Peter Tosh, No More Auction Block For Me I wonder how many readers picked up on the nuanced punch line that opened Tanya Batson-Savage’s recent article Icon for sale. Ms Batson-Savage wrote: “A piece of reggae history will step on the cyberspace ‘auction block’ when Peter Tosh’s Stratocaster M-16 guitar is auctioned by the Flashpoint [...]

Studio bands fall apart Up until late 1984 when a young man named Noel Davy got very excited about a pre-programmed song he had found on a small Casio keyboard, it was actually musicians and not a glorified programmer who created the music for singers and deejays in Jamaican studios.

Billboard a moving target It was once said that local songs were unable to achieve much crossover success because international audiences found it hard to understand Jamaican dialect. Still, artistes such as Shaggy, JC Lodge, Sean Paul, Shabba Ranks and Super Cat have all had hits on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, the main indicator [...]

Reggae icon, Joseph Hill, dies Joseph Hill, lead vocalist of reggae group Culture, collapsed after doing a show in Germany yesterday morning. He was 57. His daughter, Andrea Hill, said he died from a liver failure. She described him as a “well rounded, well known and well loved” individual. Mr. Hill’s last performance in Jamaica [...]

Hidden treasure Jennifer Barrett serves warning One of the paradoxes of Jamaican music at this time, in that while she is steadily creating a name for herself on the European circuit, on the home front, very little is known of her. Having honed her vocal ability while touring with the internationally famous Wailers Band, Jennifer [...]