Busty?

[skanick]

Bunny & Skitter or sometimes Bonny & Skitter are no doubt George Dudley & Vernon Allen. See writer credits on these 2 singles.




Vernon Allen had 3 solo released vocal sides that I know about, the 2 for Prince Buster mentioned and a 3rd for Theo Beckford called Mr Kruschev in 63.

Simms & Robinson recorded as Simms & Robinson in the late 50s early 60s and I think on the live shows as Bunny & Scully.

Will listen out for this supposed Bunny&Skully tune credited to Busty&Cool. To my knowledge all the Busty&Cool tunes were Bunny&Skitter.

Rasta tune Another Moses For Dodd were sang by the Skully Led Mellow Cats, not sure without inquiring if Robinson was involved.
The vocals on the early Harry Moodie rasta blues were Winston & Roy, a duo I am sorry to say have no info on, so if anyone knows anything??

Binghi Business
http://ska_nick.podomatic.com/entry/2009-09-29T15_33_10-07_00

[rasadam]

winston & roy babylon gone
would like to know more about this duo as well

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J4rz2MuMCc

[chungdejah]

Well Dread Vr. 3 is a '71 version of Cherry O on Africa Blood album

Ras Laura - Rastaman Come Home # Dyna RL 743-1
Rightful Ruler # Dyna Upsetter 718-1
both with a three diggit Dyna matrix, so from '69

[lankou2]

Having met Scully several times, he told me that he was one of The Mellowcats, no doubt about it. Just a few minutes before, we had spoken about his partnership with Bunny. Then, when i mentioned The Mellowcats, he retorted : " it was US", which seemed to imply that Bunny was also involved. He also told me that he recorded under the name Skeeter/Skitter, besides many other aliases and groups, which doesn't imply that he was the only one Skeeter (he was probably not the main one). He also let me know that CS Dodd enjoyed changing the aliases of his artists, sometimes catching them unawares once they saw the credits on the labels. on some occasion the veteran could have some hazy memories but definitely not so when he was backed by someone who lived the same situations (ie Johnny Moore and Sparrow Martin).
Through the years, there has also been miscredits such as Bonny, Bonnie and Bunny. Several Bunnies seems to be an evidence.
All i can say about Lumumba is that when i mentioned that tune, Scully started to sing it right away - most of its lyrics, anyway, not a definitive proof, for sure, but its shows that he wasn't too far then...
Early in the 60's, Bunny Robinson & Scully ceased being partners, mainly because the former was all too often put on the backseat and not developping as many connections in the music biz as his former partner, quite busy in the Coxsone crew. As a result it got tough for Bunny to provide for his family, so he went back to the street vendor trade ( selling peanuts, if i remember well). In the 70's, they occasionally got back together for some oldies but goldies shows. All this is first-hand info, not something made up, trust me !
I'll also add that i was quite impressed when i heard Bunny sing, quite nicely for a man who hadn't really been a regular artist for so many years.

[skanick]

Would Lumumba not have been a rasta standard all visitors to the camp would have known backed up by the fact Ossie rerecorded it years later.

Reckon all the Bunny/Bonnie & Skitter records for Dodd were Vernon & George. You may be on to some thing about the Busty and Cool records especially as these I just noticed do not seem to have writer credits unlike the Bunny & Skitter releases which all credit Vernon, George or both as writers.
Will have to study all the Busty and Cool records, may even put short samples up of all of them.

[skanick]

Just skipped through bunny & skitter and Busty & Cool tunes which was not that hard as I have them all on one CD and came to the conclusion that all Bunny & Skitter tunes are no doubt Vernon & George along with Busty & Cool Mr Chauffeur but Busty and Cool tunes Mr Policeman, What A World and Kingston To Mo Bay are not Bunny & Skitter and sound like Simms & Robinson.

[rasadam]

i just compiled a bunch of songs in this thread pm me if you wanna hear em. and thnks for all the teachings!
a

[firecoalman]

I just wanna say "wow", the collective power of the members of this board are really demonstrated on this thread. Call me humbled. I never saw an original "Rightful Ruler" before. A Ras Laura (that I don't have!) coupled with a Perry production! JA wonders never cease. Was Andy Capp the connecting link? I have long tried to get better info on the transition between WIRL and Dyna in 1969, with the supposed "fire" at that facility intervening. I always presumed that Dyna did not really get going before 1970, but this is powerful evidence (I love machine-typed labels which seem to have only occurred in this interval. I only have such exemplars on Coxsone's Supreme label, but I've seen others on Ebay.) Do you have a specific source of info on this question Chungdejah? Or just your acute powers of observation?

And while I have several Worlddiscs, I have never seen an original "Lumumba" before. Kudos, Skanick (Although this song was clearly commentary on the current news from the Congo at that time and not a nyahbinghi standard.) The old Beverley's Top 20 lists from that time reflect that it was a big hit on the island. I only have reissues. Isn't it strange that Coxsone gave accurate writer credits at that time and was not attributing them all to "Scorcher"?

A ton of great info on this thread. My compliments to all.

[skanick]

Never knew anything before about the origin of Lumumba. Cheers!

Greetings tallawah you joined up then, was gonna direct you here earlier. Easy

[chungdejah]

sorry for causing confusion,

The Ras Laura is not the other side of Roightful Ruler,

Roightful Ruler / Handy Capp

Rastaman Come Home / Mount Zion High

[lankou2]

Patrice Lumumba was a major African leader till Mobutu got in his way.

[firecoalman]

As we lose another giant of the 60s (Lyn Taitt), enough cannot be said about Noel Simms, who started with Arthur "Bunny" Robinson recording for Motta in 1954, becomes "Zoot" Simms and "Mr. Foundation" in the 60s doing solos mostly for Prince Buster and Coxsone, and then the ubiquitous burru drummer "Scully" on, (it sometimes seems) nearly every roots session in the 70s. Perhaps no one else runs throughout JA music the way he does. He was a leader in spreading Amharic culture in the 60s (most Zoot Simms records begin with a declaration in Amharic). I just heard "Golden Pen" for the first time on YouTube. Now there's a prime example of the underground rasta culture in the 60s! He also begins "Press Along Prince" on Voice of the people with an amharic sentence and many of his Coxsones as well.

Mr. Simms' health has been fragile and it was great to see that he was live and drumming at last years' Montreal Jazz Festival. Let's treasure these last representatives of Jamaica's golden age.

[lankou2]

Well, i have a lot of material of scully 's reminiscences. I may do something with them some day, part of it has been printed, but it's in french. Scully is not a burru drummer, btw, the closest artist to this style these days would probably be Lloyd Knibb, though he has had to simplify his physically demanding style for these last ten years. Scully 's health really isn't that fragile for a man his age who lived most of his life where he did. He suffers from glaucoma but he could have been cured - and the heart of the matter was not money.

[firecoalman]

Well, lankou, if Scully does not play burru style in your opinion, I beg you to enlighten us further.

You are very fortunate to have met with him and I hope you made good use of that opportunity.

I can only sit with my records, books and magazines and do the best I can. But I quote Scully from his appearance in the "Deep Roots" video: "I learn from the burru man in Trench pen when I was a youth." Further, Helene Lee, an author that I deeply respect and whose writings are based in extensive first-hand experience in JA and trenchtown, discusses burru as the basis of nyahbinghi and rasta drumming, following a path from the seminal drummer Watto King down through Count Ossie. She describes the burru trinity of Repeater, Funde and Bass as characterized by the playing the back-beat (accents on 2 & 4) that would be the basis for ska and all that came after (Le premier Rasta pp.282-3; 288-293).

Yes, it was Lloyd Knibb who adapted that rhythm to the trap set. I quote his interview in Full Watts Vol. 4, No.1: "When I used to be around Count Ossie and Count Ossie have a burru band. So you used to play repeater, and you have the bass drum...three of them...I play all three drums. The bass drum, the funde and the repeater..." At the start of the Deep Roots Music video, Scully can be seen playing repeater with the Mystic Revelation aggregation.

But you are much more privileged than the rest of us and I eagerly await further enlightenment from you.

Now, money...Did I say something about money? No, I didn't, but as long as the subject has come up, Vintage Boss #4, in its article on current-day Bunny & Scully (which features a picture of a very emaciated-looking Scully) urges all to support artists like him "who are finding it very hard to survive." They give a contact number for scully at 876-369-9620, that may still be valid if anyone would like to help him. As we all know, JA artists get little or no money from their recordings.

[lankou2]

Scully mainly states that he learnt from a burru man, not that his style stuck to the way the burru people played it. From what i know and learnt from several foundation artists, the original burru drummers were not rasta people. a number of them were criminals and outcasts. Among that generation of musicians, a number of young guys would visit both places : the burru area AND Ossie's camp. After a time, some of these young musicians fused both styles but i'd still say that it's L Knibb 's technique that made the most of burru drumming, though it can also be heard on some recordings from the Ossie posse. I am unfortunately not a musician and can only recognise by ear when i hear some burru drumming. REAL musicians would have to write about this and i'll humbly admit, unlike some, that i'm not one of them. Haven't a good number of writers stated for years that Oh Carolina was the first tune including "rasta" drumming, while there is ample evidence of the contrary on 50's tracks recorded by Laurel Aitken and Lord Tanamo ? Or that infamous" scorching summer of '66" theory that was endorsed by many writers for so many years. Keep wondering if they bothered to listen to their oldies collection or just kept passing on what someone else had previously written.
As for H Lee being a musical reference, that's altogether another matter. As much as her book The First Rasta is nice, its part devoted to music is pretty disastrous. She often gets mixed up or in the field of original JA music, doesn't really know that much, though she would have had the opportunity to, given her many stays in JA. Like some others, she is a person who mainly focused on rasta reggae in the 70's, and stuck to that reference once and for all, maybe they got a mystical flash or something...
I don't want to go into that any further, just one last thing : in one of her books, she refers to Don Drummond as a "sax player" !
Vintage Boss was printed quite some time ago, it's most certainly true that Scully wouldn't run for Mister Universe, and not even would have in his prime, given his frail structure, BUT it's certainly not one of the veteran artists who was treated the worst through the years : he 's had a very long career, especially as a percussionist.
It is true that many artists never got much money from the producers but i believe that those who played on major label albums in the 70's got more than most others. After, it all depends how they used it.
Having met Scully on quite a few occasions, all i can say is that he seemed in a pretty good condition, although he was blind (because of a glaucoma which could be operated on) and had to be helped by one of his sons. 75 then, he was in a fairly "normal" (unfortunately!) condition for a west indian man who grew up in a modest background in a third-world country run in iniquity with no real public health service. He still was a lively man and a very funny, even sly, person. I in no way meant to put him down or say that he is a con artist begging for money or whatever, what i'd rather see is some collectors pooling together to get as many Scully (& Bunny) tunes together (not those on that boring LP from the 70's) and release them on a tribute album which would benefit him. Actually, it could be done very easily. Pirate records abound these days but no one ever seems to release "charity records" for the strict benefit of its creators. WHY ?
There should have been a Bunny & Scully album released on Studio 1 but Mr Dodd died right before its planned release date. Maybe we sould pelt his heirs with e-mails or something ? but, given the poor use they make of his artistic legacy...
In the meantime, many veterans live in dreary conditions while some people buy their originals for outrageous sums of money - just see how much an original Kingstonians single goes for these days on ebay, while their leader, J. Bernard, lives in dire poverty. Just one example.

[chungdejah]

tres bien dire !

[smallaxe]

Dear All,

I have never seen anything like this!!! An amazing
amount of info - Keep up the good works to all concerned.
Reggae People working together at there very best

All the very best
Ray

[firecoalman]

One part of me says to let this all drop and I suspect the Moderator would prefer it so, but I cannot hold back from answering lankou's last remarks.

We bow to your unknown first-hand knowledge BUT:

Burru drummers were "criminals" and "outcasts"? I hate being the one to break it to you but rastas were and are outcasts in JA society. In the context of a society like Jamaica's I leave it to Jah to decide who are the criminals.

I will continue to seek a first-hand source, but a survey of google results on "burru drumming" overwhelmingly supports my view that burru drumming involves the triad of hand drums, not the trap drums of jazz and rock music. (Even though Lloyd Knibbs created the foundation for reggae trap drumming by adopting the hand drum beats to the trap drums). Burru is, after all, an African tradition. I cannot find any source to support a contrast between Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation's style of drumming and burru drumming. They are one and the same. So a "fusion" would be pointless, no?

And I must stand up for Helene Lee, even if she does have a bias toward the Marley 70's like the vast majority of reggae writers (I would like to see that change, as the 60's were where the musical evolution really happened). But she has been able to penetrate west Kingston society like no other writer. She carefully sticks to first-person info (which admittedly, you may find some variation among Jamaicans on many points of history) and documents gleaned from the Gleaner and KSAC archives. It is not easy to trace the history of pre-70s JA when the documentary trail of pre-70s JA as so many of the principals have passed on and much of the history deliberately erased. But I believe her documentation will stand as the gold standard in the future. Since reading her books I have an appreciation for the desperation of the lives of the people of west Kingston I never had before, and I am listening to my record collection with wholly new ears. At least she names her "exclusive" sources. She is not a music expert, but she has communicated with some of the best JA sources. I heartically recommend "Voir Trenchtown et Mourir" to anyone who can read french and hopefully it will soon be translated for other's benefit.

Now to the by now absurd disagreement between us about Scully's physical condition. Alls I said initially was that I was so happy to see him healthy last year. Why does the fact that the Vintage boss photo is now 8 years old make it irrelevant? When I first saw it, I was shocked at the change in his appearance since the time of the "Roots Music" video. I leave it to anyone else's judgment. Standing next to his compere Arthur Robinson, he looks quite fragile. I was concerned for him. Hence my joy at seeing him live & well in Montreal last year. Enough said?

Otherwise, you are again rebutting arguments I never made ("Oh Carolina", the Summer of '66, etc.)

[danielisaac]

Any Helene Lee available in English?

Peace.

[I]

The First Rasta, an account of Leonard Howell is on my bookshelf.

Reel

[lankou2]

"I will continue to seek a first-hand source, but a survey of google results on "burru drumming" overwhelmingly supports my view that burru drumming involves the triad of hand drums, not the trap drums of jazz and rock music. (Even though Lloyd Knibbs created the foundation for reggae trap drumming by adopting the hand drum beats to the trap drums). Burru is, after all, an African tradition. I cannot find any source to support a contrast between Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation's style of drumming and burru drumming. They are one and the same. So a "fusion" would be pointless, no?"
Well, there are a lot of African traditions, even when it comes to drumming, as there are many different african cultures. There are other drum music genres which are as african as anything from JA, but they have their own touch, i wouldn't see why there should only have been one drumming tradition on an island whose population was made up of slaves deported from several areas who brough their own style with them. In JA, Pocomania also uses drums, but in a different way, it's still very influenced by african roots, right ? In other west indian islands there are other drum & percussion music genres which don't sound much like nyabinghi, does it make them sound less african ? I just can't see why the burru style wouldn't have been digested by members of a larger community and, when it's members dwindled , then disappeared, why wouldn't have other people learnt from it ?
Whether you like it or not, the burru people were not rasta people -as it seems to be your main focus - they were real tough people feared by their neighbours. They REALLY were a community of their own. I don't know whether they were connected because of certain origins, though. All i'm telling here was told to me by people like Lloyd Knibb, Scully, Sparrow Martin, and more recently, by a bonafide rasta who witnessed the burru people's dealings : Larry Mc Donald, if you think those great elders don't have enough credentials, it's your problem, not mine ! I don't know of any elder called Google, though.
As for your appreciation of HL's prose, i respect it, to each his own. I tend to think that it can be cliché-ridden on certain occasions, especially on "Voir Kingston...", which often borders on wishful thinking and a certain imagery which can verge towards sensationalistic pathos. I enjoyed the First Rasta, though, and would never deny her real efforts for researching the past. Nevertheless, she gathered facts to suit HER own vision (post-hippy 70's outlook). I am pretty much sure a lot of people who lived in hardship in Kingston in those days would probably have their own views on that era as well (in this, we agree). I have had the pleasure to reason with a fair number of original rasta artists from then and they depicted a fairly different picture of their youth, hard but rich in many ways. I was also very happy to see how much more open-minded rastas they are/were than a lot of their younger "counterparts". Such people were unvaluable, they were just themselves, didn't set themselves as "holier than thou" examples and were mostly very humble. i am just a student of JA music and simply aim at balancing certain facts which are all too often held as the gospel, as there are often more than one side to a story. I am also sure other members from this here board probably experienced the same feelings when chatting with such elders of JA music.

[rasadam]

i know there's Maroon "people" in JA. the descendants of the slaves who escaped to the cockpit region and kept many of their traditions to this day. i don't know Burru people i have only heard of Burru drumming. Is there really a set of folks in JA called Burru people?
a






books.google.com/books?id=iesWzLHb_GUC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=jamaican+burru+people&source=bl&ots=T0GZKnF2MY&sig=MUynjAeWNo0GPMdCaNai3PjOxlE&hl=en&ei=SRheS8KdKIOl8AbsrP39BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=jamaican%20burru%20people&f=false

[lankou2]

Thanks, Ras. Your link tends to confirm that the burru people and the rastas were two different sets of people, which doesn't mean, of course, that they didn't socialise at all.
No person i have talked to alluded to some ethnic connection among the burru people (but maybe Larry McDonald gave me a few pointers, i'd have to listen to the interview again, this is a man who is passionate about drums and percussions, needless to say ! i guess you may find him pretty easily in NYC, you don't live too far, do you ?) all of the veterans i talked to mentioned that they tended to be rough people, - "criminals" is a word that came back several times - many of whom had done jail time for pretty serious offences.

[rasadam]

Larrys out in California doing some david hillyard dates
but hopefully when he comes home i can link him.
a

[shuffling]

Recently, I got in direct contact with Tony Gregory, one of the key early crooners and pioneers of Jamaican music. He personally knew Bunny & Skitter during the 1950s and 60s — they were close friends.
He told me everything about them. He confirmed their true identities, shared unpublished details… and even provided me with authentic photos of Bunny & Skitter, including a rare image of George Dudley in his later years.

The True Members of Bunny & Skitter:

George Dudley (lead vocals)
Vernon Allen (harmony and second voice)
These two were the real Bunny & Skitter. However, there's one exception: on the song “Chubby”, instead of George Dudley, the singer is Arthur Robinson.

Solo Recordings from the 60s and 70s:

In the early 1960s, Bunny & Skitter recorded more than 30 songs together.
Separately, each member also released a few tracks on his own:

Skitter (Vernon Allen):
Mr. Khrushchev (1961–1962)
Babylon (1964)
Far I Come (1964)

George Dudley:
Gates of Zion (1979)
Portion of Love (1981)

Hidden Release in the 70s: “What To Do”
In the 1970s, Bunny & Skitter recorded another track titled “What To Do”, but under a different name:
“Federal Singers”, a generic label used by Federal Records to conceal the real artists’ names — a common practice at the time, often for contractual or legal reasons.
Among hundreds of thousands of Jamaican tracks, this was the one I happened to find.
The voices are unmistakably theirs.

Rare and Authentic Photo Collection:
Tony Gregory kindly shared previously unseen photos of Bunny & Skitter together and separately, along with pictures of himself and singer Delroy “Dubby” Dobson:

George Dudley and Vernon Allen (young) + Tony Gregory and Dubby Dobson
ibb.co/XxnNRDJd

Bunny & Skitter live on stage (1960s)
ibb.co/BHH8fRZ7

Unidentified: George Dudley or Vernon Allen?
ibb.co/mFgzQPvJ

George Dudley in 2005
ibb.co/4ZmQX590

Vernon Allen (young)
ibb.co/ns3yPNzb

Life with Count Ossie:
Bunny & Skitter lived with Count Ossie in Rockfort, the first Rastafari musical commune in Jamaica.
George Dudley, born in 1939, passed away in 2012.
He was inspired by music from a young age; his mother and grandmother both sang revivalist songs in churches. He used to say music was like a form of prayer.

Bunny & Skitter formed their duo back in 1955, while still at school.
At a time when mento and calypso dominated, they were among the first artists in Jamaica to create melodically rich songs, paving the way for rocksteady and later reggae.