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JIMMY RADWAY (b. 1947 - ) DUB I * * * * *
Ivan Lloyd Radway was born on January 5th 1947. At a young age in Kingston's Jones Town ghetto everyone started to call him Jimmy. He started to sing in the Salvation Army Church. In September 1957 a sad event for both Jimmy and Jamaica occured. He was involved in the infamous Kendal Train Crash. A train going from Montego Bay to Kingston and filled with passengers, reached Kendal (Manchester Parish) and derailed. Two hundred people died and many more were injured. Jimmy lost a leg but continued to go to school. In 1962 Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd bought The End club at 13 Brentford Road and began to convert it in the Jamaican Recording and Publishing Studio, later known as Studio One. Jimmy was working nearby and was introduced to Coxsone. He found himself at the young age of sixteen in the Studio listening to the Skatalites rehearsing. He soon understood that he wanted to be part of that world and started to write songs for others to sing. In 1962 he entered the Jamaica School Of Art, at that time a big step for a Black coming from the lower class. He wrote poems and lyrichs. In the meantime he was present at the rehearsals of people like Ken Boothe and Alton Ellis in Jones Town. His first experience in the record business came when he and Tony McKinley produced Teddy Charmers' "I Want It Girl" at WIRL (West Indies Records Limited). McKinley licensed the single to Lee Gopthal but did not say anything to Jimmy. He did not gave up and in 1972 he set his own label called Fe Me Time. This had to be Jimmy's time. At that time Jimmy was living in the Denham Town area, and some C. Lloyd Gentles offered Jimmy the possibility to manage a woodwork company on his behalf. Jimmy refused but Mr. Gentles gave him one hundred pounds to help him with the label. Jimmy wrote a song about a poor and desperate girl from Tivoli Gardens, that great song was "Black Cinderella". The song was soon recorded with Errol Dunkley on vocals. The song was also versioned by Augustus Pablo (called "Cinderella In Black") and Big Youth (called "The Best Big Youth" and cut at Dynamic's). For the latter it was the second single he recorded. Dunkley later cut another single for Jimmy called "Keep The Pressure Down". Dynamic's B studio was again the studio where Jimmy cut Hortense Ellis' "Hell & Sorrow" and the Big Youth's version called "Tribulation". A lot of material produced by Jimmy has Tommy McCook and Cedric Brooks providing the horns. After the Dynamic sessions Jimmy moved to Randy's. There he cut Leroy Smart's "Mother Liza", with Bobby Ellis on backing vocals and Richard "Dirty Harry" Hall on horns. Later Jimmy also produced Smart's classic and five stars "Mr. Smart" and "Mirror Mirror". After Randy's Radway moved to Micron Records in 1975. Here Pete Weston suggested that Jimmy had to release a Dub album. Micron soon folded but in the meantime Jimmy mixed a Dub set at Joe Gibbs' with Errol Thompson by the board. It all happened in one single day! Only three hundred copies were pressed. The set was soon forgotten. Jimmy founded Capricorn Rising label and one of the first releases was Leroy Smart's "Happiness Is My Desire" (a version of "Mr. Smart"). Jimmy most important release for Capricord was Desmond Young's "Warning". This single will be versioned by Big Youth as "Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing". "Warning" was cut at Randy's with Bobby Ellis, Vin Gordon and Richard Hall providing the powerful horns. This was Jimmy's last hit. He retired from the music business, and since then he was almost forgot. This is briefly Jimmy's musical career. But Jimmy is back here, to make us aware of what his journeys into the Dub soundscapes were. So, here we are with "Dub I". The original ten instrumentals were: "Black Rights" (a version of Desmond Young's "Warning"), "Back To Africa", "Hell And Sorrow" (a Dub of Hortense Ellis' "Hell And Sorrow"), "Mother Liza" (a Dub of Leroy Smart’s "Mother Liza"), "Cinderella" (a Dub of Errol Dunkley’s "Black Cinderella"), "Micron Way", "Awn Yah!", "Black I Am" (a Dub of Scotty Bell’s "Black Am I"), "She's Mine" and "Wicked Have To Feel It" (a Dub of Glen Brown's "Slaving"). This re-release offers five bonus tracks. As follows: "The Best Of Big Youth Version" (a Dub of Big Youth versioning Errol Dunkley’s "Black Cinderella"), "This Child Of Mine Version" (a Dub of Joy Lindsay’s ‘This Child Of Mine’), "Tina May" by Vin Gordon, "Dub Is My Desire" (a version of Leroy Smart's "Happiness Is My Desire"), and finally Tommy McCook's "The Great Tommy McCook". All the instrumentals are credited to the Fe Me Time All Stars, except where the artist is specifiyed. Jimmy got that unique early Dub treatement that only Errol "T" was able to deliver. Together they got the final shape. "Dub I" is dry! The level where the whole musical structure was brought to is pure and clear. Every single audio track inside the instrumentals was treated to maintain his own personality, with every instrument perfectly juxtaposed with the others. The final result is so complex that it appears simple and immediate. Dry but also very heavy, "Dub I" is more than Dub. Great soundscapes are reached here. This early Dub set appeared briefly in 1975. Now this masterpiece is back. 1. The Fe Me Time All Stars - Black Rights |
1975 - Pressure
Sounds - studio - discs: 1