PART ONE: “BOOK OF LIFE”
“THE DAY IS COMING UP SO SOON, WHEN THERE SHALL BE THE FALLING OF ALL CAPITALISTS, WHEN I AND I PEOPLE SHALL GO HOME AND VANQUISH POPE PAUL DOWN INNA ROME, ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT IT’S SURE GONNA BE DREAD!”
The great Rockers stalwart Junior Delgado describes him most appropriately as “a blessed singer, a blessed child” because his gift was pure and true. What came to many Jamaican vocalists through years and years of relentless vocal rehearsal came to this“blessed youth” like the sunrise that greets every day, almost as if he was divinely ordained to deliver the message. Like those who came before him – Marley, Garvey, Malcolm – this prophet and poet of the black struggle was given little time to deliver his message in this realm, however, he used every second, every minute, every hour of that time to speak directly and unapologetically to the injustices of his world. While he was not the greatest singer or songwriter of his time, he was, without a doubt, the best messenger – capable of delivering Jah message with an ease, efficiency and sincerity that we haven’t seen since.
Hugh Mundell is a classic study in the dichotomy of the individual, the struggle within. While he sang with the voice of an angel about unity and the universal notion of ‘one love’ among all men, he was by all accounts a rather difficult person to get to know. Upon meeting Mundell for the first time in 1981 at the Karnac House, a Caribbean Community Centre in Westbourne Park, London, music journalist Roz Reines described the 18-year old artist as a “human iceberg.” As she reported in the November 1981 issue of New Musical Express:
“We exchange greetings, at least, the road manager and I exchange greetings, while Hugh glares fiercely at a point just behind my head…’Hi’ replied the roadie, smiling equally warmly. What follows is a scene straight out of a Marx Brothers movie, or a Japanese businessman’s convention. Every time I try to engage Hugh in conversation, he just glares at me and his roadie is forced to respond. Meet Hugh Mundell, the human iceberg.”
Hugh Christopher Mundell was born and died in East Kingston, Jamaica. Born the 14th of June 1962, Mundell is the last of four children and the only son born to Theresa and Alvin Mundell. Unlike many who entered the reggae sound business in the 1970s, Mundell is blessed to be born into a tight-knit middle class family. His father Alvin Mundell was a successful and well-respected attorney who moved his family often. It isn’t until the early 1970s that the family settles in the Red Hills area of St. Andrews parish. Hugh attends St. Margaret’s Preparatory School, Kingsway Preparatory School, and enters the Ardenne High School on Hope Road in 1976, the same high school that graduated Shower Posse boss and notorious drug kingpin Michael Christopher Coke AKA “The President” AKA “Dudus.” It is at the Ardenne High School, at the age of twelve, that Hugh Mundell starts writing his first lyrics and singing. Mundell’s older sister Joanna, a student at the Excelsior High School along with a host of other youths from the neighborhood, including Wayne Wade, Winston McAnuff, and Earl Daley (Earl Sixteen). Mundell strikes up a friendship with the three youths and they are often seen hanging in and around the Mundell house.
It is at the Ardenne High School, at the age of twelve, that Hugh Mundell starts writing his first lyrics and singing. Mundell’s older sister Joanna, a student at the Excelsior High School along with a host of other youths from the neighborhood, including Wayne Wade, Winston McAnuff, and Earl Daley (Earl Sixteen). Mundell strikes up a friendship with the three youths and they are often seen hanging in and around the Mundell house.
| Mundell at home |
As Winston McAnuff recalls “the Mundell family lived in the house opposite to that of my sister, with whom I lived at the time. Wayne lived the next house down from Mundell.”
As a youth, Mundell spends much of his time running races with other neighborhood boys of his age. He is so competitive as a runner that many think he will develop into an athlete. However, as he enters puberty he discovers his voice and he begins spending countless hours on the street where he lives in the early mornings singing some popular songs.
It isn’t at all strange that the youths show an early interest in music, as the reggae music coming from “down a yaad” was the reigning newspaper of the day to Jamaican youths, who exhibited little interest in the rumours and hearsay published in the politically-influenced Star, Daily News, and Gleaner. The boys spend their class time writing lyrics and arranging the next hit tunes in their head while the teacher drones on about white English writers and poets with names like Keating and Yeats.
“From when I was about 12 or 13 years of age I started writing lyrics in school and I was also living in an avenue with two artists – Wayne Wade and Winston – and we used to play and sing together taking turns” explains Mundell in a November 1980 interview with Sounds magazine’s Edwin Pouncey. “So as from a youth I used to love singing in front of an audience and I would admire the singers around.”
“From I’m a youth,very young, I say I love to sing, do some singing out there. I used to love singing from a youth and my father love singing. My mommy sing and wash. More time me used to pick up the habit, not really the habit, the vibration of singing. I used to take in some stage shows and say, ‘boy one day I like deh deh so an have the mic in front of an audience and let them know what’s going down. When I start going to school now, high school, I start write my own lyrics. I used to sing my own lyrics. I used to write and I used to sing in what them call a soul way, but when I really check it that wasn’t the right way. I say boy, me come from Jamaica, me shoulda really make some reggae music, cultural music, my own yard music. Also among Pablo started jamming little reggae and thing. I say that is the kind of music I really have to go into.”
“A GREAT, GREAT, GREAT DAY THAT WOULD BE.
SO LONG YOU HAVE LOOK IN THE SKY,
TOO LATE SHALL BE YOUR CRY, YEA-YEA.”
HUGH MUNDELL, “JAH FIRE WILL BE BURNING”
| Hugh Mundell 1980 (Photo: Adrian Boot) |
It is actually through Mundell’s friendship with McAnuff and family friend Boris Gardiner that he is able to break into the business in 1975. In early 1975, record producer Joe Gibbs set up a new studio and record pressing plant at Retirement Crescent and started working with sound engineer Errol Thompson, who used to be at Randy’s Studio. Together they are known as “The Mighty Two,” and along with his studio band The Professionals (including bassist Robbie Shakespeare, drummer Sly Dunbar and guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith) they produce hundreds of singles, including the hits “Money In My Pocket” by Dennis Brown, “Ah So We Stay” by Big Youth and “Eviction” by Black Uhuru.
As McAnuff explains in a 2004 interview with Peter-I at Reggae Vibes “[w]e’re talking the 70’s. Yeah. And then I went to Kingston and I was living near to Hugh Mundell, coincidentally. I started checking some producers to see if I could record some songs. I went to Joe Gibbs one day and I was there playing the guitar, waiting for Errol Thompson. And then Flabba Holt heard the song ‘Malcolm X’ and then he ran to call Errol T to tell him ‘this youth have a wicked song’, an’ t’ing. So he came and he listened so he say we should come on Thursday. I used to work out that time with a keyboard player, from Black Uhuru, called Franklyn Waul (aka ‘Bubbler’ ). We used to go to high school together so we worked out the songs early in the morning before devotion, on the school piano, y’know. So I decided… I was doing a little recording then with Derrick Harriott too, and then I found out he was playing better than the (other) musicians so I carried him to play on that song ‘Malcolm X’. So I bring about Hugh Mundell as well, y’know. So he did a song about (sings) ‘natty dread is not on First street, natty dread is not on Third street, nowhere is natty dread…’, Hugh Mundell, y’know? I have never heard the song released. After – I tried to sing the song, but it wasn’t up to standard, so I went to Earl Sixteen and he sang the song. Then I was waiting to hear the song released yunno? And then we saw the song came out with Dennis Brown, they (The Mighty Two) gave the song to Dennis Brown.”
Joe Gibbs takes note of Mundell’s voice during this initial meeting involving McAnuff and the recording of the song ‘Malcolm X.’ Gibbs offers to produce and record the little song that Mundell sang in the studio that day – a song which eventually is titled “Where Is Natty Dread?” (the song was seemingly never pressed to record).
| Mundell at Port Maria (Photo by Jerry Stein) |
During one of his first visits to Joe Gibbs’ studio, Mundell has a chance run-in with devout Rastafarian and dub maestro Augustus Pablo. Pablo steps up to defend Mundell when one of the session musicians commented that Mundell should leave the studio and come back when he hits puberty. It’s the sort of hazing that occurs regularly in the studio, however, Pablo is unimpressed. Pablo’s gesture cements a friendship that will alter the course of Mundell’s personal, spiritual, and professional life forever, and place him among the truly elite Jamaican artists of the golden age of reggae. Mundell runs into Pablo once again several weeks later at Aquarius Studios, where studio owner and producer Herman Lin Choy chastises the young boy for skipping school.
Mundell explains in his November 1980 interview with Sounds magazine’s Edwin Pouncey:
“I did one recording for Joe Gibbs for Errol T Records which was not released called ‘Where Is Natty Dread’ and one day I was at the studio and [Pablo] saw me at the Joe Gibbs session ‘cos he used to run around and check it out y’know. And he asked me to come and do some recordings for him so I said ‘Yeah!’ So I went by his house and started rehearsing and he create the rhythms. The following Saturday we went to the studio where we recorded my first two songs for release called ‘Africa Must Be Free’ and ‘My, My.’”
“THINKING ABOUT THE RAIN,
THAT SPILLED BETTER ON MY WINDOW PANE.
AND THE SINFUL PEOPLE,
WHO COME A LONG WAY IN VAIN”
HUGH MUNDELL – “MY MIND”
| Hugh Mundell (1962-83) & Augustus Pablo (1954-99) |
In an interview with Lol Bell Brown and the Rootsman (Dub Catcher #8), Pablo talks about meeting Mundell:
“Well, I know Hugh from when he was likkle, y’know, likkle bit ‘im and Earl Sixteen. Through I saw ‘im in the studio [Joe Gibbs] one day an’ some musician was ‘andle ‘im a way, so I kinda defend ‘im an’ tek ‘im away from them, an’, y’know, ‘im say ‘im sing, an’ when he mek me ‘ear ‘im music, I say ‘Wha!’ ‘Im mus’ ‘ave to do some music for Errol T [Gibbs’ resident engineer], ca’ Errol did like ‘im voice, but them wasn’t really showin’ that much interest. So I jus’ tek ‘im on from them, an’ ‘im songs were some dangerous reality. An’ I jus’ came an’ rehearse one time an’ from I rehearse ‘im, he was goin’ school still, y’know, ‘im was 11 plus, an’ he jus’ stop goin’ school an’ start recordin’. I think it Stratch [Lee Perry] studio me carry ‘im record firs’, ca’ them time I still ‘ave a vibes with Scratch an’ ‘im jus’ gi’ me some free studio time [for] ‘Let’s All Unite’, y’know? It was a nice tune to bring ‘im on the scene. Then we recorded ‘Africa Must Be Free’ down at Channel One. I really made that riddim before as an instrumental, an’ I jus’ had it there, I never knew what I was g’wine do with it all time, an’ ‘im hear that riddim an’ say, ‘Yeah’, ‘im can fit in the lyrics ‘pon it. To me that was his hit to the world, although it wasn’t a number one tune in Jamaica, but it was jus’ a number one to the world, the people in the world, the roots people too…………Junior Reid was in the car that day he died, y’know? Junior Reid jus’ sittung inna the back an’ the bullet pass Junior Reid an’ hit Mundell in his head back.”
Under the watchful eye and guiding hand of Pablo, Mundell commits his life to music and Rastafari, spending days and nights in the studio recording and reasoning.It is during this period from 1975 to 1979 that Mundell cuts his teeth at the dance deejaying for Pablo’s Rockers Sound System. Taking on the pseudonym ‘Jah Levi,’ Mundell toasts over Rockers riddims selected by Pablo’s brother Dougie Swaby. Pablo protojé and friend of Mundell ‘Jah Bull’ explains in a 2000 interview with Ras Salvador Navarette for Small Axe.
“I met [Mundell] around 1975. He was a very young youth at the time but a very serious youth. When I say serious I mean he was like a likkle man, not a likkle boy. When me remember that youth deh some times it makes me feel like… like pain, yunno? I felt anger and sadness when they killed Hugh Mundell.”
“Hugh Mundell is the one who introduced me to Augustus Pablo. Pablo was living in somewhere Garden Town by Grove during that time, and I was living in Tavern. So that was very close by. We first meet at his house, I didn’t know where he lived so Hugh took me there to meet him. I don’t remember what occured the first meeting but through the powers of Jah we ignite. We became good friends, we get good vibes from each other right from the start. Then he introduced me to the studio just like that. I used to go by Pablo’s house everyday, we used to eat, cook food together, praise Jah together and smoke the hola communion together, which is herb and give praises to the most high Jah Rastafari.
Pablo used to run his sound with him brother Dougie. Dougie was the selector. You see Pablo was the star, he would just come, say about 10:00 and select. Yuh know, like the special selector, but it was Dougie whose job that. When I get fe know Pablo I would just be like a guest on his sound. Me not really play on Pablo’s sound deh. Me and Hugh Mundell be deejaying on his sound. Then Pablo would play his melodica live, play it live on stage, live deh! Live in the dancehall!
Hugh Mundell was the resident deejay. And maybe sometimes Dillenger. Mundell used to deejay as Jah Levi and sing as Hugh Mundell, just like how George Nooks would sing as himself and dj as Prince Mohammed, seen? At first Hugh would sing on the sound but because he used to play his own records he would sing less because the version would have some of his vocals, so he start to deejay on the sound. After that Pablo record him as Jah Levi.”
Between 1975 and 1977, Mundell voices several sessions with Pablo at a handful of recording studios including Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark, Channel One, Harry Js, and Joe Gibbs with foundation session players including drummers Ben Bow, Carlton “Santa” Davis, Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, and Jacob “Killer” Miller; bassists Robbie Shakespeare and Leroy Sibbles; and guitarists Clayton Downie, Geoffrey Chung, and Earl “Chinna” Smith. Carlton “Tetrack” Hines talks about those Pablo sessions during a recent interv iew with Reggae Vibes:
“Budget was always tight. And no matter how tight the budget was, when you go to the studio with Pablo, some of the budget, that studio time (laughs) always go in the way of some herb smokin’, y’know, the chalice haffe bu’n. Going to the studio with Pablo was a whole t’ing in itself. It’s like ‘three or four cars’. Tetrack drive up an’ Pablo come with two taxis. You’d have man like Ricky Grant with a container with some irie Ital stew, you’d ‘ave Jah Bull come out with a chalice, you have Mundell, another man come out with some jelly coconut an’ cane [sugar cane] an’ orange, an’ some other people jus’ there to support the whole thing. And when we got together it was just a irie vibe, idren and idren. We used to use Harry J’s studio a lot. Pablo never had the money to really finance studio sessions the way he would have liked. The good t’ing is that Pablo was a musician, so he was able to get good work done very quickly. And part of the reason is that, when Pablo came to the studio to do a recording, he already had the chords worked out. He also had the bass and drum track set, y’understan’ wha’ I’m sayin’. So the riddims get straightened out real fast. Sometimes we record a song and we would like to make a lickle change here an’ there, but we couldn’t do it because the funds jus’ wasn’t there, so you have to do the bes’ you can. When we did the ‘Let’s Get Started’ album, wow, we voiced like the majority of those songs in one session! One session, song after song after song. There was no opportunity to do several takes of the song. You have to just rock it, run it, jus’ like that.”
It is during these sessions that Augustus Pablo invites two neighborhood kids, an eleven-year old Wycliffe “Steelie” Johnson and a fourteen-year old Cleveland “Clevie” Browne, to play their first session. As Clevie explains in an interview at the Red Bull Music Academy:
“Yeah, our friendship goes back to the early ’70s. He had just started playing keyboards at that time, I was just learning drums. We found out we had similar tastes in music. The songs he liked, I liked. We just started jamming together. Everyday we’d go into this room where I had my old battered drum kit and a little keyboard. We just jammed together but we didn’t know then we would have a production team. We were invited to play on a recording, our first ever, by Augustus Pablo, to play on a Hugh Mundell session and some songs with a singer called Earl Sixteen.”
Steelie also talked about his involvement with the Africa Must Be Free sessions during the same interview:
“I actually have the track here, the Hugh Mundell. ‘Africa Must Be Free By 1983 Dub.’ This was when I was 11 and [Clevie] was 14, I’m playing keyboards.”
“Let’s All Unite”, “My Mind,” “Africa Must Be Free By 1983,” “Why Do Black Man Fuss And Fight,” “Book Of Life,” “Run Revolution A Come,” “Day Of Judgement,” ”Jah Will Provide,” “Ital Slip.”
Of course, these nine roots reggae tracks make up the entirety of Mundell’s groundbreaking 1978 album Africa Must Be Free By 1983, the title of which comes from a speech given by His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I.
“AFRICA MUST BE FREE FROM COLONIALISM AND ALL KIND OF VARIOUS ISM AND SCHISM. A LOT OF CHANGES IS TAKING PLACE NOW AS EVERYONE CAN SEE.”
HUGH MUNDELL, BLACK ECHOES, NOVEMBER 8, 1980
PART TWO: “GOING PLACES”
Upon its release in 1978, a reviewer in Sounds called the album “a staggering musical masterpiece which hasn’t left [the] turntable.” The reviewer goes on to make several surprising proclamations about Mundell’s debut album:“This most precocious youngster (can’t be over 17 if one is to trust the cover pic) has, with the help and guidance of mentor Augustus Agustus Pablo (yes, Jah’s guidance too, sorry) come up with the most soulful collection of roots tunes I have ever heard. No jive, my brethren. It just buries itself at the core of your heart and soul and stays there…Mundell’s vocal chords have a raspy, jazzy quality closer to Nina Simone than to normal reggae crooning. Sorry, but humility is all this usually adamant unbeliever can muster in this particular case.”
Rick Anderson of All Music captures the essence of what makes Mundell so great on this album:
“Mundell’s artlessly fervent singing is attractive far out of proportion to his technical skill. It’s the sincerity and devotion in his voice that make successes of songs like ‘Let’s All Unite’ and ‘My Mind’ — that and the rock-solid instrumental backing of Pablo’s studio band, which at this time included bassist and trombonist Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace and guitarists Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith and Jeffrey Chung.”
“AFRICA IS A TITLE GIVEN TO A CERTAIN SET OF PEOPLE. LIFE FIRST BEGIN FROM THERE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. AND SAYING AFRICA MUST BE FREE, NOT ONLY DEALING WITH THE AFRICANS THAT LIVE IN AFRICA, BUT WE’RE DEALING WITH EACH AND EVERYONE THAT ACCEPT THEMSELVES AS AFRICAN, OR AN ETHIOPIAN.”
HUGH MUNDELL, BLACK ECHOES, NOVEMBER 8, 1980
I’ve often struggled with what it is that makes Mundell’s music so appealing. What is it that makes his message resonate with fans who seemingly have little at stake in his struggle? What is it that makes Mundell such an effective messenger? Of course Mundell has a great voice. In addition, he sings with a sincerity, authenticity, and weight that is unparalleled for an artist his age. However, it is the naivité of hope – the fact that such a powerful lyric emerges from the innocence of his youth – that really hammers the message home. How does a 14-year old boy know about the punishing effect of capitalism on the poor? Why is he concerning himself with such thoughts? This is what gives weight to his words. As a society, we reserve special consideration for the innocence of youth. We protect our children from the perceived ills and injustices in the world until they are mature enough to observe and comprehend them on their own. It is therefore striking to hear a 14-year old boy sing with such passion and understanding about the worst things in life.
Notable reggae historian, author and producer of Blood and Fire fame, Steve Barrow, attributes much of Mundell’s success to Pablo’s innovative production. He discussed his thoughts in an interview conducted for this piece.
“For me, it’s all about the production by Pablo. I don’t think that Mundell’s much of a singer – in the sense that great soulful and expressive vocalists like Delroy Wilson Alton Ellis, John Holt, Ken Boothe and Slim Smith certainly are [or were]. He’s a roots chanter, but a good one, up there with Spear, or Prince Alla, or even Bob Marley. That’s how I see them – as chanters – limited as vocalists, but great at getting their message across. In fact, with them and others of that type, the message is often more ‘important’ than the execution. In that sense, Mundell – for me – is definitely in that category. I also think that [Mundell’s] own attempts at production were nowhere near as successful as the Pablo set…and Africa Must Be Free By 1983 remains a great album, one of the 100 best works of Jamaican music.”
“SO WHEN REALLY REASONING OR SINGING, IS JUST A UNIVERSAL THING, NOT REALLY JUST FOR ONE SET OF PEOPLE, BUT FOR EVERYONE.”
HUGH MUNDELL, BLACK ECHOES, NOVEMBER 8, 1980
Riding high on the critical and global success of his debut album, Mundell enters the studio with Pablo again in 1978 to record the singles “Great Tribulation” and “Little Short Man,” the latter a reference to His Imperial Majesty’s short stature. He also produces and records two singles. In 1979 “Blackman’s Foundation”/”Push Dawta Push”/“Stop Them Jah” is released in Jamaica as a 12” on the Rockers International label. “Stop Them Jah” is also released as a 12” in the UK on the Warrior label.“Push Dawta Push” by Rockers deejay Jah Bull is the A-side deejay cut to “Blackman’s Foundation.” The tune is also featured on the Black Man Foundation album released in the U.S. by Shanachie, but Jah Bull is omitted from the album credits. Jah Bull spoke about this tune in an interview with Ras Salvador Navarette of Small Axe.
‘Push Dawta Push’, yes back then I think that was when them first start to deal with abortion, at the time I wrote the song. Push dawta push means the dawta dem must bring dem baby pon the land and not kill off Jah youth or else brimstone and fire going to burn dem!
It is the greatest gift that Jah give to every man woman and child, and that is LIFE! So looking forward I’d say the song ‘Push Dawta Push’ is not realy about abortion, but about LIFE.
It was very disappointing for me when they didn’t credit me for that song because it was a world wide record, man! This record was big in England and America and still people around the world don’t know that it is Jah Bull doing the DJ on ‘Push Dawta Push.’
Yes mon, that youth [Mundell] there him used to love me mon. I was like a mentor to him. He used to come to my house every day we used to sit down and cook and eat.”
“ALTHOUGH WE HAVE TO BEAR TRIBULATION,
AND PASS THROUGH GREAT FRUSTRATION;
I AND I WILL NEVER GO DOWN IN BABYLON.
‘CAUSE IT REALLY WAS WRITTEN, IN THE REVELATION,
AND THESE ARE THEY THAT PASS THROUGH GREAT TRIBULATION.”
HUGH MUNDELL – “GREAT TRIBULATION”
At the same time that Mundell’s career is at it’s peak, Mundell starts his own Moon Rock label and produces a song for his first artist, Little Junior Reid. The song, titled “Speak the Truth,” is issued in Jamaica as a 7” on the Rockers International label. Mundell and Reid first meet in 1978 at the legendary King Tubbys studio in the Waterhouse neighborhood when Mundell was sixteen and Reid thirteen. Mundell is reportedly so impressed by the youth’s voice that he takes Reid to Pablo’s Augustus Town studio to record “Speak the Truth.” However, once in the studio, both Mundell and Pablo notice that Reid has trouble singing on key, most likely due to the fact that his voice is not fully developed.| Junior Reid |
“I used to dj first and I used to sing, but mostly I used to penetrate the dj. But Mundell him hear me dj and him hear me singing and tell me that this singer must really sing.”
Reid’s good friend from the Waterhouse ghetto, singer Lacksley Castell, cut his first record titled “Babylon World” for Augustus Pablo.
“When I see my friend coming to the area with a song and a vine him now, it motivate me even more to know that I can do it. Because we all hang out together-you know? So when I sing Lacksley Castell tell me that I’m singin’ in the same air. Same melody. So him kinda teach me about air. Reid sings,
“’SPEAK THE TRUTH AND SPEAK IT EVER CAUSE IT WHAT IT WILL,
BYE SAINT PETER, BYE SAINT PAUL, JAH IS THE TRUE AND LIVING GOD.’
Mundell knows Castell from the recording studio so he asks him to bring Reid by the studio.
“Him (Mundell) is asking me about the songs that we was workn’ out in the back a yard. But I was givin’ him the dj style and him was saying ‘no man, not that one that.’ We sing ‘Speak the Truth’ and him seh, ‘yeah, that one there.’ So we did a rehearsal with Augustus Pablo.”
Pablo bluntly tells Reid he is singing flat.
“At the time I really didn’t understand what is flat. I leave to come back but before I even come back I get a call that Hugh Mundell is working at Harry J Studio and to meet him. l come round there, they laid a rhythm. And then I get a next message saying you will be working at King Tubby’s, – which King Tubby’s Studio is just down the road where I live in Kingston II.”
Reid goes to the studio to voice the song.
“I just take one take and that song was voiced. I find myself doing the intro, taking the solo and coming back in, doing everything that was supposed to be done besides never knowing the difference between solo, intro or bridge or nothing was called because I was doing everything. So it amaze them. To see well naturally he just a do it.”
In later sessions with Mundell, Reid also cuts the flipside of a Mundell’s single titled “Can’t Pop No Style.”
“My song was on the B side titled ‘Know Myself.’ Mundell did a song called ‘Run Come Come lnna the Dance’ (as Jah Levi) and I just did the intro. Like him seh, ‘Whap’n Junior Reid. the man nah go inna the dance,’ and me seh like, ‘the man have some faith and wait man, so whe the man a deal I man can pay my rent.”‘
Reid has stated in various interviews that Mundell is solely responsible for breaking him in the music business and that Mundell’s album Africa Must Be Free By 1983 is the most influential album of his life. In a 2007 interview Reid speaks about Mundell’s influence in his life.
“Him was mi brethren, mi godfather. Mundell used to encourage I everyday.”
In an interview published in the February 23, 1985 issue of New Musical Express Junior Reid talks about Mundell’s hand in his own career, “it was a bad shock when Hugh died, even in Jamaica where them things gwan all the while. I did my first song for him called ‘Speak Truth.’ He carried it to England with him and it was released on the Greensleeves label.”
| Hugh Mundell |
Mundell performs at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) 14th anniversary show on Wednesday, May 25, 1977 at the Queens Theatre in Kingston. Also on the bill are Israel Vibration, the Twelve Tribes of Israel Players comprised of Junior Dan on bass, Sangie Davis on guitar, Albert Malawi on drums, and Pablo Black on keys; and Generation Gap, which includes a very young Wycliffe “Steely” Johnson on keys and Dalton Brownie on guitar. Interestingly, many of the players at this event are the very same musicians who play on Mundell’s Africa Must Be Free By 1983. They were also part of the Rockers All-Stars, who play on Augustus Pablo’s productions.
One notable concert takes place at the popular Ward Theatre in Kingston on October 29, 1979. According to a review of the show by Balford Henry in the Jamaica Gleaner, “performers on the show were Hugh Mundell, Junior Delgado, the high-flying Shaolin Kid, a two-year old boy who performs acrobatics in his father’s arms; Dave Robinson; the Tallawah Dancers; the Tivoli High School Dancers; Horace Andy, Little Junior, and Jaba Tate. The show was backed by the Seventh Extension and the Roots International Band featuring Augustus Pablo, who had the crowd rocking during intermission.”
In 1980, Mundell and Pablo have a business disagreement and Mundell decides to become an independent artist, releasing new material on his own label. He begins searching for young artists to build a new community around, much like his mentor Pablo did with his Rockers label. According to Mundell, his falling out with Pablo was due primarily to the fact that he felt he wasn’t being promoted properly. As he explained in his November 1981 interview with Roz Reines:
“It really suited me to become independent. You see, I didn’t think that I was getting the promotion I deserved, and there were other problems. So it was kind of like I was getting stifled there…All the while there were things going on and I really couldn’t sit down and talk to him about it. So I decided just to do my work the way I see it, instead of just talk, talk, talk. Because I-man was saying certain truths to him, but then just not getting through…I’d just like to get a band of youth together, my own band. Although in the past, on my studio sessions I try to find the most professional musicians it will take a little time still to find youths with the right potential and then get them together. But that’s just my aim.”
Mundell also makes a chilling observation in his interview with Reines. He is explaining to Reins that he was a bit surprised by the reactions he got in public from British white males:
“But like I come to England now and in certain places you find certain white men look upon you and screw up their faces, as if you are nothing,” says Mundell.
“That sort of thing doesn’t happen in Jamaica does it” quips Reines.
“Well, that’s because we have a majority of blacks. Things are kinda drastic in Jamaica. Not really for I and I but for the politicians…I don’t check for any of that at all but it affect me still; because I live in Kingston and every day I have to be in town looking for food, or attending to some business, so I and I could get shot.”
In reviewing “Jah Fire Will Be Burning” in the August 16, 1980 issue of New Musical Express, respected music journalist and notable reggae critic Vivien Goldman said “[h]ere Hugh sings with great sadness, painting an expressionistic picture of a post-nuclear planet: ‘smoke of the furnace, turned the sun into darkness…Jah Jah judgment, opened the bottomless pit…Notable for its use of Rasta drums, but the production could be more dynamic though.”
Regardless of their personal differences, Pablo and Mundell maintain a professional working relationship and in 1980 Pablo co-produces Mundell’s second album titled Time and Place. Produced by Mundell for his upstart Mun Rock/Muni Music label, and engineered by Sylvan Morris, King Tubby, and Scientist, the album is recorded at Harry J’s and Channel One Studios and features an astonishing cadre of roots musicians. Junior Dan, Fully Fullwood, Horsemouth, Chinna, Freddie McGregor, Tony Chin, Pablove Black, Deadly Headley, Manalik, Scully, Delroy Williams, Norris Reid – all had a hand in creating a commendable follow-up to one of the great reggae roots albums of the decade. The album is issued on three different labels in 1980. It is issued in Jamaica on the Muni-Music label. It is also issued twice in the UK on the Mun Rock imprint, the only difference between the two pressings being the album cover. Max Edwards worked closely with Mundell in writing songs for the album.
Music journalist Roz Reines says the following in her review of the album in the November 15, 1980 issue of Melody Maker:
“Hugh has cut another album Time and Place and started up his own label MunRock. Between albums Hugh’s voice has matured and developed a slightly harder edge. Along with the change has come a different outlook on life. It’s almost as if Hugh is resigned to an existence filled with great tribulation, because this is what he sings about. But it is sad to see that he has become so cynical about life – on Africa Must Be Free he was dreaming of the girl who was to become his wife – now he’s telling her to ‘Forward to the gate and cooperate.’ Time and Place takes on a rich, senorous tone with much use of the heavy, swirling horns characteristic of the Far East sound. Hugh’s mentor Augustus Pablo is co-producer and arranger as well as being featured on melodica, strings, and even xylophone on ‘Hey Mr. Richman.’ Time and Place is nowhere as sweet as Africa Must Be Free, but it is streets ahead of anything else coming from Jamaica right now.”
1980 also sees the pairing of Hugh Mundell with Waterhouse wonder and Prince Jammy golden boy Lacksley Castell for the release of the Jah Fire album. Mundell is performing at his peak for ‘Jah Fire Shall Be Burning,’ ‘Walk With Jah’ and ‘King Of Israel’ and Lacksley Castell delivers in his signature style on tracks like ‘Be My Princess’ and ‘Million Miles.’ The album, produced and arranged by Prince Jammy, is released on Delroy Wright’s
