Posted on 11/04/2008 12:25:47 PM PST by nickcarraway
It was a rousing, rollicking send-off to singer Alton Ellis that was staged at the Scots Kirk on Duke Street yesterday.
Actually, Alton's funeral service was a two-part event, with Part one being a true celebration which had those in attendance caught up somewhere between a Heineken Startime and a gospel showcase. And, Alton's family and his peers in the business came out to be a part of this last hurrah, but so too did his numerous fans, music industry personnel, ministers of government, the curious and those who felt the need to be part of history.
Bunny & Skully's rendition of Muriel turned the church upside down. (Photos: Lionel Rookwood)
The St Andrew Scots Kirk was draped in the colours of the Jamaica flag, an indication of the official nature of the funeral, and big screens were placed strategically outside the church to accommodate the overflow of visitors for whom tents and chairs were provided.
Although the official announcement had said that the funeral would start at 11:00 am, the tribute section got underway from 10:30 am and what a stage show that turned out to be. When we arrived minutes to 11:00 am, Winston 'Fix It' Francis was on stage - backed by Fab Five - singing to a packed church of persons in various stages of unrest. Photographers and videographers were busy and in abundance; there were more attendees than programmes, and so those who didn't have were busy borrowing or trying to hijack the ushers who walked by at intervals with "a few" and those who didn't want to sit under the tents crowded the aisles and the exit, needing to have a real look at these vintage artistes rarely seen in public.
At this stage, there was nothing funereal about the proceedings inside the church; it was just a huge celebration, the tears would perhaps come later, after the body was taken in the church.
It was a singers' paradise and a youthful sounding Tinga Stewart, crooned After All Is Said and Done; George Nooks' offering came in the for of the blockbuster Bridge Over Troubled Waters and his anthem God Is Standing By, which the congregation totally took over - dancing and singing praises. Tony Gregoy, looking just like how I remembered him from an album cover years ago, calmed down the people a little with Amen, after which Ken Boothe, Judy Mowatt and Carlene Davis restored some measure of calm.
It was during this 'intermission' that one lady asked, "You know Alton son dem? When you see dem just point dem out to me," she ordered, as she hurriedly moved on to join her friends who were singing and dancing up a storm to Alcapone's "a dis yah a fire, a dis yah a sugar; a wha so El Paso, El Paso, a wha so".
Cool as the proverbial cucumber, Dennis Alcapone ignited the church with his lyrics and started off a celebration like no other. This was taken to a different high with the performances of Bongo Herman - whose tribute in song also saw him striking the Lightning Bolt pose - and the duo Bunny and Scully. Their rendition of Muriel turned the church upside down, much in the same way that Don Smart turned over Weddy Weddy a few weeks ago.
Quite frankly, after this performance, as they would say in the dancehall, St Andrew's Scots Kirk, established in 1813, "no good again".
The veteran foundation singer died in London on October 10, following a long battle with cancer.
October 13, 2008
Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
FOR 25 weeks in 2004, I'm Still in Love by deejay Sean Paul and singer Sasha sat in the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts. The song peaked at number 14 and was another hit from Sean Paul's Dutty Rock album, but it also gave the man who did the original version his first 'taste' of American success.
That man, singer Alton Ellis, died Friday at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, 10 months after he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He was 70 years old.
Ellis was at the peak of his powers in 1967 when he cut I'm Still in Love for producer Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd at Studio One. It was one of many hits he recorded during that decade, which earned him the undisputed title of 'Godfather of Rocksteady'.
Ska, rocksteady star
Unlike some of his ska and rocksteady contemporaries such as Jimmy Cliff and Ken Boothe, Ellis never made overseas charts during his heyday. But he was a major influence on the next generation of Jamaican pop singers including Dennis Brown, Freddie McGregor and Sugar Minott.
"His voice was as smooth as silk, he always worked within his range so you never heard him cracking. He wasn't classically trained but had a great sense of timing," said musicologist Bunny Goodison, who knew Ellis for over 50 years.
That timing was fine-tuned at talent shows like the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour which Ellis first entered as a dancer in the late 1950s.In 1959 alongside Trench Town colleague Eddie Perkins, he hit the charts for the first time with the ballad, Muriel, for Dodd.
Ellis split with Dodd in the early 1960s but went on to form a fruitful partnership with producer Arthur 'Duke' Reid's Treasure Isle studio. Some of the records he made for Reid's label include Dancecrasher, Cry Tough, Ain't That Loving You and Girl I've Got a Date which he consistently tagged as the first rocksteady song.
He never reaped financial rewards from his chart success. Ellis said he was living in a Trench Town slum in 1969 when he went to Canada where he lived for nearly three years, before moving permanently to Britain.
"It was pure hit tune an' Alton live inna a one room inna Trench Town same way," an angry Ellis told The Gleaner in November, 2006. "Mi all start fi think 'bout pick pocket like dem bwoy pon the bridge 'cause dem have pretty bicycle an' look clean every day."
He clashed with Dodd over royalties from his songs including I'm Still in Love. They were at odds over money from the Sean Paul/Sasha song at the time of the producer's death from a heart attack in 2004.
Ellis made his reputation as a balladeer through songs like Girl I've Got a Date and I'm Just a Guy. Yet, he touched social issues by chastising rowdy rudeboys on Dancecrasher and tackled inner-city poverty in the Lloyd Matador Daley-produced Lord Deliver Us.
It made him, Goodison said, a 'rounded performer'.
"He never had formal training but he was very articulate. Alton Ellis was really a student of the streets," Goodison said.
Alton Ellis is one of the greats - too bad the recording studios he cut his classics for weren't technologically up to the task.
Ken Boothe and Dennis Alcapone at the same service!
How did that tiny country produce so much genius between 1964-1984?
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