Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

“Festival Rock”: Jamaican History Lesson

Jamaican DJ Dillinger toasts each of the winners to date of the Independence Festival Song Competition in “Festival Rock,” his entry for the 8th annual event in 1973:

“Festival Rock”

Dillinger (1973)

1966:  The Maytals with “Bam Bam
1967:  The Jamaicans with “Ba Ba Boom
1968:  Desmond Dekker & The Aces with “Music Like Dirt
1969:  The Maytals with “Sweet and Dandy
1970:  Hopeton Lewis with “Boom Shaka Laka
1971:  Eric Donaldson with “Cherry Oh Baby
1972:  Toots & the Maytals with “Pomps and Pride

Musical misspelling?

Appears to be one of many aliases

“Dellinger”

LeeScratchPerry produced the original recording – Max Romeo‘s “Ginal Ship” – that serves as the backing track (sans vocals) for “Festival Rock.”

And yet, oddly, most of the references to “Festival Rock” that I see online and in print declare Max Romeo to be the producer — how can this be?

In Jamaica, “Festival Rock” was issued on a white/blank label release as the B-side of “Cocky Bully” — both considered “DJ” cuts of the “Ginal Ship” single (also “Ginalship”) originally released on Lee Perry’s Upsetter label in 1971.

Which song emerged victorious in the 1973 Independence Festival Song Competition, you ask?   Envelope, please:

Did you know

There are other Zero to 180 stories tagged as Musical Roll Calls

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Bonus Bass Bonanza!
Did Paul McCartney Hand the Hofner Torch … to Robbie Shakespeare?

According to Vivien Goldman‘s riveting first-hand account of the recording of the Exodus album in London, where Bob Marley and his crew were, literally, on the run following the 1976 assassination attempt at Marley’s compound on 56 Hope Road in Kingston:

Fams [i.e., AstonFamily ManBarrett] finally got his own instrument when one of his main clients, a jovial producer called BunnyStrikerLee, brought a short-necked, violin-shaped Hofner bass back from the U.K.  He’d purchased it from one Lee Gopthal, boss of the reggae label Trojan, who’d bought it from the Beatles‘ manager, Brian Epstein. So the previous owner of the bass on which Fams played those catchy Upsetters instrumental hits that both mods and skinheads partied to in England, such as “The Return of Django,” was once Paul McCartney[!]

The Upsetters at Randy’s in Kingston

(c. 1969/70)

[L to R] AstonFamily ManBarrett (bass); CarltonCarlyBarrett (drums);

AlvaReggieLewis (guitar) Glen Adams (organ)

Even more astonishingly, Goldman drops this revelation later in the book when she recounts the historic (and electrically charged) One Love Peace Concert of 1978:

Lunging across the stage, Tosh’s bass player, Robbie Shakespeare, brandished his instrument like a lance—the very same little Hofner that Paul McCartney used to play.  Shakespeare’s mentor, Family Man, had passed it on to his protege.

But wait – Paul McCartney himself displayed his famous Hofner “Beatle bass” in the June 15, 1989 edition of Rolling Stone.  Perhaps Paul owned more than one Hofner?

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