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SEPT 08: HATCH PRINTS!
Rare and going fast: World-famous Hatch Show Print of Nashville has handrun 150 beautiful Kingman & Jonah letterpress prints.
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SEPT 08: PRI's THE WORLD
Marco Werman's "Global Hit" on Kingman & Jonah and Hurricane Ike.
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AUG O8: RAVE REVIEWS for 'SIGN TIME'
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Reggae Founder Rediscovered:
After 20-Year Silence, Kingman Is Back
Claudius Linton returns with Reissue
CD
plus new band Kingman & Jonah.
Kingman Is Back (Overview)
Claudius Linton (Kingman)
Kingman & Jonah: 'Can You Tune
This Thing, Sire?'
Ian Jones (Jonah)
The 'Roots Master' CD Compilation
The Message in the Music
Press
Contact
KINGMAN IS BACK!
KINGMAN IS BACK! Claudius "Kingman" Linton,
considered "one of the greatest reggae singers of all
time,” is back after a 20-year absence from the music
scene. Rediscovered by American indie-rock producer
Ian "Jonah" Jones, Linton returns with the first-ever
CD release of his 1970’s roots reggae singles. “Roots
Master: The Vintage Roots Reggae Singles, Vol. 1” is
out on Sun King Records in November 2007.
Watch the 10-minute behind-the-scenes video on Roots
Master to learn more. The enhanced
CD offers 16 tracks from roots reggae founder
Linton, the soulful musical companion of Bob Marley
and Peter Tosh. Includes new stereo mixes from the original
analog tapes of Claudius's #1 hit “Crying Time,”
“Backra Massa,” “Twentieth
Century,” and more. Plus classic cuts rescued
from vintage vinyl pressings, unreleased material and
the bonus video documentary.
This first collection of essential classics, from the
singer who originated the vocal style made popular by
reggae talents like Culture and Burning Spear, will
be followed in early 2008 by Kingman & Jonah's
Sign Time. The CD of brand
new songs by Kingman & Jonah features an all-star band
of legendary Jamaican musicians dubbed “the
Buena Vista Social Club of reggae.”
“A master musician is back,” says Jones, “and better
than ever.”
CLAUDIUS LINTON (KINGMAN)
With a toot of the horn, Bob Marley pulled
his BMW off the rutted Jamaican road and hopped
out to warmly greet a Rasta sitting on the grass. Onlookers
gaped as the man who made reggae a global sensation
sat down on the dusty roadside to talk and share a laugh.
Who was this man who could readily command an audience
from the island's favorite son? It was Marley's old
Trenchtown friend Claudius “Kingman” Linton,
the roots reggae singer known around the Kingston recording
studios for his soulful voice and his knack for a killer
melody.
Claudius and singing partner Cecil Hemmings, known
first as the Angelic Brothers and later
the Hofner Brothers, rose with Trenchtown's
other reggae greats from early 1960's ska singles to
the crest of reggae's '70's heyday. The Hofner Brothers
popularity soared when their single “Kingman
Is Back” competed in the finals of the 1972
Jamaican Festival Song Competition against the tunes
from Junior Byles and Toots & the Maytals. Toots won
the contest, but the crowd roared for more of Claudius's
powerful vocals and electrifying stage show.
Linton and Hemmings parted ways after recording a
half-dozen singles, and Claudius went out on his own,
releasing his catchy songs and strong messages of unity
and peace during key moments of Jamaica's violent election
cycles. “We were telling people of what Marcus
Garvey and Martin Luther King
said; but they wouldn't listen,” Linton says. “Today
we're singing about Baghdad, about Iraq. But it's the
same oppression, it's the same urgent message coming
through on our new Kingman & Jonah
CD. We are trying to sing some reality to the people.”
In 1976, Claudius hit the top of the charts with the
Rasta consciousness anthem “Crying Time”
and followed it up with another 10 years of the classic
roots reggae tracks now compiled on the reisssue CD
Roots Master. Today, the original 45s
can trade hands for hundreds of dollars.
“When I began to compile Claudius' back catalog, his
fans started appearing from around the globe to help
out. They all asked me to produce a reissue collection
so they wouldn't have to spend a fortune searching for
expensive and rare singles,” Jones says. “And they all
want Claudius to get his due, at long last, as a crucial
reggae talent.”
Linton is the living history of reggae. Singing lessons
with “father of reggae” Joe Higgs
along with fellow future stars Bob Marley
and Peter Tosh. The Rolling
Stones' Jamaican recording sessions for Goat's
Head Soup. Linton was there. But after recording
“Reduce The Arms Race”/ “Chun Pon Nanie”
with famed reggae producer Jack Ruby
in 1984, Claudius disappeared from the scene. Return
to top.
KINGMAN & JONAH: 'CAN
YOU TUNE THIS THING, SIRE?'
Today, Kingman is back. A chance meeting
on the beach in Negril, Jamaica, brought Linton together
with American indie-rock musician/producer Ian
Jones. "Can you tune this thing, sire?" Linton
called out to the passing tourist. Jones tuned up Linton's
battered Washburn acoustic, and within minutes the two
musicians were harmonizing and jamming like old friends.
Linton quickly nicknamed Jones "Jonah"
for his discovery, and the next day Kingman
& Jonah, were cramped into a tin-roof recording
studio to track the first songs for Linton's comeback:
the mellow vibe of "In The Street" and
the topical lament "Baghdad."
“The musical connection between Claudius and myself
was immediate and tight, and we both knew we were onto
something. Two days after we met, I returned to the
US and started fleshing out the basic tracks we had
recorded in Jamaica,” says Jones.
Meanwhile, Kingman & Jonah continued
writing music together over the phone, producing songs
for today's troubled times with the same irresistible
melodies and powerful “conscious” lyrical flair familiar
to fans of Linton's earlier work. Despite the distance,
Kingman & Jonah began to forge a musical bond between
the First World and the Third World, black and white,
old and young, the past and the present. As Kingman
& Jonah sing on “In The Street”: “Ain't
no border troops can't stop the truth.”
To record their new compositions, Kingman & Jonah
reached again into Jamaica's reggae past. In early 2007,
they met in Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studios,
Kingston, JA, with an all-star band of reggae legends.
The recording sessions were also a roots reggae reunion
— Linton hadn't seen his old bandmates in 20 years:
Ansel Collins, organ, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace,
drums, Dwight Pinkney, guitar, Keith Francis, bass,
Bongo Herman, percussion, Dean Fraser, horns.
A New York documentary crew was on hand to capture the
moment, quickly dubbed "the Buena Vista Social Club
of reggae." Click on the video
link to see clips from the session.
Sun King Records will unveil the
resulting full-length CD of new tracks, Sign
Time, in early 2008.
“Yes, bredda, can't wait,” writes one visitor to the
band's MySpace page. “The new album is gonna be the
best reggae album since the 1980's, I know it.”" Return
to top.
IAN JONES (JONAH)
Baltimore, Maryland-based producer and musician Ian
Jones — like Claudius a natural musician from
his early teens — reached the finals of the ASCAP Songwriting
Contest by the 18th birthday. In 1993, he co-founded
Evil Genius Audio Labs, a recording
studio in the breadbasket of the burgeoning DIY indie
rock sound, Arlington, Virginia (home to labels Dischord,
Teenbeat, Simple Machines).
During this time, Jones struck up a close association
with Teenbeat Records, both as a recording engineer
on many of the label's discs (notably Tuscadero's The
Pink Album) and as a touring musician with
the Teenbeat bands Eggs and Viva
Satellite. He continued recording other artists
throughout the 1990s, gaining a reputation for "natural
sound." In 2006, Jones was honored with Teenbeat Records'
Lifetime Achievement Award.
As a singer, guitarist bandleader, solo acoustic and
with his group Bombardier Jones, Ian
performed live on both coasts and a few places in the
middle. In 1996, he launched Sun King Records and released
the CD-EP This Is the King of Suck,
followed by the full album Dustbowl
in 1997. At the turn of the century, he began collaborating
with electronic musician Peat Biby
under the name Jonesamatic. In 2006-07, he
united with roots reggae founder Claudius Linton to create
the new reggae sounds of Kingman & Jonah and reissue Claudius'
roots reggae classics. Night World
Records will released Ian's new solo album Can't
Conquer Me in March 2008. Return
to top.
THE 'ROOTS MASTER'
CD COMPILATION
"Red light!" shouts the engineer behind the
control room glass. A quick count-in on drum sticks
and the band kicks in. "If your sorrow should
hit the sky, take my advice: Things will be better,
someone will help you out," Claudius sings in a style
inspired by the R&B sounds that floated across the Caribbean
from radio stations in Memphis, Tennessee. Backing him
on most of the '70s and '80s roots reggae cuts compiled
in Roots Master, Volume One are his
favorite rhythm section -- the Soul Syndicate
with Earl "Chinna" Smith on guitar
-- plus a selection of session greats like Jackie
Mitoo, Ansel Collins, Fish
Clark, Vin Gordon, The
Upsetters and many more.
It's hard to imagine songs this memorable were lost
for three decades. But with a couple of reel-to-reel
tapes that Claudius had hidden away for a quarter-century
— and the help of reggae collectors around the world
— Roots Master has compiled not only
rare tracks rescued from vintage vinyl pressings, but
new mixes of Claudius's biggest songs from the original
analog tapes. No longer do fans have to pay big bucks
for a scratchy 45 record. On Roots Master,
Claudius' voice soars out crisp and clear from meticulously
restored multi-track analog tapes, practically as unfettered
as the day he recorded them.
“From the time I first met Claudius in Jamaica at
the end of last year, his singular talent as a songwriter,
musician & singer has never ceased to amaze me. His
musical idiom is clearly within the realm of classic
roots reggae, but I believe his vocal talent defies
that narrow niche classification. He is a remarkable
soul singer in the most timeless sense
of the word,” says Walter Carlton,
the designer who created the visual identity for the
project.
“After having the privilege to spend some time with
him during rehearsals for the Kingman & Jonah
'Sign Time' sessions in Negril and Kingston
earlier this year, I can honestly report feeling that
I was in the presence of a singing greatness on par
with Otis Redding.” Return
to top.
THE MESSAGE IN THE
MUSIC
Always in the music: the message.
As can be heard in the new songs of Kingman & Jonah,
Claudius has always sung powerful "conscious" reggae
music. On Roots Master, we at last
have an opportunity to hear the roots of his unwavering
call for peace, social justice, morality and spiritual
elevation. From 1974's "You think it's peace and safety,
20th Century, ruling is gone" to 1984's "Reduce the
arms race, Mr. President... start saying your heavenly
grace!"
These songs reflect the social turmoil of the times
in which they were written, but Claudius' social message
is as relevant as ever today. "Energy crisis time..."
Return to top.
PRESS CONTACT
Anthony Scott Piatt
Fly on the Wall Media
10002 Kent Rd E
Bloomington, IN 47401
fly@flyonthewallmedia.com
812.336.7938 |
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