Post by nattydreadeditions on Jul 8, 2014 17:04:54 GMT
EDWARD SEAGA / BOB MARLEY / YABBY YOU / LEWIS HUTCHINSON (the 1st Serial Killer) / TREVOR 'Johnny Too Bad' WILSON
TACKY / MARCUS GARVEY / CLAUDIUS HENRY / SIR HENRY MORGAN / RYGHIN'
Beware! Jamaica is no fairy tale country. Lives down
there can be great, bad or ugly - this is naked life! But one
good thing about reading - when it hurts, you feel the pain.
1. EDWARD SEAGA, The Blind Man With A Pistol
Like a blind man, Eddie fired his gun at random – when he heard ouch!, he knew he had hit his target; and that justified the stray bullets. Guns and obeah was his political agenda. His dream? The community of Tivoli Gardens, the nightmare of everyone else; a garrison sheltering the most powerful Jamaican gang ever, Eddie’s home. In the 1970s, he did all he could to destabilize the government of Michael Manley, playing it fool but hardly catching the wise, and bringing the island on the brink of civil war. But in 1980, the enemy shouted ouch!, and he became Prime Minister.
2. RYGHIN', The Two-Gun Killer
On August 30, 1948, Ryghin’ was cornered by the police inside the Carib Hotel. Naked, he shot his way out, killing two. While on the run, he posed in front of a photographer, and the picture ended up on the front cover of The Gleaner. One blond kid from the high society followed his exploits, unaware that he would one day turn him into a legend through his movie The Harder They Come (1972) - with Jimmy Cliff playing his part. This is the true story of Vincent Ryghin’ Martin, the most notorious Public Enemy N°1 of Jamaica.
3. BOB MARLEY, The Skipper
Reggae music has never been a peace & love music, or Bob Marley a hippie singer. Peace, in a reggae song, meant that the youths shouldn’t fight the so-called tribal wars but live in peace; Love, meant that they should live in harmony, and not hate their brothers from across the street. Bob Marley’s message was deeply rooted in local politics; it spread all over the world but it remained the voice of the ghetto of Trench Town, his musical obsession. Growing up in Kingston 12 was no bed of roses and in the middle of chaos and madness Rastafari stands alone.
4. YABBY YOU, Born Strange, Born Free
Yabby You was born strange, but free; living in the street, he melted iron to earn a living. He felt very sick and the doctors made it clear: to melt iron again meant death. But Yabby You had a song to record. He melted iron again, and collapsed – but he survived, and had enough money by then. Needless to say that he didn’t enter the studio to sing a regular love song. Yabby You was the voice of the “ I ”, the everlasting essence of all living thing, the God within. His music was not meant for entertainment, it was his missal.
AND ALSO: TREVOR WILSON, the rude boy who inspired the hit song Johnny-Too-Bad and who ended up like all the Johnnies-Too-Bad in the world; LEWIS HUTCHINSON, the first serial killer of Jamaica who murdered dozens of people in the 18th century; MARCUS GARVEY, honored in his own land as the true prophet of Rasta; CLAUDIUS HENRY, an apocalyptic soul tried and condemned for high treason, who became the advisor of Michael Manley; HENRY MORGAN, the most notorious buccaneers of all times, who terrorized the New World in the late 17th century; TACKY, who led the terrible slave rebellion of 1760, that costs the lives of many white planters.
- Hard Copies (10% OFF) and E-Boooks available -
www.jamaican-greats.com
