By Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Globe and Mail
May 6, 2016
Special to The Globe and Mail
May 6, 2016
The singer known as Lord Tanamo shared
with audiences around the world the buoyant sounds of ska music born
in the shantytowns of his native Jamaica.
As a vocalist with the Skatalites, Lord
Tanamo gave voice to a music that would thrust his island homeland to
the forefront of popular culture. Although the band's original lineup
lasted less than two years, the group's recordings had a profound
impact.
Ska melded traditional island music
with American blues and jazz, creating a fast-paced, infectious,
danceable sound with a steady bass line and an emphasis on the
upbeat. It was the sound of poor, black Jamaica and a precursor to
reggae. Ska has undergone at least two revivals since the Skatalites
broke up in 1965. The surviving members have had several band
reunions with Lord Tanamo joining them for tours of Europe, Asia and
South America.
The singer had already settled in
Canada when hired in 1969 to perform at the Jamaica pavilion in
Montreal at the post-Expo exhibition known as Man and His World.
Based in Toronto, he performed on occasion in the city even as he
returned frequently to his homeland to record.
In 2008, the singer suffered a stroke,
which left him unable to speak, a cruel affliction for one whose
voice had entertained audiences for so many years. He communicated by
batting his eyelashes. He lived in an assisted care facility in
Toronto until his death from natural causes on April 15. He was 81.
With a lollipop physique, the singer
was neither a crooner nor a belter. Lord Tanamo preferred a relaxed,
seemingly carefree vocal styling, capturing in recordings the feel of
the easygoing street musician and hotel entertainer he had been as a
young man.
The singer was also a noted
percussionist for his playing of the rumba box, a bass lamellophone
also known as a tinkle box. The instrument provides the heavy bass
line typical of Jamaican music and is usually played by sitting atop
the box while reaching between the legs to pluck the keys.
In island fashion, he took as his
performance name a noble title paired in his case with an exotic
locale, Tanamo (pronounced TAH-nah-mo) being a shortened version of
Guantanamo, the Cuban city across the Caribbean Sea from Jamaica.
Joseph Abraham Gordon was born on
October 2, 1934, in Kingston, Jamaica, to Julia (née Dunkley) and
Charles Simeon Gordon, who operated a business in the craft market
aimed at tourists. The boy, the youngest of 15 children, remembered
first hearing the sound of a rumba box when Cecil Lawes, later known
as Count Razza, visited the family home with one. The instrument
fascinated him.
“I liked the sound from the first time I heard
it,” Lord Tanamo told Tim Perlich of Toronto's Now newspaper in
2002. “Later, when I was a teenager, I began performing on the
corner with Cecil and his rumba box. In the day I'd put on torn pants
and a straw hat and sing calypso to hustle the tourists, and then at
night I'd put on my suit and tie and sing ballads with a band.”
As a young man, Mr. Gordon performed in
swanky hotels along the island's north coast — the Royal Caribbean,
the Casa Montego and the Casa Blanca. He sang calypso, the
Trinidadian style that became a sensation with North American
audiences in the early 1950s, and he also sang mento, the unique
music of the Jamaican countryside known for witty, sometimes ribald
lyrics and an emphasis on the upbeat.
Meanwhile, the Kingston businessman
Stanley Motta, a prominent electronics and appliance merchant,
launched a domestic recording industry by opening a recording studio
and launching his own label, M.R.S., for Motta's Recording Studio.
Lord Tanamo had his first hit at age 20 with “Crinoline Incident,”
released as a 78 r.p.m. record. Strongly influenced by the stylings
of calypso singer Lord Kitchener (a Trinidadian born as Aldwyn
Roberts), Lord Tanamo would remain a presence on the Jamaican charts
for years to come.
When Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong arrived
on the island with his orchestra for an engagement in 1957, he was
greeted at the airport by dignitaries, while a band led by Lord
Tanamo played calypsos, including a number titled “The Things
Satchmo Said,” written by Tanamo for the occasion.
Radio Jamaica regularly played Lord
Tanamo's songs, including “Come Down,” which peaked at No. 3 on
the Jamaican charts in 1963. His first album, “Come Come Come to
Jamaica,” featuring a selection of mento tunes, was released the
following year. The singer also performed live in theatres on
stage-and-screen cards including dozens of acts, including comics and
dancers, as well as movie double bills.
The evolution of the ska genre
coincided with the heady days following Jamaican independence in
1962. At the heart of the new sound was a band of crackerjack
instrumentalists who had attended the Alpha Boys School. The
Skatalites formed in 1964, featuring two tenor saxophones, an alto
saxophone, a trombone, a trumpet, an upright bass, drums, piano,
guitar and several vocalists, including Lord Tanamo and Doreen
Shaffer, though many of their most popular numbers, including “Guns
of Navarone,” were primarily instrumental tunes.
Lord Tanamo took credit for coining the
band's clever, punning post-Sputnik name, although other members
dispute his claim. In any case, the Skatalites quickly became the
most popular band on an island filled with terrific musicians. In
1965, the group performed aboard a float in the independence day
parade in Kingston, preceded by the Jamaican Agricultural Marketing
Corporation and followed by a bevy of beauty queens.
For a time, Lord Tanamo had several
songs on the Jamaican charts, both as a solo artist and as a
Skatalite vocalist.
One of his more popular songs was “I'm
in the Mood for Ska,” a bouncy cover of “I'm in the Mood for
Love,” a song first made popular by Louis Armstrong.
After the Skatalites broke up, the
Jamaica Tourist Board hired Lord Tanamo as a troubadour promoting
island music. In January, 1966, he performed at the Eaton's store in
downtown Toronto with a calypso band as part of a promotion for the
tourist board and Air Canada. The band, with members wearing torn
straw hats and ruffle-sleeved shirts, played in the store throughout
the day.
A local woman invited the band to her
home in Etobicoke for dinner. When Lord Tanamo telephoned to announce
the band was on the way, the call was answered by the woman's
daughter. After he hung up, the singer told his bandmates, “I am
going to marry this girl.” He married Joan Fletcher in a ceremony
in Jamaica that December.
In 1969, the singer and his
Calypsonians, including old friend Mr. Lawes on rumba box and Wilbert
Stephenson on bamboo saxophone, travelled to Montreal for a
four-month gig at the Jamaican pavilion at the successor to the
world's fair.
In Toronto, he formed a mento group
that became the quartet for the keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, another
Skatalite original who had also settled in Canada. The two men also
owned and operated the Record Nook with Karl Mullings, a shop which
became a popular gathering place for the Caribbean diaspora.
On one of his return trips to Jamaica,
Lord Tanamo recorded a reggae cover of “Rainy Night in Georgia,”
a plaintive version which spent seven weeks at the top of the
Jamaican charts.
On his many forays to his homeland,
Lord Tanamo recorded backed by the likes of the famed reggae rhythm
duo Sly & Robbie (drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie
Shakespeare). In 1979, an album, “Calypso Reggae,” was produced
and arranged by Bunny Lee (born Edward O'Sullivan Lee), a prominent
figure on the Jamaican music scene.
A revival of ska in Britain in the late
1970s led to a reunion of the Skatalites in 1983. The band played
together for the first time in 18 years at the Reggae Sunsplash
festival in Montego Bay, where Lord Tanamo delivered “a sensational
performance,” according to Jamaica Gleaner newspaper. He joined the
Skatalites on several subsequent global tours and sat in with the
band for a performance at the Glastonbury Festival in England in
2003.
In 2000, he revisited many of his mento
and ska hits on a compact disk titled, “The Best Place in the
World,” backed by Dr. Ring-Ding and the Senior Allstars, a German
band with which he toured Europe.
At home in Toronto, he performed at
such night clubs as the Silver Dollar and the El Mocambo. In 2002, he
sang old-time mento tunes and played the rumba box during a Legends
of Ska concert at the Palais Royale, which was filmed by Brad Klein
for a documentary of the same name released last year.
The singer was honoured at an event
called Canada Salutes Icons 2003, in which the calypsonian Jayson (a
Juno-winning singer named John Perez) and the singer and dancer
Pluggy Satchmo (John Gilbert Peck) were also praised for their
cultural contributions. Lord Tanamo had to skip the ceremony as he
was touring overseas with the Skatalites. At a London show during the
tour, he was urged by bassist Lloyd Brevett to give the crowd “some
real old time music.”
Lord Tanamo looked out at a crowded venue
filled with young dancers before pronouncing, “Old thing? A new
thing this!”
He leaves Joan, his wife of 49 years,
from whom he had separated, as well as their two sons and a daughter.
He is also survived by two sons and a daughter from a previous
relationship with Helena Khouri of Jamaica. He was predeceased by
their son, Joseph, who was killed during political strife on the
island in 1979. Lord Tanamo is also survived by five siblings and
several grandchildren.
A visitor to his room at the
assisted-living facility noted a framed invitation to Barack Obama's
inauguration on a wall, while his beloved rumba box rested in a place
of honour in a corner.
In 1989, his cover of “I'm in the
Mood for Love” was licensed for a 30-second British television
commercial in which a bored man has an ecstatic reaction after being
served chicken coated in Paxo breadcrumbs. The spot thrust Lord
Tanamo's 25-year-old recording onto the charts, where it peaked at
No. 58, his only hit in the United Kingdom.
