Duff Review: "Blue Beat Baby: The Untold Story of Brigitte"

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Blue Beat Baby: The Untold Story of Brigitte, a new 30-minute video documentary by Joanna Wallace, does an excellent job of piecing together the largely forgotten story of Brigitte Bond, who inadvertently inspired the design of The Beat girl. While the average ska fan knows 2 Tone's Walt Jabsco was created by Jerry Dammers (and refined with help from Horace Panter and John "Teflon" Sims) and based on a photo of Peter Tosh from his early Wailers' days, far fewer are aware of the origins and background of The Beat girl.

In Blue Beat Baby, Wallace explains that Brigitte Bond was a popular Soho burlesque performer who showed up to welcome Prince Buster at Heathrow Airport in 1964 during his first tour of the UK (to promote I Feel The Spirit). In the process, she was photographed and filmed dancing with Buster in the terminal (most likely a calculated move to help generate press for her then forthcoming single and supporting gigs). A little over a decade later, one of these photos was re-published in Melody Maker in the spring of 1979 (see it above), just as 2 Tone started to rule the airwaves and charts. Cartoonist/graphic artist Hunt Emerson, who was tasked by The Beat to quickly come up with their logo (and later designed the covers of the first two Beat albums), spied the photo of the beautiful and fashionably mod Bond dancing with Prince Buster and modeled his striking--and now iconic--Beat girl illustration on her. Notably, neither Hunt Emerson nor anyone in The Beat was cognizant of Bridget Bond's claim to fame. Emerson was drawn to her elegant sense of style and the wonderful motion of her hips, arms, and legs captured in that phenomenal photo.

Employing archival newspaper clips, strip joint advertisements, and TV news footage, Wallace fills in as many blanks in Bond's story as possible in this compelling documentary. Her professional life on stage, in the press, and on the screen is well-covered here, but little is known of Bond's origins or fate (the trail goes cold in Italy in 1976). However, Wallace highlights several fascinating aspects of Bond's life, such as her (so-so) 1964 ska single on Blue Beat; the episode where she hijacked Billy Graham's attempt to minister/preach to the sinful denizens of Soho, which garnered her worldwide press coverage; and the fact that she is/was a gorgeous, transgender woman (which, refreshingly, didn't seem to be that big of a scandal in the UK at the time--many of her strip club patrons and admirers had no complaints!).

Both The Beat's Dave Wakeling and Emerson observed that after The Beat girl began to be featured on gig posters and Beat merchandise, the band's previously male-dominated audiences were flooded with female Beat fans (and there were far fewer fights at shows). Many girls even began to copy The Beat girl's style of dress. So, a crucial part of Bond's legacy is that her image helped welcome/make space for girls and women in the 2 Tone scene. (Then, as now, representation matters.) Perhaps the most significant unanswered question in all of this is whether Bond is/was aware of her consequential and celebrated place in 2 Tone history.

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On a related note, ska author Heather Augustyn provided research assistance for this documentary and she wrote a chapter on Brigitte Bond in her forthcoming book Rude Girls: Women in 2 Tone and One Step Beyond.

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Duff Review: Jeremy Collingwood "Earthquake on Orange Street: Buster's Jamaican Singles Story"

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Even though there have been some excellent to superb Prince Buster compilations released over the years (see the Gaz Mayall-selected King of Ska; the Islam Records release Hush Up!; the expanded Sequel Records edition of FABulous Greatest Hits; the Rock A Shaka comps Voice of the People, Dance Cleopatra, Let's Go to the Dance, and Roll On Charles Street (read my review); and most recently, the incredible Africa - Islam - Revolution (read my review)), they're only scratching the surface of Buster's extraordinary output in his career as producer, performer, and label head. From 1961 to 1977, he released (by my imperfect count) over 440 singles in Jamaica (not including reissues) on his various imprints--Buster Wild Bells, Voice of the People, Prince Buster, Soulsville Center, Islam, and Olive Blossom, plus there were a good number of blank paper label releases. The vast majority of these tracks also were licensed and issued on 45s in the UK on Melodisc Records' imprints Blue Beat and FAB, and fueled his great popularity there with the mods. Since the JA music industry was 45-driven, Buster never compiled and issued his work and productions on LP himself--though he repressed the eight albums that Blue Beat/FAB originally released in England (I Feel the Spirit, National Ska: Pain in my Belly, Fly Flying Ska, What a Hard Man Fe Dead, Jamaica's Pride, Prince Buster On Tour, She was a Rough Rider, and FABulous Greatest Hits).

While reissues of reissues of Buster's Blue Beat/FAB LPs are relatively easy to find (I've collected them all over the years), the majority of his singles have not been re-released and the original pressings--and even some re-pressings--that you can sometimes find in the wild can be very pricey. Of course, Discogs is a vital resource for sorting through Buster's catalogue, but it can be a bit unwieldy if one isn't solely looking at individual releases. Even though significant parts of Buster's story have been documented (mostly in liner notes for some of the aforementioned compilations, though Lloyd Bradley's book This is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music and Laurence Cane-Honeysett's feature "The King of Ska and More" in Record Collector issue 459 are terrific, invaluable exceptions), his extensive biography remains to be written (and I'm still waiting for an exhaustive Prince Buster box set to be issued!).

Thankfully, another vital aspect of Buster's story has been meticulously assembled by UK sound system operator Jeremy Collingwood (Lick It Back) in his Earthquake on Orange Street: Buster's Jamaican Singles Story (which was released a few years ago, but I recently obtained a copy through Copasetic Mailorder in Germany). As its title suggests, this book provides a comprehensive listing of all of Prince Buster's JA releases on all of this imprints from 1961 to 1977, including both JA and UK catalogue numbers (just to make things complicated, the Blue Beat and FAB singles rarely mirrored the JA ones), and a "Blank Checker" guide that will help you identify which tracks are lurking on those blank paper label releases. To introduce each year's batch of 45s, Collingwood provides excellent overviews of which imprints were in use, notes key/popular singles (and gives them some helpful context), highlights newsworthy Buster events, and even indicates the location Buster was operating out of, since his shop moved several times over the years, starting at 49 Charles Street and ending at 127 Orange Street. In addition, there are eleven glorious pages of full color scans of various original paper labels (ragged from age and use, but still magnificent) from all of Buster's imprints, as well as a few more pages with scans of unused and recycled paper labels. 

Earthquake on Orange Street: Buster's Jamaican Singles Story is an invaluable resource for Prince Buster fanatics/collectors and anyone researching and writing about the great man--but even more casual fans of 1960s JA ska will find much to like/love and learn about in this book and should definitely track down a copy while they're still to be had.

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Duff Review: Various Artists "Blue Beat Is Back in Town: The Sixty Year Celebration Album"

Blue Beat Records

Blue vinyl LP with gatefold sleeve
2020

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Blue Beat Records--a subsidiary of Emil Shallit's Melodisc, which was founded in 1947 in London and specialized in licensing African highlife, Caribbean calypso and mento, and American jazz for release in the UK, and was one of Britain's first independent labels--was established in 1960 by Sigimund "Siggy" Jackson, a former music publisher who had been recruited in 1953 to join Melodisc as an A&R man and run the London office. Blue Beat was created in response to the success of Laurel Aitken's 1960 Melodisc single "Lonesome Lover" b/w "Marylee" to capitalize on the explosion of new Jamaican R&B that was being produced in JA (their take on the Black American R&B they were hearing broadcast from New Orleans, and on singles brought back by travelers to the US for play on sound systems)--and a style that would soon evolve into ska. Jackson's inspiration for the label's name was quite simple: "Because it had a good beat and was bluesy, I decided to call it Blue Beat."

The debut Blue Beat single was Laurel Aitken's "Boogie Rock" b/w "Little Sheila," followed by dozens of tracks licensed from top Jamaican producers such as Duke Reid, Prince Buster, and Coxsone Dodd, as well as Jackson's own productions with UK-based artists like Rico Rodriquez, The Marvels, and Laurel Aitken. (It's worth noting that the 1960 debut single from Chris Blackwell's then JA-based Island Records--which would become Blue Beat's main rival when Blackwell relocated the label in London in 1962--was Laurel Aitken's "Boogie in My Bones" b/w "Little Sheila.") During its initial run (1960-1967), Blue Beat released over 400 singles and about a dozen albums (introducing the world to JA artists like Prince Buster, Derrick Morgan, Owen Gray, Alton Ellis, Derrick Harriott, Toots and the Maytals, and many others in the process) that were enormously popular with both the ex-pat Jamaican community and British mods (so much so that Blue Beat became synonymous with ska music in the UK). Having said that, few of these releases climbed to the top of the charts, as the music was sold through specialized shops whose sales often weren't reported and included in music industry figures (and ska was largely consumed by marginalized/underground groups of people), though Prince Buster's 1964 single "Al Capone" b/w "One Step Beyond" made it to number 18 in the UK charts...in February of 1967! (Side note: Melodisc launched the FAB imprint in 1966, which was primarily devoted to licensing and releasing rocksteady sides, many of them from Prince Buster.)

In 1967, Shallit and Jackson split (the latter moved to EMI, where he created the Columbia Blue Beat imprint that released several skinhead reggae sides from Laurel Aitken, the Bees, the Mopeds, and others), and the Blue Beat imprint ceased releasing new material--though it was revived twice in the '70s to reissue several of Prince Buster's classic Blue Beat singles (unsurprisingly, demand was particularly great during the 2 Tone era, and Shallit was more than happy to meet it). Shallit passed away in 1983 and the imprint went dormant until 1989, when Buster Bloodvessel (AKA Doug Trendle) licensed the Blue Beat name from Jackson (who must have retained or reacquired rights to the imprint) and issued what is unquestionably Bad Manners' best album, Return of the Ugly, as well as superb records from Buster's Allstars, King Hammond, Napoleon Solo, and the excellent Live in London - The London International Ska Festival comp (I've written about many of these releases previously). Unfortunately, Buster's touring schedule kept him from the office and tending to business, and record sales did not keep pace with Blue Beat's aggressive new release schedule. Buster's version of Blue Beat went belly up in 1990.

Blue Beat's story might have ended there, but for Marcus Upbeat (née Downie) of the traditional ska band No.1 Station (which released a really great album for Rockers Revolt), who contacted Siggy Jackson in 2001 with the idea of reviving the label with a series of new but vintage-sounding releases. This partnership eventually yielded 13 Blue Beat singles released from 2004 through 2011--among them seven from No.1 Station, one each from Intensified and The Pyramids, and reissues of sides from Laurel Aitken and The Mopeds. In the midst of this, Jackson retired in 2009 after 50 years in the music business, and Marcus Upbeat acquired ownership of the label and focused on issuing Blue Beat's more recent releases digitally.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Blue Beat and its incredibly significant role in the history of ska music, Marcus Upbeat has released the Blue Beat Is Back in Town: The Sixty Year Celebration Album. This compilation provides a compelling overview of the label from all of its permutations. There are superb and essential 1960s Siggy Jackson-era releases from Laurel Aitken ("Boogie Rock"), The Folkes Brothers with The Count Ossie Afro-Combo ("Oh Carolina"), Derrick Morgan ("Miss Lulu"), Owen Gray ("Call Me My Pet"), Ewan and Jerry with The Carib Beats ("Oh Babe"), John Holt ("Help Me Make It Through the Night"), and Stranger Cole ("Rough and Smooth"). Blue Beat's enormous influence on the 2 Tone groups is acknowledged by the inclusion of Madness' cover of Prince Buster's "One Step Beyond" and The Beat's version of Prince Buster's take on Eddy Grant's "Rough Rider." The Buster Bloodvessel years are represented by Bad Manners Featuring Verona's excellent "Get Along Without You Now." And the Siggy Jackson/Marcus Upbeat revival is recognized by Marcus Upbeat's terrific new track "Blue Beat Is Back in Town" (also just issued as a double A-sided Blue Beat 60th anniversary single with Laurel Aitken's "Boogie Rock"), No.1 Station's awesome tribute to The Godfather of Ska "Laurel's Boogie," and Marcus & The Microdots "She's So Sweet" and The Marvels Featuring Donna Hinds' "We'll Have a Ball"--both of which are great old school style tracks.

The one shortcoming of the comp (and it's also the present-day label's Achilles heel) is that since the majority of Blue Beat's releases were licensed from JA producers in the 1960s, going about reissuing material that appeared on the Blue Beat imprint involves re-licensing the tracks from whomever now owns that producer's or artist's catalogue (for instance, several cuts here were licensed from various BMG labels like Sanctuary and Union Square, as well as Warner Brothers, and Cherry Red Records). Prince Buster, the label's greatest asset/artist in the '60s and '70, isn't represented by any of his classic recordings on this compilation (presumably due to licensing issues); his only appearance is a 2003 recording of "Enjoy Yourself" with Jools Holland (which, of course, bookended The Specials' More Specials). And given the sheer volume of key ska singles issued by the label in the 1960s, an additional LP of vintage tracks would have been welcome--and further emphasized Blue Beat's crucial role in the promotion and growth of ska music over the decades.

All criticism aside, Blue Beat Is Back in Town: The Sixty Year Celebration Album is a wonderful tribute to the label and its affiliated acts. Now that this milestone has been reached and commemorated, I'm eager and curious to see where Blue Beat goes from here...