Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

[Warning: Please be advised before you read this article that Ed cannot read French, and as for speaking French the only sentence I've ever heard him spout was "Bruno chasser les vaches" and "Marie Claire lance le ballon" - whatever all that means. John]

LE MAGAZINE DU REGGAE
"NATTY DREAD"

Now just in case you gave a shit I've just come back from FRANCE. Yes France, you know where the girls aren't spray tanned the colour of a Plumrose Sausages. France - where folk can walk for more than two yards down the street without looking at their friggin mobile phones. France - where people don't speed up when you overtake them, or drive up your arse, or cut you up at the lights or get out their car and wave a baseball bat in your face. Yes France - where things are a bit more EASY. But more importantly, France - where roots reggae is still VITAL!

This sense of reggae "vitality" is personified in the French bimonthly MAGAZINE DU REGGAE, "NATTY DREAD"; a mega glossy mag and CD sampler that's been about for around ten years now. It's such a classy publication that whenever I'm in the Grande Republic of France (or the "Henry V temporarily annexed overspill area" as I like to call it) I always try and grab myself a copy. OK so it's written in French which is a problem, 'cause I'm not the greatest reader of the French language, but I know a little 'un peu' "I can get by" as Basil Faulty once said, and after all I don't need to translate the music on the more than decent CD sampler. Go here to buy it.

[Please note:Ed can't read French at all, not in the slightest, nothing - I've watched him, he flips through the pages of NATTY DREAD looking at the pictures and reading the headlines which are usually written in English anyway. He "reads" NATTY DREAD basically in the same way as most people "read" the NME - John]

Here's a small bit of what I found interesting in this well crafted, perfectly type set, stylish MAG:

Sampler wise: You are now listening to PRINCE JAZZBO:
Love is What the World Need.

A DUB VENDOR chart with our very own "FOREVER YOUNG" Brinsley Forde at number one and PAMA International at number 22.

There was an article about "Humal Records" in Hockley, Birmingham - Bizarre! www.humalrecords.com; a tiddly review of the new Greensleeves release "Jammy$ from the Roots" and how you can get the it for free if you subscribe to NATTY DREAD. Damn! I'd already bought the CD! More about "From the Roots" some time later.

But for me the article that most readily jumped from the pages of NATTY DREAD was the worrying stuff about the travails of Claudius Linton - If I had to translate this article it would take me about ten years, so here's a cut and paste job - pictures from NATTY DREAD and words off the WEB.



CLAUDIUS LINTON IS AMONG LONG BEACH'S HOMELESS.
You come across him on the street with his briar-patch tangle of beard and dreadlocks, missing teeth, his small thin frame almost disappearing into layers of sweat shirts, and he looks exactly like what he is - homeless. And if that's all you see, you miss the essential Claudius Linton. Listen to him speak and the unmistakable island lilt of Jamaica emerges but often fades to a papery whisper. His discourse wanders. The cataracts in his old eyes make him seem unfocused. But put a guitar in his calloused hands, and he is transformed. This is when the real Linton emerges. His fingers settle reflexively a Rasta beat across the strings and a raggedy, soulful, timeless, Jamaican country voice comes out that defies the indignities of homelessness. It's said of an authentic soul or blues voice that you can't necessarily describe it, but you know it when you hear it. Listen to Claudius Linton and you know this is old-school, roots reggae. It is truth.

As Linton says: "I am the one who go through the tribulations, the tests. These songs that I sing, you have to put to a test and go through the test of time." In the 1970s, Linton was a contemporary of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, the product of a golden age of reggae that emerged from the Trenchtown ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica. Linton's is a story almost lost to the ravages of time, misfortune, changing musical tastes and, no doubt, bad decisions. He is like so many homeless in Long Beach, and yet utterly different.

Linton knows when people see him, they immediately dismiss him as "another homeless guy." He tells a story about retrieving his guitar at a bus stop and two men who assumed he was trying to steal it. One refused to allow Linton to take the guitar. Eventually police came. They made Linton describe the guitar. Then, he says, the policeman told him to play a song. As he relates the story, his fingers start strumming and he falls into a rendition of "Love Drops." The cops let him keep the guitar.

The anecdote is about a triumph, but it is underscored by Linton's anger at the assumptions and attitudes he faces on a daily basis. "I tell you, sir, it's not any easy world," Linton says. "It's a lot of bullshit." Linton's life is like something out a script writer's manual. However, this is no fiction and the resolution of the story of Claudius Linton, the "Kingman," remains to be seen. Whether his story will result in a triumphant return or more desperate unravelling is still unfolding. Just two years ago, it seemed Linton's life was undergoing a fairy-tale resurrection. Now, success comes in small doses and baby steps.

Once upon a time, he was big in reggae music. He won the nickname in 1972 after he sang "Return of the Kingman" at the Jamaican Independence Festival Popular Song Competition. Although Toots and the Maytals edged Linton in the musical throw down, Linton says he was the people's choice. Linton casually talks about working side by side with Tosh unloading drays at a Kingston mill, or sitting by the roadside chatting with Marley, and interactions with any other number of reggae greats.

In the mid-1970s, when reggae's popularity was surging in the U.S., Linton's "Crying Time" was a hit. Other Linton songs such as "Put Your Shoulder to Jah Wheel" and "Backra Massa" were moral touchstones that echoed a part of the musical movement that preached togetherness, love and social equality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Marcus Garvey often work their way into Linton's lyrics. Despite his artistic and critical successes, Linton failed financially in the notoriously corrupt Jamaican music scene. Attempts to create his own label and independently produce music didn't fare well. In a 2008 interview, Linton recalled recording in the famous Federal studios when a man negotiated a session with a gun.

Linton slid from the public eye, although he never stopped playing. He seemed perched for a miraculous resurrection after a chance meeting on Negril Beach in Jamaica in 2006. Ian Jones, an independent music producer, met Linton and soon the two were recording in Marley's legendary Tuff Gong studio backed by a band of veteran reggae session players. On his Sun King records label, Jones remixed a collection of Linton singles spanning almost 20 years entitled "Roots Master: The Vintage Roots Reggae Singles Volume 1." Then Linton and Jones paired for an album entitled "Sign Time" under the partnership name of Kingman & Jonah. The two albums received positive and at times rapturous reviews and "Sign Time" climbed the charts in Australia.

After long-distance collaboration, Linton came to the U.S. and the duo had a short-lived tour in 2009 but had a falling out. Linton blames Jones, who did not respond to an interview request sent via his record label's website. In a 2008 interview, however, Jones admitted that with the tumult in the music industry making inroads in the retro reggae market was difficult. According to his MySpace profile and record label site, Jones has since moved on to other endeavours, although "Sign Time" and "Roots Master" are still prominently displayed and apparently for sale.

Although Linton says he has a work visa that is valid until 2012, he found himself homeless in Baltimore. He eventually made his way to Utah and then Los Angeles. He lived in Venice for three months, tried unsuccessfully to make some money playing street music and eventually fell ill from sleeping in the streets and was hospitalized. He was released from the hospital to Long Beach and stayed briefly at the Rescue Mission, where he still drops by for lunch on occasion. As he strolls around the courtyard at the Mission, he's greeted by calls of "Hey, Rasta man" and "Sing us a song."

Jeff Levine, a chaplain at the Rescue Mission and musician, said he was surprised to have a musician of Linton's calibre wander in off the streets. "It was surreal to go to iTunes and YouTube and find he had been a great musician for years," Levine said. After Linton was able to get strings for his guitar from a member of the Rescue Mission, he and Levine jammed together. "That's the way our relationship was, sharing faith and music," Levine says. Leonard Adams added Linton to his caseload at the Multi-Service Centre and helped the singer get medical help for his diabetes and high blood pressure. He says Linton is also attempting to receive general relief benefits of $221 a month plus food stamps.

Linton recently moved out of the winter emergency shelter, but without income, his situation remains precarious. He says he has received no money from his albums or songs that are downloaded. Linton still hopes to revive his recording career. "I know I still have my ability for singing and playing and writing," he says. Like many homeless, he seems to struggle with the day-to-day responsibilities of life and sometimes just expects others to take care of them. He acknowledges he has done a terrible job with the business of music. "Most singers is just big cars," he says. For Linton, music is his deepest expression. He is a firm believer in the Rastafarian faith, although he says he personally doesn't use marijuana for enlightenment. For Linton, music is spiritual. "You get the blessing and that root will go into the people," Linton says. Levine says he sees that side of Linton's music. "It's a spiritual experience for him, and he wants to glorify Jesus Christ," Levine says. "And he wants to share that with people." Listen to Marley or Burning Spear, Linton says and you will hear that all three share the same message. If only he could find a way to make that message sell.

Although Linton says he has a home in Jamaica that he built, he still wants to gain some measure of success here and believes that if he can be heard by the right person, he can revive his career. He has no idea how that will happen and no road map to get there. But he still believes. "I am a man of guts and a lot of patience and I never give up, sir. The music business was given to me by God almighty with the spirit of love to sing and play music," Linton says. "When a man take a song or two from me he takes nothing, because in the morning I have other songs to sing." And about the future Linton says, "I know I'm coming strong one day, sir."

Source: Press-Telegram, Long Beach CA. Written by Greg Mellen.

I hope that for Linton matters will be sorted out, but if you haven't already got Linton's 2006 "Roots Master" album, or even if you have, go buy another copy, you never know some of the money might get through to the man himself.


Epilogue
It's a crying shame that we don't have a wonderful publication like NATTY DREAD available in England, or even a translated version of NATTY DREAD; especially when a load of the stuff is UK related anyway. Perhaps if we learnt to LOVE the French a bit more they might do an English version for us.

Perhaps NOT!