Fed" as well as tracks by Brigadier Jerry that he had produced. He sends her to Canada, and more precisely to Toronto, Ontario, to find a deal. Leslie meets Humphrey McDonald & Teddy Davis of the Big Mac Soul Power label. She leaves the album with them, but on her return to Jamaica she says she has concluded no deal. Meanwhile, Marcus is arrested in England over a marijuana business and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Scotland Yard officers even landed in Jamaica to seize a good part of his assets.
Winston ‘Marcus’ Martin will be released after 7 years of captivity. On his return to Jamaica around 1988, he discovers that his album "Dread Must Be Fed" has been pressed by the Big Mac Soul Power label in Canada and that copies are selling all over the world. Marcus therefore sends Leslie Guy to Canada to try to recover royalties, but when she arrives at the address given on the album (68 Morecambe Gate Plaza), there is no Big Mac Soul Power label… She is told that the label has moved to New York, but her searches in the Big Apple lead nowhere. On her return to Jamaica, she breaks the news to Marcus. Disgusted, he wants to hear no more about this album and decides to stop music altogether. The story of this album resurfaces more than thirty years later, when a Canadian digger bought the remaining stock of "Dread Must be Fed" LPs from the owner of the Big Mac Soul Power label. Humphrey McDonald or Teddy Davis still had about 75 copies of the album. Big Mac Soul Power is still based in Canada but declined to respond to our requests.
"Ease Up The Pressure"
In 1980, Delroy Melody meets Ruddy Williams and records one of his finest tracks, the profound Ease Up The Pressure, on a heavy riddim cooked up by the Studio One Band. Delroy denounces: "Ease up the pressure, ease up the pressure / Rome is for the romance, Rome is not for African / We want to be free from all the misery" ("Ease up the pressure, ease up the pressure / Rome is for romance, not for Africans / We want to be free from all this misery").
Delroy records the tracks School Girl, Possie Are You Ready and Beat Down The Fence for other producers. Joe Gibbs calls him to do a discomix version with Trinity, Natty Dread She Want. Harry J notices him and brings him into the studio to record tracks such as Buss Shot, Live & Direct and My Lover. These tracks sold rather well, and Harry J offers Delroy Melody an eight-year exclusive contract: "I was super happy because at that time Harry J was well established and his studio was one of the best on the island." But after barely a year, Harry J no longer has him record anything, and Delroy Melody finds himself in a dead end: "So I was completely stuck in the music business, because I couldn't record for other producers. So I joined the Sun Force Band in St Elizabeth in 1987 and we played all the classics of Jamaican music in many hotels on the island."
"I'm from a humble beginning"
After a long break, Delroy Melody takes his artistic career back in hand, and above all its digital side, in 2010, when he sees that his album is all over the internet. With the help of his wife Mrs C. Ford-Jones and his stepson Spicylus, they create Level Head Production to distribute "Dread Must Be Fed" digitally. Encouraged by his wife, Delroy increasingly joins his friend Correl "Red Cap" Hewitt (guitarist for Byron Lee and UB40) in the studio; Hewitt is also the father of the young sensation Natel, who recently accompanied Mr Vegas on his European shows. Delroy gives his wife a cover of Dennis Brown's Silhouettes and, besides a few crossover productions, he sings Bad Mind People and Humble Beginning acoustically. More than 40 years after first singing behind a microphone, Delroy Melody sings with a smile and a guitar in hand "I am from a humble beginning…" Modesty, by Delroy Melody.
Humble Beginning (sample):
"I want to thank Sylvan Morris, who really helped me in my singing career, and I want to big up Corell Hewitt, who is working on new riddims for me right now. Big up also to Level Head Production, my wife Mrs C. Ford-Jones, Spicylus my stepson, Claudine Lloyd and my road team Chris Lyslie, Mikey Jones and Joe."
The album "Delroy Melody Collection", which brings together old and new tracks, is available on iTunes.
Report written by Jérôme Bast Remerciements : Joe Safe
Non sérieusement, maintenant n'importe qui ouvre un site soi-disant Reggae et s'auto-proclame critique ou journaliste Reggae sans un reel background derriere eux. Rome est pour les romances, cela serait peut-être plus juste de dire que Rome est pour les Romains et pas pour les Africains (Rome is for the Romans). Et puis detailler la pochette (sans se donner la peine de traduire, c'est pourtant reggae.FR), organ se dit orgue dans un article en Français, rhythm guitar se dit guitare rhytmique, etc...
A part ca l'article est interessant, j'espere juste que ce n'est pas la meme personne qui a fait l'interview, parce que s'il traduit Romans par romances, l'article devient hasardeux... Je ne suis pas pointilleux sur les erreurs de traduction, mais Rome et les Romains sont omnipresent dans le message Rasta, alors si quelqu'un ne comprend meme pas ca... ou va t'on... surement sur un site de connaisseurs. Tout ceci est dit avec respect, mais le respect est a double sens, écrivez des articles en respectant les lecteurs
bel article ! y'a qu'ici qu'on lit ça. big up à la team reggae france !!
Article passionnant ! Il reste encore beaucoup d’artistes comme lui qui attendent justice. Tribulations...
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