Jamaica's 'first real superstar' is still rocking steady (Derrick Morgan brings ska, reggae, and more to stage)
Posted by Hans on June 14 2008 at 13:04
Category : Artists
As Darwin discovered nearly two centuries ago, islands are singularly suited for investigating the ebb and flow of evolution.
When it comes to music, Jamaica's hothouse scene offers an unusually vivid case study of how a particular ecological niche can yield a startling profusion of forms. And no person has played a bigger role in the rapid evolution of the island's musical styles than composer and singer Derrick Morgan, who makes his first Boston-area appearance since 2001 tomorrow at the Middle East Downstairs, where he performs with the local ska combo the Void Union.
While Morgan is often hailed as "the King of Ska," he has played a central role in just about every subsequent Jamaican style, signaling the emergence of new grooves with classic tunes delivered in a lilting, rhythmic tenor imbued with joy and good humor (even when describing characters from the hardscrabble streets).
"He was the first real superstar of Jamaican music," says Generoso Fierro, the Boston DJ who hosts the long-running Tuesday night show on WMBR-FM (88.1) "Bovine Ska and Rocksteady." Fierro directed the fascinating 2006 film "Lynn Taitt: Rocksteady," which captured Taitt, the great Jamaican ska and reggae session guitarist, at a Boston recording session with New England Conservatory jazz piano legend Ran Blake. He's producing tomorrow's concert as part of a documentary in progress on Morgan.
"From his early recordings, Morgan was a huge presence," Fierro says. "He has one of the most beautiful voices in Jamaican music. He helped create ska, and he's big in rocksteady and reggae too. He had so much clout he was producing his own tracks."
Morgan got his start in the mid-1950s as a teenage singer who fell in love with Little Richard's raucous rhythm and blues. At 17, he won a talent show singing "Long Tall Sally," and within two years he was recording for innovative sound system honcho Duke Reid.
The sound systems, which brought movable musical feasts to Kingston street parties on the back of trucks, demanded a constant flow of new sounds to maintain audience loyalty. By the early 1960s, Morgan was a leading force in honing a distinctly Jamaican style out of the piano and organ shuffles of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, and Bill Doggett.
"Professor Longhair and those guys were so great, that's who we were imitating," says Morgan, 68, speaking by phone from his home in Clarendon, the Jamaican parish where he was born. "Then it turned out to be a different thing in Jamaica, so we gave it a new name: ska."
Known as one of Jamaica's sharpest dressers, the 6-foot-tall Morgan cuts a striking figure with a huge smile. He dominated the Jamaican charts for years, and scored one of ska's biggest hits in 1961 with "You Don't Know" (later called "Housewives' Choice"), a duet with Millicent "Patsy" Todd.
Morgan always seemed to have a knack for capturing the mood on the street, a sixth sense exemplified by his hit "Forward March," which was released on the eve of Jamaican independence in 1962.
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His popularity only increased as he engaged in an extended MC battle with Prince Buster, another early and enduring ska star who ran a sound system for which Morgan had recorded. When he left to join Leslie Kong's sound system (which released "You Don't Know"), Prince Buster attacked him with "Black Head Chiney Man," and Morgan retaliated with "Blazing Fire." While both men maintain that the rivalry was driven more by show business than personal animus (the last time Morgan performed in the Boston area, he and Prince Buster shared the bill), their avid followers took the battle seriously.
"The fans were the ones getting out of hand and started fighting one another," Morgan says. "The government came in and asked us to do something about it. So we went to the company and took pictures together saying we are the best of friends."
As ska gave way to rocksteady's slower groove, Morgan wrote many of the style's definitive songs, tunes often inspired by the delinquents known as rudeboys. Morgan composed one of the most celebrated rocksteady anthems, "Tougher Than Tough," when a gang leader wanted a song written about him and made Morgan an offer he couldn't refuse. "If I didn't do that song, I might get hurt," Morgan recalls.
The rocksteady era didn't last long, however. In 1969, Morgan helped usher in a new sound when he reinvented Ben E. King's hit soul ballad "Seven Letters" with a loping groove that came to be called reggae.
"I always loved his songs," Morgan says. "So when I did 'Seven Letters,' Bunny Lee, my brother-in-law, was the producer, and we tried to find a new rhythm. With Glen Adams playing the shuffle on the organ, it had a different kind of flavor. It was a change in Jamaican music, a different style of shuffling."
After many years living in London and Miami, Morgan moved back to Jamaica in 2004. Though his vision is severely limited from retinitis pigmentosa and his legs have lost some mobility following two bouts of spinal surgery, his voice is still supple and strong. After the Middle East gig, he heads to Europe for a two-month tour.
"My legs are the only problem I've got right now," Morgan says. "It's very much annoying, but I'm still going. It doesn't stop me from singing, but people will have to dance for me."
By Andrew Gilbert
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
source : boston.com
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