In December I should be working on a music project in Brighton which I shall document on these pages but for now I thought I would celebrate lost greatness. Brighton is a MOD heartland and having rediscovered my WELLER signed program this week I also met by chance someone who attended the final JAM gig in Glasgow in 1982. A rare occurrence given the fact that though it was a large/medium venue, its no stadium so the chances of meeting an attendee of such a gig are remote. The individual in question wouldnt care if WELLER died such was his pain still felt over the JAM split. He had little time for anything PW has done since. Surely no performer can have been so loved and hated by some of his fan base? Its similar to the way some STRANGLERS fans turned on HUGH CORNWELL for leaving the band. Certainly his former bandmates came back from the grave in a musical sense…Literally in one members case. Like STRANGLER musical ghosts from the past come to the present to delight, fright and entertain. I recommend HUGH’s podcast show, which the very much alive CORNWELL writes and presents http://mrdemillefm.com/program/come-again/.
My colleague who saw the JAM took great glee from the STYLE COUNCIL’S later humiliation, which i found rather sad given “YOUR THE BEST THING” is one of the greatest songs ever. That JAM musical dramatic finale was rather like BOWIE’s ZIGGY STARDUST ending, and was a death of sorts in musical terms…The fellow i met who saw the death of one of the greatest bands ever (In many ways the JAM are the UK’s most popular band since the BEATLES) certainly felt no loyalty to Paul. Weller would laugh. Rick and Paul are about as unlikely to unite as Hugh and JJ.. Sadly in later years a bitter brotherly feud poisoned the artistic chalice that was UB40. (The BEAT had a similar fate. DAVE WAKELING still plays small bars in California where i have narrowly missed him live many times sadly).
But so many great artists have physically died recently that it moves me to put together a few lines. Its a comparable time to when we lost BOWIE, PRINCE and LEMMY in close succession. GERRY MARSDEN of GERRY AND THE PACEMAKERS left us recently, who was behind the haunting ballad about his home FERRY CROSS THE MERSEY (to me up there with any early or even mid period BEATLES). CHARLIE WATTS was a inevitable sad passing and having known a few people who have met the STONES he always was the more modest member. His interview post the AlLTAMONT tragedy is an interesting study and one wonders how that tragic experience might have hindered some of the STONES creativity later on.
Last year was bad enough losing The STRANGLERS, DAVE GREENFIELD, and now ASTRO from UB40 along with fellow member songwriter and Saxophonist BRIAN TRAVERS and music legends like AlLAN HAWKSHAW so it brings me to reflect on the wonderful SING OUR OWN SONG video from UB40 within which we see a wonderful creative world of musical and racial harmony. A snapshot in time…call me a romantic but watching all these years later, the bubble of creativity and harmony is infectious, and needed in today’s world. The intimate gig seems a utopia in microcosm, and certainly seems very moving with todays BLM focus and perspective. “We will fight for the right to be free
We will build our own society”…
But on a lighter note, and with regard to GREENFIELD -CLINT BOON of INSPIRAL CARPETS (who I met in 94 at Glasto briefly) might be the new Stranglers Keys man!
This last week has made me mourn a lost fave band who were giants of popular music, influential on the likes of SUBLIME yet barely ever credited. When i booked gigs in the 90’s for Bristolian Trip Hop acts i even felt a connection. I always personally felt the BEAT were underrated whereas UB40 were tremendously commercially successful but to compare is not fair on either act. Ironic that in later years perhaps the business side destroyed that unity so conveyed in that video. UB40 were for many years in sales comparable to U2 and Abba in various parts of the world though unlike Marley, who perhaps gets too much credit for the genre, UB40 perhaps dont, rather like the underrated late, ROBERT PALMER. I would recommend the edgy early material over later more laid back work, but that later work was always perfect in its own way but missing that early fire, like so many bands do.
What i love about the SING OUR OWN SONG video (under rated track) is how now such a scene of different races gathered might be more contrived (think “United Colors” Ad campaign of the day) or choreographed, but no this was a real gig and a real setting. Nothing fake. Astro always loved “DONT BREAK MY HEART” as his fave UB40 song. The intro is highly unique with what sounds like a Didgeridoo and the way it fades in and out is breathtakingly beautiful and evocative. As a kid myself growing up in West Indian dominated Notting Hill, the music seemed a natural progression as I would walk past the likes of Grenfell tower with fantastic Reggae systems blaring out…probably walking past where the CLASH lived every day on the way home from a difficult schooling that music offered an escape from. Then id turn on a BBC show for kids like “You and Me” and again the unification of races and across musical genres as an example set by UB40 just seemed normal natural and a positive thing to put it lightly. Despite their uniqueness two bands to me seem slightly similar. THE BEAT who produced the incredible “I JUST CANT STOP IT” album and EDDY GRANT’S band the EQUALS in the 60’s who UB40 covered with the amazing song (BABY COME BACK). Hell! They even had music in one of my fave comedy horror movies of the 1970’s…”THE MONSTER CLUB”, featuring king of horror VINCENT PRICE no less!
Their earnest deliveries on early songs and multicultural members was not forced or false as an image. They were a real music band of friends. Even small things like that made an impression on a young mind much more than political correctness ever could, having experienced racism myself in a multicultural area. However the power of the music meant race didnt ever really enter ones mind… as I watched them in action. Political songs like “TYLER” and “ONE IN TEN” and KING (about the great leader) I included in my thesis on political pop that I did whilst at Bournemouth for my Art history Tutor (published author Gijs Van Hensbergen – he has featured on BBC).
“I am the one in ten
A number on a list
I am the one in ten
Even though I don’t exist, Nobody Knows me
Even though I’m always there
A statistic, a reminder
Of a world that doesn’t care
Who are these unfortunates? Victims of society?
“I’m the beggar on the corner”, ‘”Im the child that never learns to read”, “I’m the murderer and the victim”, “The license with the gun”, “‘m a sad and bruised old lady, “‘m a middle aged businessman With chronic heart disease”, “I’m another teenage suicide, I’m a starving third world mother”,”A refugee without a home”,”I’m a house wife hooked on Valium, I’m a Pensioner alone, I’m a cancer ridden specter covering the earth”, I’m another hungry baby, I’m an accident of birth”
What a disturbing list and with COVID and a few others to add since but essentially this grim list has not changed much in 40 years. The ever present spinning coin gambling (with people lives?). sound affect is perhaps a reference to greed but this powerful piece of work shall never lose its impact as to what one might call a “protest song”, even if thats a much maligned term these days.
R.I.P BRIAN TRAVERS and ASTRO. Those unmistakable Sax solos and leading melodies and ASTRO with his wonderful dreads. They were in no way whatsoever insincere at first (even if later on the vision might have got blurred or perhaps they became more popular in a lovers rock crooner reggae act style), from day one streamlined seasoned musicians. The early music was seared in cutting biting lyrics on songs like “FOOD FOR THOUGHT” and perhaps later they became a bit of a covers gravy train but that would be harsh. They usually (particularly with “I GOT YOU BABE”) took the song in a different direction (though they couldnt improve on the EQUALS). At best they were the BEATLES of Reggae, (I mean by that cliche, that they had a huge cross genre popular appeal) even if from Birmingham and not KINGSTON TOWN, which they covered during those more commercial eras for the group. A band in every sense, though sadly a bit oddly splintered via later life bitter brotherly squabbles, their chart success is comparable to any of the huge rock bands of the era. Below is the rousing call for positive revolution and is followed by EARTH DIES SCREAMING yet another timeless haunting piece of moody intricate beauty. From rousing delightful happy tunes that were never cheesy (though they sometimes could come close. Though it depended on the era for the band/line up) through to moody strange quirky cutting pieces of social commentary that not only transcend the genre and era but still make one wonder about global injustice and the elite. TYLER, FOOD FOR THOUGHT, KING,EARTH DIES SCREAMING, ONE IN TEN are songs that spring to mind as a blend of BOB MARLEY/JiIMMY CLIFF inspired culture and music blended with something more akin to the POLICE or the kind of songs being written by DYLAN, LENNON or a JAM era WELLER or THE CLASH for that matter but UB40 always had a more authentic feel of having actually “Lived it”, in terms of lyrics particularly on “SIGNING OFF” in itself a clever satire/lampooning of the British Benefits system and a reflection of the unemployment experienced earlier by the band. They never touched on KINKS territory, like MADNESS did. Also on early albums particularly they sounded authentic in a strange new Jazzy Reggae way being very brass and bass led, they even became the basis of a DRUM AND BASS classic arrangement of ONE IN TEN by 808 STATE years later. They landed on our musical planet via Birmingham rather than Barbados but with a cutting edge and an interesting diverse bunch of characters straight out of a Kingston Ghetto with a pinch of British Urban working class, and with all the powerful heartfelt realism and soul searching lyrics and soul filled vocals, classic British Pop cross genre arrangements, delivered eloquently and romantically from the heart. Ali Campbell being quite a crooner but also an edgy performer on earlier work. Passionate and poetic with fat slices of realism turned to some of the most infectious music ever recorded. They were authentic in a way the CLASH or POLICE could only hint at, even if they were also great bands too, they were not cut of quite the same hard living working class cloth, to my ears….I might be wrong…. Production wise I adore early recordings by them with LEE SCRATCH PERRY style dub versions of which there are many.
Hawkshaw is a very different musical loss. He worked with the SHADOWS and BOWIE but is not a household name. A great musician of many genres and styles and working in TV, film and music, on soundtracks, he was a unique cult figure behind tunes we know but had been to most, a mystery. I would have expected to have mentioned MONSTER CLUB in this article, in connection with him but no. But like UB40 he did theme tunes -many more of them, from BBC Comedy with DAVE ALLEN at Large to GRANGE HILLl but his PROG rock credentials are less well known and didnt seem to be included in obituaries. He composed the strange JARRE style theme to the fantastic “ARTHUR C CLARKE’S MYSTERIOUS WORLD” which enthralled my childhood mind with its extraordinary supernatural accounts, which has since vanished from our screens, along with many’s imaginations…lost to IIphones. Of course recent UFO disclosures might up the YouTube viewing figures.
Certainly for those of a certain age the music of the BBC TV show GRANGE HILL can melt into memories of UB40…THE STRANGLERS….THE JAM…ULTRAVOX…BIG COUNTRY…THE POLICE…XTC…It was a special era. Though other than the era theres little to connect these respective genius’s. Though YOU AND ME (with UB40 theme) and G.Hl with its slight Reggae bass rubbed shoulders together nicely in the TV schedules.
AGAIN – HAS THERE EVER BEEN MORE REALISTIC SET OF HARSH REALITIES PRESENTED AND REFLECTED IN POETIC LYRICS, IN SUCH A COMPLEX MULTI LAYERED SENSE? EASTERN MUSICAL PATTERNS BLEND WITH A JAZZY SAX AND A DUB REGGAE DEEP BASS…LYRICAL POERY THAT COVERED RELIGION, WORLD POVERTY, SOCIAL ORDER AND INJUSTICE, POLITICAL CORRUPTION, AND ALL COVERED IN A TOP 10 SMASH…EAT YOUR HEART OUT POLITICAL POP PICKERS!
Ben Manning's Music + Arts 