Tl;Dr:
John Lennon liked the classic reggae song “Israelites” by Desmond Dekker and the Aces. He said it was an example of the funky music that skinheads embraced in the late 1960s. “Israelites” was a top 10 hit once in the United States and twice in the United Kingdom. John Lennon | George Stroud / Stringer
John Lennon was a fan of a classic reggae song. In addition, he said the song’s success represented how much listeners’ musical tastes had changed since the early 1960s. Notably, John felt that the popularity of reggae could be a force for good.
John Lennon was a fan of the classic reggae song ‘Israelites’
The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon includes an interview from 1969. In it, John discussed skinheads’ musical tastes. For context, skinheads are a largely working-class subculture of British men who shave their heads.
“They’ve got some good music going,...
John Lennon liked the classic reggae song “Israelites” by Desmond Dekker and the Aces. He said it was an example of the funky music that skinheads embraced in the late 1960s. “Israelites” was a top 10 hit once in the United States and twice in the United Kingdom. John Lennon | George Stroud / Stringer
John Lennon was a fan of a classic reggae song. In addition, he said the song’s success represented how much listeners’ musical tastes had changed since the early 1960s. Notably, John felt that the popularity of reggae could be a force for good.
John Lennon was a fan of the classic reggae song ‘Israelites’
The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon includes an interview from 1969. In it, John discussed skinheads’ musical tastes. For context, skinheads are a largely working-class subculture of British men who shave their heads.
“They’ve got some good music going,...
- 5/2/2023
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
In 1970, Jimmy Cliff found himself at a crossroads. At the age of 26, the Jamaican singer-songwriter was already one of the pioneers and rising stars of reggae, having enjoyed top 10 hits in the UK with his joyous hymn to unity “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” and a spine-tingling cover of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World”. He was in London, preparing for an extensive tour, when he received an offer to star in a low-budget movie back home. “I said, ‘You know, I’m really glad to be here in Europe’,” recalls Cliff, now 78, his voice still rich and mellifluous as it sings down the line from his home in Miami. “It’s not wise to run all over the place and do something like that.”
Perry Henzell, the writer-director who wanted the musician for his film, flew to Britain to change Cliff’s mind. “He said one sentence to me that stopped me in my tracks,...
Perry Henzell, the writer-director who wanted the musician for his film, flew to Britain to change Cliff’s mind. “He said one sentence to me that stopped me in my tracks,...
- 9/10/2022
- by Kevin E G Perry
- The Independent - Music
Trojan Records is set to reissue its legendary 1971 collection The Trojan Story — a three-lp set that helped introduce the world to artists like Jimmy Cliff, the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, and Lee “Scratch” Perry — for its 50th anniversary this June.
Long out-of-print, the 50-song anthology — due out June 18th — will be reissued physically and digitally with its original tracklist intact, along with a 50-page illustrated booklet featuring liner notes for every song by Trojan’s label manager Rob Bell — who helped curate the original release — and musician Rusty Zinn.
In addition...
Long out-of-print, the 50-song anthology — due out June 18th — will be reissued physically and digitally with its original tracklist intact, along with a 50-page illustrated booklet featuring liner notes for every song by Trojan’s label manager Rob Bell — who helped curate the original release — and musician Rusty Zinn.
In addition...
- 5/12/2021
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
In 2019, Jimmy Cliff said he considered Frederick “Toots” Hibbert and the Maytals’ 1962 album Never Grow Old the birth of the reggae genre. The two singers often pushed each other artistically through friendly competition, with Cliff also recruiting Toots and the Maytals to appear in The Harder They Come. Following the death of his longtime friend and tourmate “Toots,” fellow reggae legend Jimmy Cliff spoke to Rolling Stone Saturday about the Maytals’ singer.
Toots, he’s out there somewhere now vibrating. Toots was one of the artists that I really loved and respected,...
Toots, he’s out there somewhere now vibrating. Toots was one of the artists that I really loved and respected,...
- 9/12/2020
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Tribeca Enterprises and YouTube announced today the programming slate for We Are One: A Global Film Festival, which will feature over 100 films co-curated by 21 prolific festivals, hailing from 35 countries.
The 10-day digital event will give audiences an opportunity to experience different cultures
through an artistic lens – each official selection was handpicked for inclusion to highlight the singularities of each participating festival, while also providing a voice to filmmakers on a global stage. Many of these titles will have significant debuts at the festival, with programming consisting of over 100 films, including 13 world premieres, 31 online premieres, and five international online premieres.
Highlights from the festival include the world premiere of ‘Iron Hammer’, Joan Chen’s documentary about legendary Chinese Olympic volleyball star Jenny Lang Ping, and ‘Eeb Allay Ooo!’, a satire from director Prateek Vats about the professional “monkey repellers” in New Delhi, which won the Golden Gateway honour at last year’s Mumbai Film Festival,...
The 10-day digital event will give audiences an opportunity to experience different cultures
through an artistic lens – each official selection was handpicked for inclusion to highlight the singularities of each participating festival, while also providing a voice to filmmakers on a global stage. Many of these titles will have significant debuts at the festival, with programming consisting of over 100 films, including 13 world premieres, 31 online premieres, and five international online premieres.
Highlights from the festival include the world premiere of ‘Iron Hammer’, Joan Chen’s documentary about legendary Chinese Olympic volleyball star Jenny Lang Ping, and ‘Eeb Allay Ooo!’, a satire from director Prateek Vats about the professional “monkey repellers” in New Delhi, which won the Golden Gateway honour at last year’s Mumbai Film Festival,...
- 5/27/2020
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Reggae and punk icon Don Letts reminisces about the emergence of Jamaican music in the U.K. in a clip from the documentary Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records. Following a year on the film festival circuit, the film is now available on digital streaming services.
“Black and white kids were united through their love of music and style; invariably, a lot of that music was the Trojan stuff,” Letts said of the famed Jamaican label that boasted artists like Jimmy Cliff, the Upsetters, the Maytals, Desmond Dekker and more.
“Black and white kids were united through their love of music and style; invariably, a lot of that music was the Trojan stuff,” Letts said of the famed Jamaican label that boasted artists like Jimmy Cliff, the Upsetters, the Maytals, Desmond Dekker and more.
- 12/11/2019
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
There can’t be many pairs of hands as safe as Don Letts’s when it comes to music knowledge. A cultural polymath who has been front-and-centre of the music scene for over 40 years – as a musician, DJ, radio presenter, Grammy Award-winning music video and film director. Letts was one of the key figures in the introduction of reggae to the punk movement, working particularly closely with The Clash.
He’s returned to reggae, celebrating his first love with a series of podcasts for Turtle Bay, and in his latest Reggae45 podcast, he has zeroed in on reggae’s place in Jamaican cinema. “With this episode Don takes the term soundtrack from a literal point of view, delving deep into the world of film and how the sound has a parallel connection with the story on the screen.”
The Citizen Kane of Jamaican cinema is Perry Henzell’s 1972 crime thriller...
He’s returned to reggae, celebrating his first love with a series of podcasts for Turtle Bay, and in his latest Reggae45 podcast, he has zeroed in on reggae’s place in Jamaican cinema. “With this episode Don takes the term soundtrack from a literal point of view, delving deep into the world of film and how the sound has a parallel connection with the story on the screen.”
The Citizen Kane of Jamaican cinema is Perry Henzell’s 1972 crime thriller...
- 11/26/2018
- by Cai Ross
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Tony Sokol Oct 30, 2018
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow turned a depression-era crime spree into an American legend. Love Is A Gun continues the tale.
"I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde," Desmond Dekker and the Aces sang in their 1969 reggae hit "Israelites." Unless it's in the movies. Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, which starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, broke the boundaries of stylized violence to expand the gangster movie genre. Chloë Grace Moretz and Jack O’Connell are attached to star as the iconic thieving lovers in Love Is A Gun, coming from director Kiké Maillo, according to Variety.
Love Is a Gun is based on Jeff Guinn's bestselling book Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. The screenplay was written by Shelton Turner (Up in the Air), wit revisions by Johnny Newman...
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow turned a depression-era crime spree into an American legend. Love Is A Gun continues the tale.
"I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde," Desmond Dekker and the Aces sang in their 1969 reggae hit "Israelites." Unless it's in the movies. Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, which starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, broke the boundaries of stylized violence to expand the gangster movie genre. Chloë Grace Moretz and Jack O’Connell are attached to star as the iconic thieving lovers in Love Is A Gun, coming from director Kiké Maillo, according to Variety.
Love Is a Gun is based on Jeff Guinn's bestselling book Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. The screenplay was written by Shelton Turner (Up in the Air), wit revisions by Johnny Newman...
- 10/31/2018
- Den of Geek
I interviewed Pierce Brosnan in conjunction with his third outing as James Bond, in Michael Apted's The World Is Not Enough, in 1999. Brosnan was alternately charming, erudite, thoughtful and intense during our two hour chat. His native intelligence shone through it all, as did a sense of decency which many people seem to acquire after enduring and surviving hardship in their formative years.
Bonding With Brosnan
By
Alex Simon
There are several dangers in becoming a cultural icon, not the least of which is the stigma that your public will forever keep you imprisoned in the mold of your iconography, allowing the recipient a privileged, if imprisoned, existence, particularly if that person is an artist. Sean Connery faced just such a dilemma during the height of James Bond-mania in the mid-60's. A serious actor, Connery desperately wanted to break out of the action hero mold that was British Superspy James Bond,...
Bonding With Brosnan
By
Alex Simon
There are several dangers in becoming a cultural icon, not the least of which is the stigma that your public will forever keep you imprisoned in the mold of your iconography, allowing the recipient a privileged, if imprisoned, existence, particularly if that person is an artist. Sean Connery faced just such a dilemma during the height of James Bond-mania in the mid-60's. A serious actor, Connery desperately wanted to break out of the action hero mold that was British Superspy James Bond,...
- 6/24/2015
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
The lyric video for Vampire Weekend's "Ya Hey" -- the latest song to arrive from new album "Modern Vampires of the City" -- is all popped champagne bottles and fountains of foam. But there's also protective bibs. And nobody drinking. The New York band has never shied away from commenting, even sarcastically, at class and youth. Here, there's also the acknowledgement of "black" music influences (hear gospel? reggae?) blending with their brand of pop and rock as it pays homage to other clashes and melting pots, of the Motherland with the Fatherland, Judeo-Christian imagery mixing with Zionism and Rastafarianism, Desmond Dekker...
- 5/4/2013
- Hitfix
In "The Last Wailer," John Jeremiah Sullivan writes, "Consider that in Kingston, in one decade, you had the emergence of Bob Marley and the Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, the Pioneers and the Paragons, the Melodians and the Ethiopians, the Heptones and the Slickers, the Gaylads, plus an index of people whose names you maybe don't know but who, once heard, are never forgotten. A vortex of world-class talents."
Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald ("One Day In September" and "The Last King of Scotland") is tackling the life and times of Jamaica's best-known singer in a new documentary, simply titled, "Marley." Released today, 4/20, the legend of one of the finest reggae artists continues through interviews, never-before-seen footage and unreleased songs in this full-length film. See the trailer above, and scroll down for images.
Bob Marley in a scene from "Marley." Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Jeremy Marre,...
Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald ("One Day In September" and "The Last King of Scotland") is tackling the life and times of Jamaica's best-known singer in a new documentary, simply titled, "Marley." Released today, 4/20, the legend of one of the finest reggae artists continues through interviews, never-before-seen footage and unreleased songs in this full-length film. See the trailer above, and scroll down for images.
Bob Marley in a scene from "Marley." Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Jeremy Marre,...
- 4/20/2012
- by Kathleen Massara
- Huffington Post
Reggae legend Bob Marley's life and career are the subject of a new documentary, "Marley," hitting theaters and VOD in just over a week from today. We premiered the "Marley" poster earlier this year, and now, we have an exclusive clip featuring the "Buffalo Soldier" singer, Jamaican recording artist Jimmy Cliff and more weighing in on how Marley first met Desmond Dekker, the famous ska musician who died in 2006. Watch the clip in the player below.
"Marley" opens in theaters and premieres on VOD April 20th. For more information about the movie, check out the film's Facebook page.
"Marley" opens in theaters and premieres on VOD April 20th. For more information about the movie, check out the film's Facebook page.
- 4/12/2012
- by Josh Wigler
- MTV Movies Blog
Jamaican filmmaker Perry Henzell‘s 1972 classic The Harder They Come was a groundbreaking film for a number of reasons. A tale of an aspiring reggae star named Ivanhoe Martin (played by Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff) who gets caught up in a life of public crime that only helps popularize his record, it was the very first feature-length film to come out of the then decade old country. When it eventually made its way to America in 1973, it became a massive hit with midnight movie audiences.
But The Harder They Come‘s greatest influence was on music, not film. Its soundtrack, made up of singles released in Jamaica between 1967 and 1972 from Jimmy Cliff, The Maytals, Desmond Dekker, and more, gave international audiences their first real taste of that style of reggae music. Besides having a heavy influence on English punk rockers, this record is what paved the way for Bob Marley to break overseas.
But The Harder They Come‘s greatest influence was on music, not film. Its soundtrack, made up of singles released in Jamaica between 1967 and 1972 from Jimmy Cliff, The Maytals, Desmond Dekker, and more, gave international audiences their first real taste of that style of reggae music. Besides having a heavy influence on English punk rockers, this record is what paved the way for Bob Marley to break overseas.
- 4/11/2011
- by James Battaglia
- The Film Stage
Trudie Styler and original director Perry Henzell's daughter are to produce an update of the 1972 cult Jamaican thriller
After numerous failed attempts, the cult Jamaican thriller The Harder They Come may at last be set for a remake. Producer-actor Trudie Styler has joined forces with, among others, Justine Henzell – daughter of the original's director Perry Henzell (who died in 2006) – who now owns the rights.
The first Harder They Come, made in 1972, starred Jimmy Cliff as a naive country boy who turns up in the Jamaican capital Kingston hoping to make it big as a musician. It is generally credited with popularising reggae in Europe and the Us, and boasted a bestselling soundtrack including contributions from Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker and Cliff himself, who recorded the title track for the film.
Styler, who successfully graduated from acting to producing, with credits including Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,...
After numerous failed attempts, the cult Jamaican thriller The Harder They Come may at last be set for a remake. Producer-actor Trudie Styler has joined forces with, among others, Justine Henzell – daughter of the original's director Perry Henzell (who died in 2006) – who now owns the rights.
The first Harder They Come, made in 1972, starred Jimmy Cliff as a naive country boy who turns up in the Jamaican capital Kingston hoping to make it big as a musician. It is generally credited with popularising reggae in Europe and the Us, and boasted a bestselling soundtrack including contributions from Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Dekker and Cliff himself, who recorded the title track for the film.
Styler, who successfully graduated from acting to producing, with credits including Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,...
- 4/11/2011
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
"Made in Dagenham" is based on the true story about working class women fighting for equal pay with "one foot in the kitchen, one foot on the factory floor" in 1960's England. One of those feel good equal rights flicks with lots of empowering dick jokes that I'd probably never go and see -- but it has a killer soundtrack.
Among the 17 tracks that inspire the working girls, lead by Sally Hawkins, to stick it to the man are oldies by James Brown, The Kinks, Small Faces, Dusty Springfield, The Troggs, and reggae genius Desmond Dekker. Not all of these appear to have made it into the film (comparing it to the press release from Sony Pictures reveals at least 6 tracks not in the film) and The Playlist points out that the album notes that it "features music from and inspired by the film." Well, whatever works. Have a listen...
Among the 17 tracks that inspire the working girls, lead by Sally Hawkins, to stick it to the man are oldies by James Brown, The Kinks, Small Faces, Dusty Springfield, The Troggs, and reggae genius Desmond Dekker. Not all of these appear to have made it into the film (comparing it to the press release from Sony Pictures reveals at least 6 tracks not in the film) and The Playlist points out that the album notes that it "features music from and inspired by the film." Well, whatever works. Have a listen...
- 11/29/2010
- by Brandon Kim
- ifc.com
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