Forward and Payaaka! Manhangle and Den Go Saaka!
“Whoever doesn't live in poetry cannot survive here on earth.”― Halldór Laxness
While Desmond Dekker introduced the United States and Europe to the Rocksteady Beat from Jamaica in the late 60s (with his single The Israelites hitting the top ten in both England and the US), it was the film The Harder They Come staring a young singer Jimmy Cliff, and its resultant soundtrack, that launched the world of Reggae Music. Released in America fifty years ago today, two months before Island Records released The Wailers’ Catch A Fire (introducing the ultimate hero of the genre Bob Marley), The Harder They Come gave the world a front-row seat to the down-and-out world of Kingston Jamaica, as well as the music and musicians that were creating a genre of music completely unique with its off-beat rhythms that would go on to be an international sensation.
The film was as much of a wonder in Jamaica as it was in the US, being shot deep in shantytown reality with characters speaking in the local Jamaican dialect….it was the first time that the locals saw themselves on-screen. When it was released in the US, by legendary king of b-movies producer Roger Corman, it had to have subtitles added due to the thick “accent” that was difficult for American audiences to understand, even though the language being spoken was in English.
The story told in The Harder They Come is very much from the traditional gangster trope, following a struggling singer (played by Cliff) turning to a tragic life of crime; The Harder They Come offers a glaring commentary of the poverty that was faced by so many Jamaicans, with a tension between the beautiful nature of the Island and the litter-filled streets of the city slums. Cliff gives a great performance as Ivan, the anti-hero, whose attempt to make a buck selling marijuana while he waits for his star to rise quickly leads to a path of killing and bloodshed. For him, it all escalates so quickly, with one big mistake made after another, struggling from the beginning without any light at the end of the tunnel, that it is impossible for the audience to question if there was any other way the character could have gone but down.
Tucked into the film, the world is introduced to the vibrant music scene in Jamaica, with song after song woven into the drama. Kingpin producer Leslie Kong appears in the film pretty much playing himself, and future legends Toots Hibbert and Prince Buster also make cameos. We even get a glimpse of a Jamaican studio session, with Kong behind the control booth and Cliff on the microphone recording the song that the movie takes its title from. For me, that cinematic moment of creation is the true unleashing of the sound of reggae music.
I first watched The Harder They Come when I was around 13 or 14, with my only access being a crappy commercial VHF copy where the images were blown out and fuzzy and the sound was cotton dull. Soon after, I bought a used copy of the soundtrack at Revolver Records. The songs on the soundtrack make up a wide breath of sub-genres of reggae, from the classic reggae sound as showcased by Cliff (with a few soul-fused ballads like Many Rivers To Cross) to the rocksteady sounds of Desmond Dekker (007 (Shanty Town))and Toots and the Maytals (Pressure Drop!), the the toasting of Scotty, with his signature song Draw Your Breaks. There is even a glimpse of the more biblical/religious reggae as showcased by The Melodians with their classic, Rivers of Babylon. All of these songs became part of my language…my friends’ language…their friends’ language. When Barb and I met…we both knew every song on The Harder They Come soundtrack and still go to it on most every long road trip we go on.
As I listened to the soundtrack over and over in my room as a kid, getting more and more into it as these foreign sounds became friends, I read the liner notes on the back of the record, which reinforced the reality of a humans fate in an impoverished setting…the gangster antics that are ever-present…as well as the deep culture of pot smoking:
It goes on to tell the story of The Slickers, whose song Johnny Too Bad is one of many highlights on the record. While rights were being cleared around the song and the film, one of the song’s writers was “underground. The other was in death row.” Art mirrored the reality around the difficult lives of Jamaican artists.
HAPPY 50TH to a film that brought to the world a new musical sound that has become such a fixture to our collective vibration….that has inspired and influenced so many other musicians. You can watch the film on-line in high-definition…it had been restored spectacularly in the early aughts from its previous fuzzy mush.
Forward and payaaka
Manhangle and den go saaka! - Scotty, from Draw Your Breaks
Alderney celebrates 150th anniversary of popular adventure novel
Today is Jules Verne’s birthday, and next week is the 150th anniversary of his novel, Around The World In 80 Days…and new stamps to mark the time!
Neal Cassady: American Muse, Holy Fool
Happy Birthday also to Neal Cassady, who “starred” in two of the most interesting American cultural revolutions before he died in 1968 at age 41. More of a life-liver than an artist, Cassady was a focal point to the Beats AND the Merry Pranksters, being written into both Kerouac’s On The Road (as the character Dean Moriarty), Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (as himself)…even performing with a fledging Grateful Dead in 1965. Brian Rohan had a great story about Cassady, when he represented him at court in South San Francisco for an infraction that could have put him behind bars. In front of a group of Girl Scouts who for some reason were also in the courtroom, Cassady’s unwieldy, long, crazed testimony somehow mesmerized the judge into releasing him and dropping the charges.
I looked and looked for more coverage of this groundbreaking show discussed here, but besides finding a blatant plagiaristic website that copied and pasted the same article under another writer’s name, and another article that talks about a show that sounds similar (you have to use google translate to read the piece)….I cannot find ANYTHING about it….
A Bunch of Sundance Stars Take Our Warhol Questionnaire
“After two years of virtual screening rooms, Sundance as we knew it finally came back to life, transforming Park City, Utah, into a chilly Hollywood outpost where stars and stars-to-be showed up to plug the projects they hope will become the next Coda. In between the screenings, parties, and gifting lounges, they stopped by Wasatch Brew Pub on Main St. where our photographer Myles Pettengill was waiting for them with his camera and a bunch of questions taken from the writings of Andy Warhol.”
Inside JFK’s Secret Doomsday Bunker
“The president’s Nantucket nuclear fallout shelter could become a National Historic Landmark—but efforts to preserve its history have stalled”
Things
by Lisel Mueller
What happened is, we grew lonely
living among the things,
so we gave the clock a face,
the chair a back,
the table four stout legs
which will never suffer fatigue.
We fitted our shoes with tongues
as smooth as our own
and hung tongues inside bells
so we could listen
to their emotional language,
and because we loved graceful profiles
the pitcher received a lip,
the bottle a long, slender neck.
Even what was beyond us
was recast in our image;
we gave the country a heart,
the storm an eye,
the cave a mouth
so we could pass into safety.
On stage next week!
https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2223/the-harder-they-come/