Guyana

UPDATE

Somehow when I was posting music from Guyana, I forgot Mad Professor. I had lost him amongst the Jamaican dub artists. I am now remedying that slight.

Mad Professor (Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser) was born in 1955 in Georgetown, Guyana. He is a Guyanese dub music producer & engineer known both for his original productions & his remix work. He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music’s second generation. He was instrumental in transitioning dub into the digital age. He has collaborated with reggae artists such as Lee "Scratch" Perry, Sly & Robbie, Pato Banton, Jah Shaka, & Horace Andy, as well as artists outside the realm of traditional reggae & dub, such as Sade, Massive Attack, The Orb, & Brazilian DJ Marcelinho da lua.

Mad Professor - Who Knows the Secret of the Master Tape (Dub Me Crazy, Pt.5), 

Ariwa ARILP021, 1985. 

decryption code in comments

Side One –

Freedom Broadcast

Fast Forward Into Dub

Pirates of the Airwaves

Lord Ska-man

Banana Republic

Lightning Strike

Side Two –

Hong Kong Flew

Devil’s Playground

Stepping Razor

Ras Mas

Under Surveillance

Snake Charmer

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Bing Serrão & the Ramblers were Guyana’s first amplified string band.

The story of the Ramblers goes back to around 1950 in Georgetown, British Guiana when the last three siblings of the Serrão family (Bernie, Bing, & Maurice) started playing with make believe guitars, made of empty herring cans with a wooden pole protruding, & four rubber bands with wooden heads to ‘tune’ the guitar. In 1953, the Serrão brothers formally started the band along with several friends – Michaels Andrews, Romeo Rego, Mark Steele, & Ambrose de Sousa. The band was in great demand for dances, house parties, & charity concerts produced by ‘Auntie Olga’ lopes-Seale, ‘Honest John’ Fernandes, & the Ivy Campbell Dance School.

In 1960, the Ramblers had made their first record with Cook Records, a 7” single CC6019 “Three in One Saga” b/w “Nothing in Common”. From their pioneering days without amplification & bongos made from Guyana wallaba wood & bicycle parts, the band progressed to amplification. Although calypso & latin are their main styles, the Ramblers also play plenty of waltzes, tangos, cha chas, & ballads.

 Bing Serrão & the Ramblers – The Three in One Saga, Serrão Digital Music, 2002. 

decryption codes in comments

Tracklist –

Guyana Don’t Fear

Caribbean Dream 

My Girl is Thirteen 

Love to Go 

Your Face 

When We’re Together 

Nothing but Memories 

Three in One Saga (instrumental) 

Magic Ride 

You’re Everything 

Medley – Guyana Folk Songs: 

1. Mama Meh Belly an Hurt Meh
2. Fan Meh Soldier Boy
3. John Brown Baby
4. Coloured Girl in the Ring

Just Another Cell 

Daddy 

My Guyana 

Caribana Jam 

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UPDATE: I am updating this post 10/08/2013. Be Advised. NØ

After a visitor here took umbrage at my less than subtle Jonesian foray, I tried to explain what my intentions were. I've explained that I didn't really know much about the music of Guyana. After Bing Serrão & the Ramblers above I just got into one of my Bryon Jones (Muslimgauze) moods & posted smart-ass music (see Valkenvania, Vatican City, & Uzbekistan for just a few other examples).

Obliging my stupidity in a gentlemanly (though begging anonimity) fashion, said visitor sent me the following music. So here is some more real music from Guyana. Two polar opposites but cultural cousins. The first is from 1958 & is possibly the first modern recording of traditional Guianese music & the second is from 2008 at the Carifesta X (No. 10) held  in Guyana.

Ramjohn Holda (Ram John Holder) was born in 1934 in Georgetown, Guyana. Growing up in Skeldon, near the Suriname border during the 1940s/50s he became quite accomplished playing the guitar. He became interested in the Kwe Kwe musicians & learned guitar from the famed Kwe Kwe musician Anice. Ramjohn goined the Kwe Kwe group & travelled around Guyana performing at weddings.

He then found work as a pork knocker (pork-knockers are freelance Guyanese prospectors who mine for diamonds & gold in the alluvial plains of the Guyanese interior. The name ‘pork-knockers’ refers to their regular diet of pickled pork of wild pig that is often eaten at the end of the day). In the first half of the 20th century miners, employing primitive methods, recovered significant quantities of gem-quality diamonds from the Potar river area. In fact the two largest gem-quality diamonds recovered in Guyana to date, one 56.75 carats (11.35 g) from Little Uewang River & one 25.67 carats (5.134 g) from Maple Creek, are from the Potaro area. Hence the name Potaro Porkknockers.

Holder would move to New York City in 1962 to become a folk singer, but this album was released in 1958 before he left Guyana.

On Songs of the Guiana Jungle, the Potaro Porkknockers are: Ramjohn Holda – vocals & guitar; Jim Holder – guitar; Ogi Godette – jungle guitar (a large wooden box with steel bands attached that are thumped); Rica Clarke – maracas; Roy Singh – claves; & Elwood Donnoe – drums. Mozst of the groups instruments were home-made. This is the first collection of Guianese folk music ever recorded in high-fidelity.

 Ramjohn Holda & the Potaro Porknockers – Songs of the Guiana Jungle, 

Request Records SRLP 8039, 1958. 

decryption codes in update comment

Side 1 –

Timber Man

Plimpla

Demarara Boy

Janey Girl

Cumah Fish

Galahala

Sun ah Go Down

Duckalay

Side 2 –

Manin Train

Shetira

Covanjon

Itanamee

Lay Down Bessie

Mackenzie

Guiana

Gangimani

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Carifesta X was held in Guyana between August 22 & 31, 2008. This CD compiles songs from many of the performers who played there.

Carifesta stands for the Caribbean Festival of Arts. It is the region's roving, multi-disciplinary, mega arts festival which attracts a wide range of creative artists from various Caribbean & Latin American countries. Carifesta was the culmination of an idea that arose in 1970 when participants at an Artists & Writers Convention in Guyana complained about the absence of an outlet to showcase the rich cultural heritage of the region & at the same time give recognition to its outstanding artists & art forms.

The origin of Carifesta '72, the first Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts held in Guyana from August 25 to September 15, 1972 lies in history. Two successive Conferences of outstanding Caribbean Writers & Artists in 1966 & 1970 recommended to then Prime Minister of Guyana, Hon. LFS Burnham that they would welcome the invitation to an annual Festival of the Arts.

Prime Minister Burnham had related his vision of a cultural Mecca for the region's people. It was a vision of peoples with roots deep in Asia, Europe, & Africa coming together to share & to perform their art forms. The dream embraced the literature inspired by their peculiar Caribbean temperament, paintings inspired by the tropical jungles & art visualizing their forefathers in the distant past. The music was an ever-present element in everyday Caribbean life.

 Various - Carifesta X Folk Innovation Music, Vision Sounds Records, 2008.

Tracklist –

Ting a ling – Alabama (feat. Fojo)

Brown Girl – Ballys (feat. Fojo)

Daddy Gone – Alabama

This Time na Lang Time – Passion

Lilly Gal – Blackman & Devon Danny

Timber Back a Me – Lil Man

Anora Darling – Lil Man

Uncle Joe – DJ Madanna

Demerara – Mark Hall

Cumma Fish – Spider

Guyana – JB

Ginnie Gal – Lil J

Sukibajena – Izzy

Long Grass – Izzy

Enjoy,

NØ

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Probably the most famous star of Guyana would have to be James Warren ‘Jim” Jones. He went right to the top with a bullet. He was an ex-pat from the U.S. who moved to Guyana in the mid 70s to escape the military-industrial complex blues.

In the 1956, Jim Jones opened his first club in Indianapolis, Indiana. Looking for more fault-lines but at the same time a safe place in case of a nuclear war, the group moved to California in 1965. They first moved up to northern California in the Emrald Triangle where the pot was plentiful. Due to their left-wing political & social views as well as their focus on racial integration they attracted many new members from the burgeoning hippie movement. They decided to move to San Francisco to be a part of the Summer of Love.

Everyone who was anyone in the San Francisco scene was in a band, so Jim was no different. He recorded his first album in 1973.

People’s Temple Choir – He’s Able, Brotherhood Records NPC 3, 1973.

Side One –

Welcome

Walking with You Father

Set Them Free

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

Hold on Brother

Down from His Glory

Side Two –

He’s Able

Something Got a Hold of Me

Because of Him

Simple Song of Freedom

Black Baby

Will You

bonus track  - Mass Suicide

Beginning in 1974, the People's Temple started preparing a move to Guyana, where most of the group relocated by 1977, to an agricultural settlement, the People’s Temple Agricultural Complex (more commonly known as Jonestown) about 150 miles northwest of Georgetown, Guyana near Port Kaituma.

In November 1978, Jones decide to have his own Woodstock-like festival. Celebrities from all over the world flew in for the event. U.S. congressman Leo Ryan attended. He was met with a twenty-one gun salute at the airfield. It was killer. 

Jone took his cue from the old San Francisco days & decided to emulate Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters Kool-aid Acid Tests. 

Unfortunately, Jones used grape Flavor-Aid instead of Kool-aid & somehow the LSD got switched with cyanide & Valium. The end results were not favorable. Jones blamed himself & took one for the team.

 The Jim Jones Revue – Rock ‘N’ Roll Psychosis, Punk Rock Blues, November 2008.

Side 1 –

Rock’N’Roll Psychosis

Side 2 –

Big Hunk O Love

Enjoy, but don’t do the brown acid or drink the Kool-Aid.

NØ