'Timeless music' compared with later era

Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer


Comedian Oliver Samuels greets Actress Rosie Murray with a big kiss.

The title of Saturday night's concert at the Portmore Pines rooftop, St Catherine, was dubbed 'Timeless Music', with rocksteady being the focus of the first leg of International Comedy Fest 2K8.

Alton Ellis, in a rousing performance before a very small, audience, provided a lot of that 'timeless music' with Muriel, Let Him Try and Dancecrasher for dancing and sing-along delight.

Fab Five weighed in with their own lasting hits, including Shaving Cream, Asking for Love and Jamaican Woman, and the steelpan, keyboard and drum Steel and Ivory played the immortal Rockfort Rock, with Dance Xpressionz fusing dance and drama, as they dropped rocksteady moves and moved up to dancehall to Broader Than Broadway.

However, on a night hosted by Rosie Murray where the turnout was small but enthusiasm very strong, the 'timeless music' was compared to what is dominant on the airwaves today.

Fab Five's bass player, making his comments in between songs, made some of those comparisons, after the band played their 1970s hit Shaving Cream in their opening segment, during which a late light set-up finally illuminated the stage.

Three stints

"In those bad old days of the '70s, this song sold 80,000 copies in Jamaica alone. Now you can't even sell 800 copies of anything," he said. It was the first of three stints for Fab Five, the band proving music for Alton Ellis the last time around.

After Dance Xpressionz and Steel and Ivory, they were back up again. Before playing Everything I Own, Campbell said sarcastically, "In those days we were stupid. We used to play the song to the end. We were so crazy! We actually held the lady and danced! And we listened to the song! Stupid!"

The band played Celebration and many sang along with Oh what a night, after which Campbell remarked, "In those days, we got $150 a night", when they got paid, that is. He added that they had to sing for the ladies to get the girls, but nowadays, the youth say 'people dead' and get girls. "Very strange," he remarked.

After Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long took the house down, Campbell told some ladies present that in those days, people were romantic but they were too young to have experienced that and grew up in the "coarse time".

And before Fab Five closed with Carry Go Bring Come and Wings of a Dove, he said, "Nowadays, you can be out of key, off-key, tone deaf and you make the money. You have some good singers in Jamaica a dead fi hungry. The radio stations are not giving them a chance."

Very serious


Shelly Callum from Dance Xpressionz thrills the audience with moves to rocksteady music while at the International Comedy Festival

Owen Blakka Ellis, as he tends to be, was seriously funny, his comments on issues causing laughter, but the opinions and issues were very serious, despite the humour. He said that once performers had names, Ken Boothe, Leroy Sibbles, Dennis Brown. Nowadays, they have descriptions, Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Elephant Man.

He went on to speak about the irony of women shaving their eyebrows, then drawing them back with eyeliner, but was soon back on music matters. He said that some performers claim they love women, yet they walk with an entourage of men. "They call it posse, they call it crew. I call it men dating men," Ellis said to hoots of laughter.

In addition, many men nowadays express love in aggressive terms, that "my love for you dark and ignorant! It don't scare the women. They love it. They have a dance named daggering". And he went on to describe it as including "some sharp pelvic thrusts", among other things, to amusement all around.


Alton Ellis stands in between his two nephews, Owen 'Blacka' Ellis (left) and Aston, at the International Comedy Festival, on the roof of the Portmore Plaza, on Saturday, June 28. - Peta-Gaye Clachar photos