Roots Archives Forum

I heard Jonathan Richman & Modern Lovers - Egyptian Reggae recently and was surprised about it. It has the same melody as Johnny Clarke's None Shall Escape The Judgement. Jonathan Richman is a singer-sonwriter and so called Antifolk singer and a Johnny Clarke fan (?).

Or is there any inspiration to the melody or an old song as a source for it from somewhere?

Here is Egyptian Reggae on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg7WG6tCbrw


I hope this post will not be deleted! I want to discuss a topic and not advert something, OK?

I seem to recall that Richman heard Clarke's None Shall Escape somehow - reggae had a brief moment of hipness amongst rock musicians in the mid seventies - and wrote Egyptian Reggae off of it.

Yeah. None Shall Escape is an original composition by Earl Zero.

boy, that camel sure has it goin on. got all the moves.


ital k

Earl Zero even speaks of this version to his composition on the "Word Sound & Power" documentary, to explain how sucessfull the song was.

Very funny vid...

Story is Bunny Lee lost the vocal track off of Zero's recrdoing of it and ha Clarke re-voice the Zero composed tune. There has always been a rumour that a pressing exists of Zeros vocal version, but none has ever surfaced.

Personally I think the similarity of tunes may be just co-incidence. There was a musical hall 'Egyptiona' inspired tune I once heard on an old film, pre Clarkey and richman and that wasexactly what both the Clarke and Modern Lovers songs sounded like they'd take their melody from.

According to Striker he never released ther Earl Zero song, but instead it to his main hitmaker johnny clarke, because he didnot like earl Zero's voice.

Johnathan Richman was inspired by None Shall.., look at the credits: Johnathan Richman & Earl Johnson

and finally: the Egyptian Sand dance by Wilson & Keppel has inspired the Johnathan richmond video, with the silly egyptian arm moves etc.

mussicalyly i dont hear any simularities, but i dont know their entire ouvre

he's not antifolk,if it's wiki what describes him as this. he's sub-mariachi nowadays

roadrunner roadrunner!!

Jumbo wrote:... Johnathan Richman was inspired by None Shall.., look at the credits: Johnathan Richman & Earl Johnson ...

Thanks - sometimes it's not easy to figure out where a song has it's roots. I just heard and knew the melody from the Johnny Clarke tune.

Prince Pud Pud wrote:... he's not antifolk ...

found it on wikipedia - to be honest I don't really know what that is.