Growing up and falling in love with reggae in the eighties,
I couldn’t help the faint feeling that I’d missed out on the golden era. Of
course I loved the likes of Dennis and Gregory who were still making great
music, but the heyday of some of these giants was behind them. The temptation
was to spend all my time and money digging out the classics to educate myself
in the foundations of reggae. But then again I knew there was a huge amount of
amazing fresh music all around me, but it somehow lacked an individual
personality to get a hold on. Then I gradually became aware of Jamaica’s Stevie
Wonder, Frankie ‘Dancehall’ Paul, and I came to appreciate one of the true
superstars of the eighties. Even then it took me a while to get him. Listening
to Tony Williams run down the reggae charts, there would often be three or four
FP singles in the top 20 at any one time. Which one to buy with my pocket
money? Maybe I should get an album, but wait, he’s got three albums out this
year, all with two or three standout tracks. And ‘Alesha’ is on the same riddim
as Half Pint’s ‘Greetings’, which one do I buy? Do I need to buy Sarah, when
it’s been at number one in the reggae charts for 13 weeks and on radio all the
time? Now I realise how lucky we were, spoilt for choice and I should have got
a Saturday job to fund my trips to Dub Vendor. Back then with my adolescent
preoccupation with originality, I would have a slight feeling of disappointment
when I discovered some of his songs were covers and all the others were written
by this P. Blake guy! I eventually cottoned on this was the real name of the
man himself, and found out he was a hugely talented multi-instrumentalist and
songwriter, penning stone cold classics like ‘Worries In The Dance’, ‘Shub In’
and ‘I Know The Score’. Even his cover versions were often unrecognisable from
the originals, as he added so much of himself and I came to look forward to his
take on a soul hit, like ‘Casanova’. His peerless selection of tunes came from
a unexpected variety of sources, some of them untraceable to me in the
pre-internet days, (just listened to the original of ‘So Soon We Change’ for
the first time and I definitely still prefer Frankie’s version), and was a
reflection of his wide knowledge of music and unstoppable love of singing, and
an essential ingredient to his prolific role in the reggae industry of the time.
He had an amazing range, was well known for love songs, which were perfect for
a teenager in love like me, featuring on every mixtape I ever gave to a girl.
But he also had a gift for social comment that conjured up the trials and
tribulations of everyday life in Kingston in ‘Tidal Wave’ and ‘Fire De A Mus
Mus Tail’, as well as a spiritual side with songs like ‘Songs of Freedom’ and ‘Never
Give Up’. Seeing him in concert he was like a human jukebox, and in interviews,
jingles and spoken intros to records we got to know his range of mimicry and
impressions, zooming around like a radio dial. It was impossible to keep up
with him, as he continued making records into the nineties, noughties and
2010s, even as his health began to deteriorate. Even now, I listen to the
tribute shows on mixcloud
and 1xtra I discover classics that are brand new to me, while nearly all the others
are cherished favourites from my collection, thanks to Daddy Ernie and David
Rodigan for introducing me to them back in the day. We’ll miss him, but Frankie
left us with a musical legacy music that will never run dry. Rest in Peace. One
love.
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