Brian (Bassie) Atkinson
Leader: Soul Vendors
Booking Kit |
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Rolando Alphonso 1931-1998:
A Remembrance of The Chief Musician...
written by: Brian Keyo, www.skatalites.com .
Part 2 - The 60's
By 1960, the recording scene in Kingston was starting to bustle and Roland had work
from several producers. In addition to weekly sessions for Mr. Dodd, he was in demand
by sound system owners such as Lloyd "The Matador" Daley and Vincent "King" Edwards.
Both were interested in challenging the pioneering efforts of Dodd and Arthur "Duke"
Reid in cutting their own records. It had become a real scramble for sound system
owners who craved ascendancy, and Roland was in demand by all of them. For Daley,
Roland cut "Bridgeview Shuffle," and joined "Dizzy" Johnny Moore and Emmanuel "Rico"
Rodriguez on other instrumental Shuffles and also backing vocalists such as Neville
Esson and Owen Gray.
Of course Roland was also playing sessions for Arthur "Duke" Reid and Vincent
"Randy" Chin by 1960, which became a slight problem when Dodd insisted he sign an
exclusive contract. I say slight because Roland laughingly confessed that he broke
it within a week! "When Coxson found out he tried to act upset, but it didn't last.
We were good friends and I just tell him that I can't refuse the work." Perhaps that
was because on July 27,1960 Roland made his childhood sweetheart, Hermine, his wife.
It was in 1959 or '60 that a new label, Rolando & Powie began to be distributed by Dodd.
The Rolando & Powie imprint was in existence for about four years, as recollected by
Roland, and it was used for multiple releases by Lee Perry, The Maytals, Lord Creator,
Shenley Duffas and Delroy Wilson. Powie was remembered by Roland as "a Chiney friend
of mine who love the music and come to see me play everywhere". "Powie's Hop" refers
to him and the 45 is credited to Roland on their label.
According to Dodd, the label was started by Powie, who was "a fan and friend of
Roland. When they did the sessions, Powie had the money. The Rolando & Powie label,
what really happened was it was purchased. I bought the label from them. It lasted
about six to nine months with them, and after that Roland decide to pack it up and
come back to the Studio One stable. After that I released my own stuff on it."
After the Blues Blasters, with whom Roland cut the Boogie Shuffle "Grandnational,"
(track #16), Roland helped form the Alley Cats. The Alley Cats provide the backative
on "Hully Gully Rock" and "Four Corners Of The World", both essential tunes.
After the Cats, Roland and pianist Herman Sang formed the City Slickers, recording
and backing acts for Dodd, among others. Roland also recorded with Aubrey Adams in
the Dew Droppers group for Dodd. For a short time in 1960 or '61, Roland tried his
hand at record retailing. He opened a shop on Charles Street, between Bread Lane
and Regent Street, and attempted to capitalize on his knowledge of the nascent
Jamaican music industry. As Hermine recollects, "Yeah, he had a shop downtown.
At that time he wasn't working regularly at the hotels. Sometime in the early '60
into '61. He decided to try a thing, but it didn't work out for long." It was during
1961 that Roland cut "Federal Special" for Dodd, a hot boogie we've included that
features Jamaican pianist and Julliard graduate Cecil Lloyd on organ. Around this
time in 1962, Roland formed the first Upsetters band in Jamaica.
On Monday, August 6, 1962, Roland and The Upsetters played at Molynes Four Roads in
Kingston as part of the Independence Night Celebrations that promoted street dancing.
In early 1963, Roland got an offer from overseas, accepted it, and he and Hermine
moved to Nassau in the Bahamas. "Roland was working at the Cat & Fiddle Club for
several months, and we took up residence", Hermine recounted to me. But later that
year, by the time Dodd opened his own studio in October in a large building he
purchased on Brentford Road, Roland was an integral member of his session band.
In fact, it was the men who would within a year be known forever as The Skatalites
who helped Dodd test the recording equipment that he had purchased from Ken Khouri
and was installing with the help of Headley Jones and Sid Bucknor. Dodd called them
the Studio One Orchestra when the future members of The Skatalites cut instrumentals,
backed his artists and waded through auditions of the many men and women who came
to sing at the Jamaica Recording and Publishing Studio. Roland was soon known as
"Mr Versatile".
It was the talent that coalesced at Studio One that provided the impetus for the
formation of The Skatalites. As Roland put it, "The music we played with The Wailers,
around 'Simmer Down' time [December 1963], is that encourage The Skatalites to form.
"The Skatalites were an entity for less than two years, and the juggernaut featured
Roland as second soloist after Don Drummond. Often acknowledged as the "most loved"
of all the Skatalites, Roland was the favorite tenor of Don Drummond, and shared a
special relationship with him. As Mickey O'Bryan, who chronicled Don and his works
in many pieces for the Gleaner and Star in the fifties and sixties puts it,
"When Roland play, his personality comes through. He was an attraction and everybody
loved him. Don, a genius himself, thought that Roland was a genius."
At the time the Skatalites were blasting off, Roland was also moonlighting, sometimes
with the Granville Williams Orchestra (GWO). For example, check his solo on Ernest
Ranglin's arrangement of "Santa Claus Is Ska-ing To Town", a '64 release on the GWO
label. Sometime in early 1964, with the world still shocked by Kennedy's assassination
and Lee Harvey Oswald's subsequent death at the hands of nightclub owner Jack Ruby,
Dodd used the gunman's name as a title for an instrumental Roland cut. Most of the
musicians on "Jack Ruby", a rollicking Ska included herein, became The Skatalites.
The demand for the band's services was such that Roland was beginning to find it
difficult to fulfill the numerous recording engagements he was asked to do.
The musical virtuosity and the star power of the Skatalites was transforming the
music business in Jamaica by bringing session men out from the studio and into
the bright light of the public's attention. As The Skatalites toured Jamaica and
the public got to see the men who played on all the hits doing them live for the
first time, the band's orbit reached a zenith. That attention illuminated
Don Drummond, Roland Alphonso and Tommy McCook, in particular, and made them
household names. Skatalites drummer, and the man responsible for what the world
knows as the Ska beat, Lloyd Knibb, speaks of this time as, "when all the radio
stations play was pure Skatalites. We backed every singer and group in Jamaica,
and our instrumentals were all hits too." It was during this time that the band
cut "El Pussy Cat Ska" and "From Russia With Love", which are on this set. It was
also at the advent of The Skatalites that the columnist Stella, who wrote Partyline,
or the Gossip Dept., for The Star newspaper wrote the following: "Now, about the
Ska-tallites[sic], Dawg newspaper brought me word…and dawg newspaper never lie….
that the hottest Ska group in town is the Ska-tallites[sic]. According to the news,
last Sunday at Bournemouth was the likes of which you've never seen, with grown men
prostrate to the tuffness of the sounds which spilled forth from said Ska-tallites[sic]."
When the Skatalites' orbit ended in August 1965, Roland, along with "Dizzy" Johnny Moore,
Lloyd Brevett, Jackie Mittoo, Bunny Williams and Wallin Cameron on guitar, were
playing out as the Soul Brothers by the end of the month! According to Dodd, they even
did a show before The Skatalites did their last show. The Soul Brothers did their
first session on August 23rd according to 'Ray', who wrote just that in a column in
The Star that week. The Soul Brothers sessions that year and in 1966 yielded "Rollie
Pollie", "Dr. Ring Ding", "James Bond", "Provocation", "Pepe To" and the previously
unreleased "Do It Good", all of which can be heard on this package.
The Soul Brothers had metamorphosed into the Soul Vendors by 1967, with guitarist
Wallin Cameron exchanged for Errol Walters, when Roland led them on a tour of England
backing singers Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis and Owen Gray. The Soul Vendors On Tour Lp,
which came out that year, features "You Trouble Me", a tight Rock Steady we've
included.
In the studio, Roland recorded for producers Leslie Kong, Bunny Lee and Dodd in the
late sixties. From that period, we've chosen the ballad "Maria Elena", a favorite
of the Alphonso family, the previously mistitled "Rolando Special", and the hit
"Something Special", all produced by Dodd.
In 1969, JMA Records released "A live Interview & Set with Jamaican Jazz Crusaders"
which featured Jamaican expatriate trumpeter Roy "Bubbles" Burrowes. Burrowes was
accompanied by, "some of the finest Jazz musicians Jamaica has produced", to quote
narrator, and radio commentator Neville Willoughby. Ernest Ranglin, Aubrey Adams,
Carl McLeod and Harold Williams joined Rolando. It was a showcase for Burrowes,
a veteran of bands led by Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Clifford Jordan, Ray Charles
and Sonny Rollins. Rolando lays out his Jazz credential with outstanding solos
on "Split Kick", "'Round About Midnight", "The Highest Mountain" and "Green Dolphin
Street".
Also in 1969, Roland was asked to form and lead a band called the Ruineers.
They'd be the house band for a new restaurant and nightclub, The Ruins, which opened
in Ocho Rios that year.
The 70's, 80's & 90's
The Ruins gig went well for Roland until he was felled by stroke. According to
Hermine, "He was bringing in crowds six nights a week, Monday through Saturday,
for a year and a half, to see the band, before he took sick. After he got sick,
they just deducted from his pay and treated him bad, but Rollie was never one
to carry a grudge." As Roland tells it, "I took sick when I was 41, and I was
born again before I became well again. I heard the master say to me very loudly,
'I put you on earth to please people with music and that must be comprehended.'
I heard that loud and clear while I was in my sick bed in the hospital dead ward.
They put I in the dead ward because I was in a coma for so long! ... Everyone think
me gone dead, but me is just sleeping! Ha, ha, ha, aha, ha, ha!"
Rollie dissolved in laughter before continuing. "I was at the St. Ann's Bay hospital
for a long time and then they moved me to University Hospital in Kingston.
While I was sick, the man in Ochi who me bought me house from sold it to someone
else. When he first saw me well again, he took fright and bawl out that I must
be a duppy!"
Since before Roland's stroke, the family had contemplated emigrating to America.
After the recovery, Hermine went first and over the course of the year, the
children followed. It was just before Christmas in 1972 when Roland departed
their yard at #3 Waltham Crescent in Kingston to join the family in the US.
By 1973, his first solo LP, The Best of Rolando Alphonso, was released on the
Studio One label. Its success was helped by tunes such as "Jah Shakey", which
is included on this set. "Jah Shakey" features Roland on alto sax, a rare
occurrence on a Dodd production. By 1975, Mr. Dodd assembled a next LP
compilation on Rolando, King of Sax. During these years Roland would often
be present at rehearsals of his son Noel's band, Outer Limits. It was at
one of those rehearsals, at Matrix Studios on West 27th [New York City] in
the spring of '75, that David "Dro" Ostrowe first met Rolando. "He had his
old Selmer tenor that never got polished in its case. Roland was just sitting
there watching, but he never played with them, at least when I was watching",
Dro recalls. That was probably because the stroke had left Roland with limited
dexterity in his right hand, and it took him time to develop new techniques
that would enable him to play the music the way he had before.
As Dro elaborates, "It was a couple of years later that I saw him come onstage
with Noel's band Jah Malla, and he blew a tune. Nobody seemed to know who he
was and when he left no one seemed the wiser. So I approached him and asked
if he would play with my band, Terrorists. I told him we could provide a proper
stage for him. He said yes, and we planned it for Max's Kansas City. By spring
of 1979 we were ready to do them. We'd play our set, and then bring on Roland
as the headliner to blow his own set of tunes. We worked with him for about
two years, even playing a show for Ron Delsner in The Diplomat Hotel's Main
Ballroom. It went great, Roland was in good spirits, and blowing really well.
Terrorists played shows with him through '79 into 1980, and by the end of the
year his name was properly established in New York and he had developed a
following." Dro notes that, "we did some recordings with Roland that Max's
Kansas City backed, the aborted Sax Scandal album."
In 1980, the government of Jamaica recognized Roland and awarded him Officer of
the Order of Distinction, for his "service in the field of Culture, particularly
music." It was an honor that Roland was deeply proud of and that afforded him
certain privileges, such as signing O. D. after his name. He was signing autographs
that way on March 7, 1981, when he appeared at Samantha George's Isaiahs Dancehall
in Manhattan on a bill with Terrorists and Jah Malla. After the demise of Jah Malla,
Roland formed a band, DJ's Choice, with son Noel on drums and played out in Los
Angeles and the New York area. Also by the early eighties, Roland was a regular
attraction at Brooklyn's Apache restaurant, near Nostrand and Church, where he
sold albums and tapes, specializing in Studio One classics.
By 1983, calls to reform The Skatalites were heeded by Synergy, the founders and
squanderers of Sunsplash. Roland returned to Jamaica and played on the practice
sessions at the Blue Monk club in June and the triumphant Sunsplash set, which
was filmed by Robert Mugge, in July. The following year, The Skatalites spent
two weeks recording The Return Of The Big Guns LP for Island Records at Dynamic
Studios in Kingston. Roland contributed his composition, "Reasoning". However,
the record was only a limited release due to the band's refusal to assign their
publishing to the Island.
By the time The Skatalites had come together in the States in 1986, Roland had
finished work on his solo LP, Roll On, for the Wackies label. In the summer of 1986,
Dodd arranged for The Skatalites to play at the legendary New York City Jazz club,
The Village Gate. Dodd set up a series of four consecutive Sundays in August that
featured the band playing with Jazz luminaries such as pianist Charlie Palmieri
and trombonist Steve Turre. Sporadic concert dates in 1987-8 led to the first US
tour in 1989, The Skatalites opening for Bunny Wailer on his Liberation tour.
Continued ... next page |
