News : Jobson talks Tosh
Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 4:06 pm
Wayne Jobson and his brother Brian, in 1978, started a band called **Native** in their native Ocho Rios. Playing a unique blend of reggae fused with rock, their sound, was at the time, a bold step in the Jamaican musical ethos. Two years later, Native was one of the fastest rising bands around.
The outcome of their creative assimilation, was a new sound as far as most Jamaicans were concerned. Be that as it may, by June of 1980, with their debut self-titled album, Native landed a deal with Arista/Ariola Records in Europe, while RCA and CBS/GTO were responsible for distribution in the United States and other territories.
At that time, Native's brand of crossover reggae, stood out especially in the arena of new wave music that was sweeping the USA, Canada and Europe, driven by punk groups like Clash, Police, Sex Pistols and Specials to name a few who were at the forefront of this alternative musical craze.
However, with the decline of that trend over time, Native who put out their last album, No Boundry, in 1990, gradually faded from the scene, but that is only in terms of the musical outfit comprising Jobson's brothers - Brian and Wayne - bass and rhythm guitarists respectively; keyboardist Peter Couch who is now CEO of Whats On Jamaica.com; saxophonist/guitarist Warren Mendes; drummer Richard Sinclair and vocals/percussionist Chris Lopez. Brian Jobson is now a music consultant/artiste manager/show producer.
Sibling Wayne, a lawyer, has gone on to become arguably one of the hardest working agents of reggae at this point in time. Billboard Magazine - widely regarded as the reggae Bible - dubbed Jobson 'The Reggae Authority', while hitmaker Fergie (of Black Eyed Peas fame) refers to him as 'the reggae expert'. Jobson assisted in the production of two of the artiste's songs when she was with her old band Wild Orchid.
The reggae authority also has to his credit a weekly reggae show on Indie 103.1. The station, where Jobson holds down the 4:00-6:00 pm slot on Sundays, was chosen by Rolling Stone Magazine as 'The Coolest Station' in America.
But even more importantly, Jobson - who also did a radio stint on KROG Radio Station before he went on to set up the Washington-based XM Satellite Radio, on which veteran Jamaican musicologist, Dermott Hussey, can be heard - was instrumental in the Peter Tosh documentary Red X and is now in the process of taking it to another level with the creation of a full-length movie on the 'Stepping Razor'.
Wayne Jobson is no less excited about his present project for which he is director/ consultant, than when he was a member of the band. As Bob Marley is to many, Peter Tosh is his musical idol, and his energy today is driven by a passion to keep Tosh's name alive. "In 1973, I met the Wailers, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer. But it was Peter that fascinated me most with his incredible sense of humour and his intellect," Jobson confessed.
"Jamaica has a lot of great musicians, and some of the greatest musicians in the world are in Jamaica, but his humour and his intellect, separates Peter Tosh from the rest of the musicians that came out of Jamaica," he asserted.
Added Jobson: "He (Tosh) was the most well-read reggae artiste ever, and the brilliance of his mind, that really fascinated me. and when he was assassinated in '87, of course I was devastated, and three years after Peter was assassinated I kept thinking about him, and when I went into every record shop in America and even here in Jamaica, you couldn't find Peter Tosh records anywhere, the whole world had forgotten all about him. And all I heard about everywhere I go, is just Bob Marley. So I said let me put together something so as to keep Peter Tosh's memory alive.
"So what I did is, I put together the film and went to the family. and they said 'well, we've these tapes we don't know if you would be interested in it', but when I listened to the tapes, it was the Red X tapes. Peter had intended to write his life story in a book, so he sat down and taped off his whole life story. So I basically had the Red X tape, and for me this was like finding the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
"So I said 'well, can't make a feature film so let's make a feature documentary', so I just had Peter narrating the whole film and just recreated the images. For three years we shot and edited, and finally came up with a great film and it was picked as one of the great films at the Toronto Film Festival in 1994 and then we got nominated for the Canadian Academy Award for the Best Documentary."
The worldwide response to the Red X documentary has encouraged Jobson to go all the way, full speed ahead, to borrow what has now become a political jargon. "So we showed it around the world and got a lot of respect. After that, I then took another 13 years trying to get the feature together with actors and now everybody turned me down again like when I was trying to do it the first time," he recalled.
Jobson explained, that luck finally came his way when he met film maker, Academy Award winner, Ridley Scott. "I was lucky enough to come across one of the great film makers of our time, Ridley Scott and his company RSA and his son Jake and we're putting together the Peter Tosh feature which we may call Get Up Stand Up the working title and we're just working on the script now to get it together.
"Basically, my mission is to never let the world forget the power of the great poet, shaman, revolutionary and the freedom fighter that Peter Tosh was. And I want to appeal to the government and urge the minister of culture Babsy Grange to give respect where it is due to the great Bush Doctor, and I hope next year this time, all of us will be calling him the honourable Peter Tosh."
Get Up Stand Up (if the movie is so called), will highlight all aspects of the life of the reggae monolith whose brutal slaying 20 years ago, robbed the music world of one of its most militant voices. But the main focus of the flick is that phase of Tosh's experiences shortly before his departure from the Wailers to that fateful night when the forces of evil brought an end to his stridency.
"We're just working on the script now and it's hard, in terms of which part of his life to tell because it is such an amazing, interesting life, that to tell the whole thing would be like a four hour movie. So we're trying to pick which slice of his life is the most interesting one.
We're going to have everything in chronology, but we've to focus a little bit on his youth, and then focus mostly on when he leaves the Wailers. a little bit of Wailers and a little bit of Bob Marley, but mostly it will be showing the power of Peter and his music and his message and how he touched the world, because he was a special artiste," explained producer Wayne Jobson .
Director of the Peter Tosh movie is Jake Scott, son of Ridley Scott, the Academy Award winning producer/director whose company put out the feature film starring Denzel Washington called American Gangster, now in local cinemas.
"I've been working on this (Peter Tosh's movie) for 17 years and it's like my dream really, make this great film about this great artiste and I've met every musicians in the world from. the Stones, the Beatles and the Police and anybody you can name, and I still think the greatest rock star of all times and the most meaningful and powerful musicians - as far as being a revolutionist - is Peter Tosh. He has the most interesting story. Peter was a revolutionary, if you listen to him there's no compromise. It was the great mind of this great artiste that the world needs to know. and the people who don't know about it, need to discover him," Jobson advised.
Presently, Wayne Jobson is in Los Angeles working full time with Chris Blackwell as a consulting producer in the production of a documentary on the history of Jamaican music.
"We're going to be down here [in Jamaica] the whole month of December shooting," he said. "We've already interviewed Third World, Steel Pulse and Aston 'Familyman' Barrett and Black Uhuru. We just going to interview everybody in the history of reggae and then collect all the great footage and put together the first big official documentary on the history of Jamaican Music."
He added that the flick - for which Chris Blackwell is executive producer and Ondi Timonerhas, director (he directed the Sundance Film Festival award winning Dig) - has not yet been given a name or a working title.
Turning to his adventure with Lee Scratch Perry, from which came the recently released set, he told Yesterday's Notes: "This album was from 30 years ago when I did my first demo with Lee Scratch Perry at Scratch's Black Ark Studio before he burnt it down. I did record like five songs and I went to England and I did a deal with Arista Records, using a demo, for me to come and record the album with Scratch. But by the time I came back, he had gone crazy and him burn down the whole studio. So I ended up producing the first album myself, but I never really released the Scratch's tape. Since it is 30 years now, a company in England heard them and want to put them out. So I just released it in England."
Basil Walters
*source : [jamaicaobserver.com](www.jamaicaobserver.com)*
The outcome of their creative assimilation, was a new sound as far as most Jamaicans were concerned. Be that as it may, by June of 1980, with their debut self-titled album, Native landed a deal with Arista/Ariola Records in Europe, while RCA and CBS/GTO were responsible for distribution in the United States and other territories.
At that time, Native's brand of crossover reggae, stood out especially in the arena of new wave music that was sweeping the USA, Canada and Europe, driven by punk groups like Clash, Police, Sex Pistols and Specials to name a few who were at the forefront of this alternative musical craze.
However, with the decline of that trend over time, Native who put out their last album, No Boundry, in 1990, gradually faded from the scene, but that is only in terms of the musical outfit comprising Jobson's brothers - Brian and Wayne - bass and rhythm guitarists respectively; keyboardist Peter Couch who is now CEO of Whats On Jamaica.com; saxophonist/guitarist Warren Mendes; drummer Richard Sinclair and vocals/percussionist Chris Lopez. Brian Jobson is now a music consultant/artiste manager/show producer.
Sibling Wayne, a lawyer, has gone on to become arguably one of the hardest working agents of reggae at this point in time. Billboard Magazine - widely regarded as the reggae Bible - dubbed Jobson 'The Reggae Authority', while hitmaker Fergie (of Black Eyed Peas fame) refers to him as 'the reggae expert'. Jobson assisted in the production of two of the artiste's songs when she was with her old band Wild Orchid.
The reggae authority also has to his credit a weekly reggae show on Indie 103.1. The station, where Jobson holds down the 4:00-6:00 pm slot on Sundays, was chosen by Rolling Stone Magazine as 'The Coolest Station' in America.
But even more importantly, Jobson - who also did a radio stint on KROG Radio Station before he went on to set up the Washington-based XM Satellite Radio, on which veteran Jamaican musicologist, Dermott Hussey, can be heard - was instrumental in the Peter Tosh documentary Red X and is now in the process of taking it to another level with the creation of a full-length movie on the 'Stepping Razor'.
Wayne Jobson is no less excited about his present project for which he is director/ consultant, than when he was a member of the band. As Bob Marley is to many, Peter Tosh is his musical idol, and his energy today is driven by a passion to keep Tosh's name alive. "In 1973, I met the Wailers, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer. But it was Peter that fascinated me most with his incredible sense of humour and his intellect," Jobson confessed.
"Jamaica has a lot of great musicians, and some of the greatest musicians in the world are in Jamaica, but his humour and his intellect, separates Peter Tosh from the rest of the musicians that came out of Jamaica," he asserted.
Added Jobson: "He (Tosh) was the most well-read reggae artiste ever, and the brilliance of his mind, that really fascinated me. and when he was assassinated in '87, of course I was devastated, and three years after Peter was assassinated I kept thinking about him, and when I went into every record shop in America and even here in Jamaica, you couldn't find Peter Tosh records anywhere, the whole world had forgotten all about him. And all I heard about everywhere I go, is just Bob Marley. So I said let me put together something so as to keep Peter Tosh's memory alive.
"So what I did is, I put together the film and went to the family. and they said 'well, we've these tapes we don't know if you would be interested in it', but when I listened to the tapes, it was the Red X tapes. Peter had intended to write his life story in a book, so he sat down and taped off his whole life story. So I basically had the Red X tape, and for me this was like finding the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
"So I said 'well, can't make a feature film so let's make a feature documentary', so I just had Peter narrating the whole film and just recreated the images. For three years we shot and edited, and finally came up with a great film and it was picked as one of the great films at the Toronto Film Festival in 1994 and then we got nominated for the Canadian Academy Award for the Best Documentary."
The worldwide response to the Red X documentary has encouraged Jobson to go all the way, full speed ahead, to borrow what has now become a political jargon. "So we showed it around the world and got a lot of respect. After that, I then took another 13 years trying to get the feature together with actors and now everybody turned me down again like when I was trying to do it the first time," he recalled.
Jobson explained, that luck finally came his way when he met film maker, Academy Award winner, Ridley Scott. "I was lucky enough to come across one of the great film makers of our time, Ridley Scott and his company RSA and his son Jake and we're putting together the Peter Tosh feature which we may call Get Up Stand Up the working title and we're just working on the script now to get it together.
"Basically, my mission is to never let the world forget the power of the great poet, shaman, revolutionary and the freedom fighter that Peter Tosh was. And I want to appeal to the government and urge the minister of culture Babsy Grange to give respect where it is due to the great Bush Doctor, and I hope next year this time, all of us will be calling him the honourable Peter Tosh."
Get Up Stand Up (if the movie is so called), will highlight all aspects of the life of the reggae monolith whose brutal slaying 20 years ago, robbed the music world of one of its most militant voices. But the main focus of the flick is that phase of Tosh's experiences shortly before his departure from the Wailers to that fateful night when the forces of evil brought an end to his stridency.
"We're just working on the script now and it's hard, in terms of which part of his life to tell because it is such an amazing, interesting life, that to tell the whole thing would be like a four hour movie. So we're trying to pick which slice of his life is the most interesting one.
We're going to have everything in chronology, but we've to focus a little bit on his youth, and then focus mostly on when he leaves the Wailers. a little bit of Wailers and a little bit of Bob Marley, but mostly it will be showing the power of Peter and his music and his message and how he touched the world, because he was a special artiste," explained producer Wayne Jobson .
Director of the Peter Tosh movie is Jake Scott, son of Ridley Scott, the Academy Award winning producer/director whose company put out the feature film starring Denzel Washington called American Gangster, now in local cinemas.
"I've been working on this (Peter Tosh's movie) for 17 years and it's like my dream really, make this great film about this great artiste and I've met every musicians in the world from. the Stones, the Beatles and the Police and anybody you can name, and I still think the greatest rock star of all times and the most meaningful and powerful musicians - as far as being a revolutionist - is Peter Tosh. He has the most interesting story. Peter was a revolutionary, if you listen to him there's no compromise. It was the great mind of this great artiste that the world needs to know. and the people who don't know about it, need to discover him," Jobson advised.
Presently, Wayne Jobson is in Los Angeles working full time with Chris Blackwell as a consulting producer in the production of a documentary on the history of Jamaican music.
"We're going to be down here [in Jamaica] the whole month of December shooting," he said. "We've already interviewed Third World, Steel Pulse and Aston 'Familyman' Barrett and Black Uhuru. We just going to interview everybody in the history of reggae and then collect all the great footage and put together the first big official documentary on the history of Jamaican Music."
He added that the flick - for which Chris Blackwell is executive producer and Ondi Timonerhas, director (he directed the Sundance Film Festival award winning Dig) - has not yet been given a name or a working title.
Turning to his adventure with Lee Scratch Perry, from which came the recently released set, he told Yesterday's Notes: "This album was from 30 years ago when I did my first demo with Lee Scratch Perry at Scratch's Black Ark Studio before he burnt it down. I did record like five songs and I went to England and I did a deal with Arista Records, using a demo, for me to come and record the album with Scratch. But by the time I came back, he had gone crazy and him burn down the whole studio. So I ended up producing the first album myself, but I never really released the Scratch's tape. Since it is 30 years now, a company in England heard them and want to put them out. So I just released it in England."
Basil Walters
*source : [jamaicaobserver.com](www.jamaicaobserver.com)*