who say jah no dread

 

TAKE A step backwards. Several steps backwards. It is the early '70's, in Kingston, Jamaica. Everywhere, the tricksy rhythm of swanks out into the streets, a liberated music with the artists in control. As much as the artists are ever in control, that is. The music has a proud, unbowed tempo, and hangs in the air like a cloud of exhaled ganja smoke. It's the sound of a hopeful Jamaica. Maybe it was unrealistic, but it seemed then that maybe the outsider could win a few races. A young, slightly podgy kid is looking for a way into the music business. He keeps on knocking, but only one door opens: that of Coxsone Dodd's Studio One in Brentford Road, Kingston. One squeaky-voiced single later, the door slams shut on the kid again. There was to be a long interval before he would enter a studio again, and when he did, it wouldn't be Studio One, perhaps leaving Mr Dodd to rue the rary day that he wasn't quite sharp enough to cut an entire album on a talented child. The single, "Love Is A Message", vanished into the ether, only to be re-pressed when the kid's name, Jacob Miller, was one to be reckoned with. Miller was only eight at the time of its recording, living with his grandmother at Collins Green in the Crossroads area of Kingston. Today, it's hard to imagine Jacob Miller as anything other than the big-framed, huge-voiced, massive personality that fought his way to the very top of the Jamaican music business in the mid-70's. Miller dominated his time, even replacing Bob Marley as Jamaica's favourite while The Gong was temporarily abroad after political factionalism had caused a few bullets to lodge in his body. But Miller wasn't always larger than life: a couple of years after the false start with Studio One, he became a part of Augustus Pablo's fledging Rockers organisation and gegan to learn his trade. The records he cut with Pablo at the production helm may not have been Jacob Miller's biggest hits (for those, look to Inner Circle), but no-one could question their artistic merit. Astonishingly, they're collected for the first time here. As you've no doubt already heard, they have a power that echoes down the years like nothing else Miller ever recorded. "Jacob was my good friend too even though I was older than him, just like Hugh Mundell" recalls Pablo today. In fact Miller was the first of a series of teenage talents that Pablo encouraged and tutored: Hugh Mundell, Yamie Bolo and White Mice, among others, followed later. " I knew about Jacob from the record he made when he was a little youth. I used to play the record on my own set (the rockers Sound System)." Pablo remembers him as a street kid, forever running away from his grandmom and "staying anywhere he could. When I got to meet him I wanted to do over his tune "Love Is A Message". So what we  do was use some of the words from "Love Is A Message" and make a new track." Pablo took the youth to Dynamic Sounds studio in 1974 and the resulting remake far outshone its original incarnation. "Love Is A Message" had become "Keep On Knocking", a sound that defines its era as strongly as any other reggae record. Using Pablo's "Black Gun" rhythm, although Pablo's own melodica version didn't see release until long after "Keep On Knocking" was a hit, it was an astonishing single. This was definitive roots music, the essence of mid-'70s reggae. Miller was still plainly a youth singer, but no longer a kid. His confidence had grown immeasurably. Long afternoons spent rehearsing at Pablo's house had paid off by the bucketload. Singer and producer hadn't hit paydirt as such, but they'd cracked the strongroom of the artistic bank claimed riches for themselves. With mixes and voicing of King Tubby ("the only person promoting Pablo music at that time," says Pablo today) and rhythms cut at Randy's and Dynamic studios, Miller and mentor cut six impeccable and impenetrably deep singles for the Rockers label in the space of 18 months. They're all here, punctuated by their fearsome dub versions. Laid end to end, what an impact they make. "False Rasta", with its dub introduced by King Tubby's spoken cue. The other-wordly "Baby I Love You So", in which Miller takes a love song far beyond normal mortal limites, and in which Pablo and Tubby excel on a superior (and in this case, very rare: this is a different mix) "King Tubby Meet Rockers Uptown" version. There's the stately "Who Say Jah No Dread" a.k.a. "Too Much Commercialisation Of  Rastafari", in which Miller's full-blown adult singing style was first revealed. "Each One Teach One" gave rasta dictum a musical voice at last. The deceptively simple "Girl Name Pat", a more sophisticated record than a cursory listen makes apparent, closes the session. Behind Miller, Pablo's melodicaand xylophonelines, powering drum, bass and packed-tight horn arrangements make every note count. "I put my heart into it," says Pablo of the sessions, "and the artist (Miller) put his heart into it also. I could have cut ten LPs with Jacob. Every minute he wanted to go into the studio with me. But I wasn't looking to make money and exploit. I'm a producer, not a reducer. I really look for the talent in Jacob and try and help him."Pablo also tried to "cool him, he used to get into a lot of trouble. That's just 'cause he was a kid, 14 or 15. He wasn't so big then as he was later, I used to get him to eat fruits instead of a lot of meat. But he was still big enough for the people to think he was older than he was."  Pablo seems to regard his protégé's departure from the Rockers stable as inevitable: "I didn't really have a lot of money. On most of these songs the musicians used to play for free because I was a musician too and I'd play for free on their sessions. I didn't have the money to make a lot of records with Jacob, and that was what he wanted." Hungry for recognition ,and it must be said, stardom, Miller was, inevitably, tempted away by promises of riches and fame by other producers, and eventually found them, to an extent at least, with Inner Circle. Once the door finally swung open Miller swaggered through it as if nothing had ever held him back. "They kinda carry him into faster world," says Pablo, ruefully. "I don't want to go on about it,but they tripped him out. I was really happy for him, but things went a bit too fast." There was no bad bad blood between him and Pablo after Miller left. In fact Pablo, and guitarist Earl 'Chinna' Smith and drummer Lloyd 'Thinleg' Adams, members of the band on Miller's Rockers recordings, all joined Inner Circles temporarily when the band went through one of its regular splits. No matter what heights Miller may have reached in later years, the tracks he cut with Augustus Pablo retain an aura all their own, as irrepressible as the singer himself. "If he was still with us today he would have been a big, big singer," says Pablo with a fleeting smile at a happy reminiscence. "He had that kind of personality. Even if he was sad, you can't know it." Jacob Miller may be sadly gone, joined a decade later by King Tubby, the studio wizard who shaped the sound to suit his youthful voice. Augustus Pablo has long moved into other, equally rewarding musical territories. But just for space of the album, we have the perfect union of all three: "Who Say Jah No Dread" returns us an era when Rockers was the ruler and Jacob Miller was in his ascendency. Maybe once again the dancehalls will shake to  "Who Say Jah No Dread". IAN McCANN 1992