Re: [bomp] NY World's Fair ska

[Michael Snider <lasciviumdei@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "paulk23@juno.com" <paulk23@juno.com> wrote:

> 
> "Didn't Sir Coxsone Dodd and some other ska pioneers
> play the World's Fair sometime as well?"
> 
> Can't remember if Dodd made the trip too, but Byron
> Lee and his band played the New York Worlds Fair in
> 1964, backing Prince Buster, Eric Morris, Jimmy
> Cliff, the Maytals, and others.  They were trying to
> break ska as a "dance craze" in the U.S. market -
> didn't work

I used to have Lee's JAMAICA SKA album on Atlantic

.  Lee was selected because he was more
> palatable to the Jamaican upper classes than the
> islands finest ska band, the mighty Skatalites. 
> Those guys smoked ganja, some were Rastafarians, and
> they were more closely associated with the Jamaican
> underclass.
> 
> As a longtime ska fan (just the old stuff), I have
> to say that even though it is true that Lee later
> made a bunch of mediocre, watered-down rocksteady
> and reggae records, the guy gets a bad rap to some
> extent.

Much of which is political, relating to Lee being
close to corrupt
politician Edward Seaga. IIRC Seaga was Lee's business
partner
at one point. Seaga being rumored to have ordered the
attempted assassination of Bob Marley  as well as
being linked with Colombian drug cartels, the CIA and
Iran-Contra has rubbed off on Lee for being
a staunch supporter. 

  A lot of his early ska records, while they
> dont have the swing or jazz influences of the
> Skatalites (Lloyd Knibb  what a drummer!), are a
> lot of fun in their own right.  In particular, check
> out Beatles Got To Go, by Keith & Ken, where the
> lads are taken to task for not being funky enough
> for the dancehall audience!  Theres a line about
> calling the exterminator, I believe 
> 
> Still, it should have been the Skatalites.
> 
> Theres a video associated with the NY trip, called
> This Is Ska, made in B&W in about 1964, I think. 
> Well worth picking up if you see it.  A British guy
> (British-Jamaican?) narrates it, and theres
> step-by-step ska dance instructions.  The ska dance
> they demonstrate has very little resemblance to the
> 80s/90s style of ska dancing you sometimes see.

What white acts were picking up on ska in '64 other
than 
Georgie Fame, and Annette Funicello's cover of
"Jamaica Ska" 
 
Were any African-American acts 
picking up on ska? (Chubby Checker maybe? He recorded
plenty of calypso - is he of Caribbean ancestry? - and
never seemed to meet a dance craze he didn't
like.Also, 
most of his stuff is inaccessible enough on CD thanks
to 
Allen Klein that for all I know he could have done an 
entire ska album and I wouldn't know about it) 

=====
Sexual orgies, homosexual or not, eliminate social tensions and should be encouraged. - Justice Vincent Scalia


		
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