NEWS & EVENTS

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Listen back to my chat with the great Barry Biggs, primarily known for his UK chart hits from 1976 through to 1981. After starting out at JBC as an engineer and cameraman, Barry became the lead singer with Byron Lee’s Dragonaires and Inner Circle and has notched up some notable engineering and production credits that include Bob Marley and a young Barrington Levy among others.

Tracklist: 

Barry Biggs – Wide Awake in a Dream

Barry Biggs – Stone in Love 

Barry Biggs – Sideshow

Barry Biggs – And I Love Her

Barry Biggs – I’m in the Mood

Barry Biggs – You’re Welcome

Black Enterprise reports that the famous 1976 painting by ex-NFL player Ernie Barnes, The Sugar Shack, known to fans of the popular sitcom Good Times during its opening credits, was sold in a New York auction on Thursday for a massive $15.3 million.

The pop-culture piece also starred as  Marvin Gaye's cover art to his 1976 album I Want You. Per Christie’s auction house, the auction set a record for Barnes’ collection at 27 times higher than his prior works, and 76 times higher than the original estimate of $200,000. The iconic image was won by Houston-based energy trader Bill Perkins, 53, after over 10 minutes of bidding and 22 contending bidders.

Join the celebrated Jamaican born sculptor Fowokan George Kelly, who will be in conversation with Janet Browne, the V&A Academy’s Senior Producer for Audience Development on 17 June 2022. 

There will be also a poetry performance followed by a screening of vignettes from Nicolette Burford’s documentary on Fowokan. Fowokan’s biographer, Margaret Andrews, and author of the book Becoming Fowokan: The Life and Works of Fowokan George Kelly will share her experience of writing and self-publishing the book on this ‘extraordinary and universally respected artist of the African Diaspora.’ Copies of the book will be available for card payments only.  

This event is in collaboration with the Jamaican High Commission (UK) and is one of many activities being held to celebrate Jamaica’s Diamond Jubilee, “Jamaica60” programme, to acknowledge the contributions Jamaicans have made in shaping the history and culture of Britain. 

Listen back to my interview with selector, collector and DJ, Toby Broom (aka Mr Swing Easy). Toby relates how his love for reggae, jazz, and soul developed and led to him being inducted into Birmingham-based sound GB Movements and ultimately forming Swing Easy Hi Power in London. Toby also talks about publishing his book, pirate radio and founding Camberwell Connection with Dubplate Pearl. Tune in.

Tracklist:

Sonny Clark Quintet – Melody for C

James Brown – Get on the Good Foot

Bobby Womack – How Could You Break My Heart

Lennie Hibbert – Montego Rock

Gregory Isaacs – Make my Confession

Sugar Minott – Hang on Natty

Revisit my session with classic reggae and R&B singer/songwriter J.C. Lodge. J.C. discusses linking up with Errol Thompson and Joe Gibbs, aka The Mighty Two, the background to ‘Someone Loves You Honey’ and how ‘Telephone Love’ was developed with the great Gussie Clarke. In addition to this, J.C. managed to develop a children’s TV show that was broadcast on TVJ in Jamaica and has had artwork showcased in Kingston galleries. It’s a riveting journey. Check out J.C.’s latest single ‘Over’, which is doing pretty well. Tune in!

Tracklist: 

J.C. Lodge – Home Is Where The Hurt Is

J.C. Lodge – Comfort Zone

J.C. Lodge – Organic

J.C. Lodge – Unbroken

J.C. Lodge – Reggaewoman

J.C. Lodge – Over

Music Business World reports on negotiations going on in the United States over certain types of mechanical royalty rates paid to songwriters for sales of physical music, as well as downloads.

The groups representing songwriters, music publishers and record labels have now reached an agreement to settle that rate negotiation.

The important background information to this story is that since 2006, the mechanical rate paid to publishers/songwriters for music purchased on a physical disc (or a download) has been set at 9.1 cents per track.

Today’s settlement proposes a 32% increase to that current royalty rate, to 12 cents per track.

In the latest episode of the Behind The Cover video series, famed art director and designer Neville Garrick shares the surprising backstory behind the artwork for Bob Marley’s 1979 album Survival.

The Jamaican-born and Los Angeles-based artist is the creative mind behind all of Marley’s album sleeves, as well as designing the performer’s stage show backdrops of Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie.

Highly respected in both fields, he’s worked with reggae greats Burning Spear and Steel Pulse among others, and he designed the backdrops for the Reggae Sunsplash festival for much of the 1980s.

“I call him [Marley] a fisherman because Kaya was the bait. It was love songs so that we would get airplay on R&B stations and then he came with the heavyweight, Survival,” says Garrick in the clip.

Interesting article in The Standard's Joanna Taylor, who meets up withn one of the brothers running London’s trailblazing vinyl shop, Peckings Records.

On 9 March another unassuming building in west London received a prestigious Nubian Jak Community Trust blue plaque. The reason? 142 Askew Road was the spot where the late George ‘Peckings’ Price decided to set up shop in 1974. Now, unless you’re a music buff, west London native, or a vinyl collector, you may not have heard of Price by name, but you will have heard of the distinctive music that he introduced to the UK and the rest of Europe: reggae, rock steady and American rhythm and blues.

Today the charming, lively shop sits a few doors down at number 81, and 48 years on, superstars from Bob Marley to The Who and The Sex Pistols have put money in the till, and two of Price’s sons, Chris and Duke, continue to sell vinyl while managing the eponymous label featuring artists including Gappa Ranks and Macka.

Review of Rita Marley exhibition by David Katz in World a Reggae.

56 Hope Road holds a special place in reggae history. When Bob Marley purchased the sprawling 19th Century property from Chris Blackwell, it allowed him to move uptown, crossing many symbolic and actual boundary lines in an epic journey that has made a lasting impact on the popular culture of Jamaica and the world at large.

This is the place where he would meet with members of the international press, play football with ‘enforcers’ from both sides of the political divide and cavort with various love interests; it was also the place where albums like Survival were crafted, as well as the site of an attempted assassination in 1976 which saw a bullet lodged in his arm and another grace the skull of Rita Marley, his confidant, backing vocalist, and long-suffering wife.

Listen back to my chat with Club DJ, Radio broadcaster and producer, Keith Lawrence. Keith has worked at some iconic record shops including Red Records, Our Price, Wild Pitch, Unity and Dub Vendor and DJ’d at Phase One (Switch FM), Powerjam, Bassline FM, Colourful and Mi-Soul. Keith also runs his record label Muzik-Ed Records, has some great production credits and plays out with Stu Tolhurst as Dub Organiser. Big up Keith.

Tracklist:

The Tennors – Ride Your Donkey 

King Tubby/The Aggrovators – This is The Hardest Version

Man Parrish – Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)

Ohio Players – Heaven Must Be Like This

Organized Konfusion – Open Your Eyes

James Brown – In The Middle

A pioneering music label, which has nurtured global appreciation for reggae music, has been commemorated with a blue plaque in west London.

The prestigious sign was unveiled recently outside Peckings Records, in Shepherds Bush, a hub for the promotion of reggae music and its artistes for nearly 50 years.

The name George ‘Peckings’ Price, the founder of the record label, is inscribed on the plaque. The entrepreneur from Kingston, Jamaica came to London in 1960 and, before long, distributed ska and reggae music to respected sound systems, including Coxsone, Jah Shaka and Hawkeye.

During a career spanning nearly 60 years, Price not only engendered a love of Jamaican music in London, but globally, including countries such as Mexico and Japan.

The death of Donald “Tabby Diamond” Shaw aged 67 in a drive-by-shooting brings a terribly tragic end to one of reggae’s most enduring and revered harmony trios. No word has yet emerged about who was behind the attack that killed Shaw and another man on the night of 29 March on McKinley Crescent, Waterhouse, an area of Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, long riven by factional violence.

David Katz pays tribute to the great Tabby Diamond in The Guardian.