NEGRIL HUNTS LIVE REGGAE REBIRTH
ASIDE FROM its legendary seven-mile beach, the success of Negril’s tourism in the 1980s, particularly on the West End, was predicated on the abundance of live reggae music every night of the week. The biggest names in reggae were frequent headliners for shows in the resort town in those days, and nightlife thrived. Negril was so popular with dancehall and reggae artistes in the ’80s that Tyrone Taylor even penned his masterpiece Cottage in Negril and General Trees voiced the dancehall classic Gone a Negril during that period. But today, live reggae events are few and far between and reggae superstars hardly visit the town. One of the pioneering musicians in the town, Paul ‘Sly’ Francis, witnessed reggae music’s blossoming in the resort town and its subsequent decline owing to factors he said, such as dilapidated roads, exorbitant performance fees by roots-reggae artistes, complaints about noise pollution and the lock-off time for events. For him, Negril is ready for a musical rebirth. The 53-year-old, who became a bass player and sound engineer in the early 1980s, said the flourishing of live reggae was triggered in a bid to satisfy the musical tastes of the hippies from the United States who camped on the rocks or in thatch cottages on the West End.
MAIN HOTSPOTS
The main hotspots were the Yacht Club, Kaiser’s Café, Sam Sara and an openair venue known as Central, which was frequented by artistes such as Jimmy Cliff, Yellowman and the House of Dread, Beres Hammond, Yami Bolo, Sammy Dread, Louie Lepkie and Tenor Saw. “All the big shows – with Daddy U-Roy, Big Youth, Marcia Griffiths, Roots Radics with Gregory Isaacs – used to be held there. West End was the Hip Strip. You had live reggae seven nights per week until even daylight. You had a few little gigolos who would fool ’round tourists, but you could walk Negril street any time of the night,” he explained. “Kaiser’s is where you could see artistes like Third World, Dennis Brown, Melody Makers and Judy Mowatt. Sam Sara then started keeping some big shows. There you could see some big stars like Charlie Chaplin, Luciano, all the roots-reggae artistes,” he said. The decline of live reggae in Negril, according to Francis, stemmed from the deterioration of the West End Road, which got to such a state that people refused to travel there. As a consequence, the Norman Manley Boulevard took over as the venue for music, with places such as DeBus (now Bourbon Beach) and Roots Bamboo reigning supreme. “And when they finally fixed the road, it already take a hold on the beach road with
DeBus where you could see Culture and Joseph Hill, sometimes four times for the month performing at the one place,” he said. Issues of noise pollution began to surface; events had clashing dates, causing tension between some promoters in addition to promoters; undercutting musicians’ payment, spurring what he described as a rat race. The advent of Kingston-based promoters staging multiple parties in Negril saw the town’s own promoters adapting that trend and dispensing with live music, partially because it proved cheaper to pay a sound system as opposed to a band. But Francis believes if the artistes desist from charging promoters what is commonly referred to as ‘tourist prices’ then the Negril music scene would return to its former glory. “They would really want to keep big shows but they can’t do it, because the man dem have a style now from the Kingston side. From a man a come a Negril, the price weh him a charge fi come ya suh, there is no way the promoter can make back his money when police come lock it down certain hours, when food no sell, and the bar no sell. And it never used to be like that. It is one of the biggest breakdown because you have promoters who would like to do a nice show, but once the artistes hear Negril, the price gets bigger. That alone will build back the thing, if they could come down with the price,” he argued. A revival of the live reggae scene, he said, would be beneficial for people from Hanover and Westmoreland similarly to the 1980s, as tourists are not interested in watching artistes perform on tracks. He said many schoolboys from the two parishes, including himself, were hired as musicians for backing bands such as Jah Children from Savanna-la-Mar, and Roots Explosion from Negril, which emerged during that period.