THE BEAT’S REEDSMAN
BORN 1930
Born Lionel Martin in Croft’s Hill, Jamaica, the man who would become known to the 2 Tone generation as Saxa began his musical life on the jazz scenes of Kingston and Spanish Town. After recording with Laurel Aitken, the self-taught musician moved to the UK in 1962 and later made his home in Birmingham. Though his ’60s activities are difficult to describe with certainty, his future bandmate Dave Wakeling recalled, “He had this gorgeous picture on his stairs [at home] of him at an earlier age, playing the saxophone while doing the splits.” In 1979, fate led him to rising Brum ska stars The Beat, who had witnessed his mellifluous, sweetly improvisatory saxophone when he played Handsworth musical pub the Crompton Arms. They asked him to play on their debut 45, a cover of Smokey Robinson’s Tears Of A Clown. “He came along and never really left,” said bassist David Steele. From then on, Saxa’s playing became an essential part of The Beat’s songs, while his elder status lent them an added quirkiness: given to guru-like pronouncements and fond of a Bloody Mary, Saxa ignored fashion and sported flowery hats, scarves and psychedelic calypso wear (recalled bandmate Ranking Roger, “He’d be like, ‘Me don’t care’”). Ill-health led him to reduce his activities with the group in 1981, though he never left: after appearing in the guise of an oil sheikh on the sleeve of 1982’s Special Beat Service, he was present for the band’s last show, supporting David Bowie at Milton Keynes Bowl in July 1983. Saxa continued to play on his old bandmates’ new projects, and appeared with The Beat’s almost-reunion at the Royal Festival Hall in 2003. Answering some email questions for MOJO in 2012, Saxa mused of the group: “I liked the way they were creating music themselves, neither black nor white. I was the father, they were the kids. I am driven by God and I love everyone, it’s love that drives things on and people must teach each other.”