Roots Archives Forum

Mellow Yellow
Yellowman
Peter Yellow(purple)

Who is the best? Obviously Yellowman is the most popular but is he the most talented? Back up your answers with tunes please.

No contest, Yellowman, hands down.

Best lungs, and the best lyrics. He broke the "colour" barrier, and the others got a ride on his coat-tails.

Yes, he was a novelty, but he was also an excellent MC, and has an element of charisma that you just can't teach or learn.

I've got to agree. Yellowman is truly the best. However ... of the three I tend to draw my albums with Purpleman the most. His set for U Brown is probably one of my ultimate deejay sets. The problem with Yellowman I can feel is he rarely had that rhythms good enough to match him.

These two are my favourite albums with Purpleman
[cover=5616,4274]
[cover=6464,4225]
(and as a funny side note ... BOTH album scans are of my copies )

These two are my favourites with Yellowman
[cover=2591,2984]
[cover=7048,4240]

The Mellow Yellow set is also really nice but the high price tag on it is more due to being so rare rather than the actual content I can feel some times. It's a great set still. Unfortunately Roots-Archives have no scan of it but you can find a scan by yours truly over here;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamthegorgon/3009146242/

Not even close
King Yelloman
Nuff hits

why did peter yellow call himself yellowman? was he not aware of the Original yellowman?

dubindaygo wrote:why did peter yellow call himself yellowman? was he not aware of the Original yellowman?

Of course he was, although it was most likely not his choice to release the album under name Yellowman (with Yellowman on the cover)...Producers/distributors trying to cash in on Yellowmans success. Probably boosted sales somewhat but I doubt it did much to help poor Purplemans reputation though

I've seen a disco where Peter Yellow is referred to as Yellowman (the original) and also he does chat the name Yellowman a few times on the Confessions album. So I can imagine that there was some kind of controversy from Purplemans side regarding who was first with the name. I think it's odd no one ever tracked down Purpleman so he could tell his side of the story. Would make an interesting read.

K

Yellowman was first with the name "yellow". Producers then tried to take advantage of his popularity. He was already fairly well established on Aces disco prior to his "break-out" recordings.

It's hard to describe what a phenomenon he was when he broke big in 1982. Sell-outs everywhere during his first foreign tour. In Toronto they had riot police on horses outside the venue where he played (St Lawrence Market) to control the crowd that couldn't get tickets. He played on Leroy Sibble's set, "Pappa Melody". Same thing in Harlem, pure pandemonium.

When other "yellows" came along, Yellowman decided to differentiate and started to refer to himself as "King Yellowman".

Yes, Dave. Thanks for the answer and info! The input from the people who were around to witness these times is truly invaluable. I do not doubt the fact Yellowman was the originator. I was just thinking there was probably interesting story to why Purpleman would try to claim this.

*The input from the people who were around to witness these times is truly worthless.*

Okay, I will shut up then. (It's okay, I know what you are trying to say, K!)