Junior Murvin

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Graffito

Junior Murvin (* 1946 or 1949 in Port Antonio as Murvin Junior Smith ; † December 2, 2013 ibid) was a Jamaican reggae musician . He gained fame through the 1976 single Police & Thieves produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry , which was particularly popular in the British punk scene and became his only chart success. At the beginning of his career he called himself Junior Soul .

Life

Murvin Junior Smith was probably born in Port Antonio in 1946 . Other sources give 1949 as the year of birth and Saint James as the place of birth. His father died when Murvin was a baby. His mother emigrated to Great Britain where she worked as a nurse. He then grew up with his siblings with their great-grandmother in Port Antonio.

At the local Methodist Church , he helped operate the organ , but was too shy to join the choir. Instead, he began to get enthusiastic about rhythm and blues and at the age of six was already performing songs by Billy Eckstine , Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole . After the death of his great-grandmother, he lived with his grandmother near Montego Bay . After high school , he began training as a car mechanic at the Montego Bay technical college .

On December 2, 2013, Junior Murvin died in Port Antonio Hospital, where he had been treated for diabetes and high blood pressure . He leaves five children and eight grandchildren.

Career

Musical beginnings

After his first brief appearances in town, fellow musicians encouraged him to continue singing. An aunt in the US sent Murvin a guitar and he started writing his own songs. After convincing the audience at a Rastafarian camp with a vocal performance for the jazz saxophonist Roland Alphonso , he tried to market his music in Kingston . His first audition at a record label ended with being sent back to Montego before he could record material. A second audition with Lee “Scratch” Perry was also unsuccessful.

At the height of the Rocksteady era, Murvin finally decided to move to the capital, where he lived with an aunt in Trench Town for a while. At first he sang alongside Max Romeo in a group called Hippy Boys, before he recorded his first songs under the stage name Junior Soul with producers Derrick Harriott and Sonia Pottinger . In 1967 the single Miss Cushie was released, produced by Pottinger . One of his earliest compositions, Solomon , peppered with biblical allusions , was a small hit for Harriott, who also acts as a singer.

breakthrough

After an engagement at the side of Dennis Brown in the group The Falcons, Junior Murvin returned to Port Antonio in 1975, where he sang in the band Young Experience. The socialist Prime Minister friend Michael Manley organized a tour of Cuba for the formation and an appearance at his wife's birthday party. After the group broke up, Murvin focused again on writing songs.

Back in Kingston, he got back in touch with producer Lee Perry, who was impressed with his song Police & Thieves . On Perry's advice, Murvin dropped the stage name Junior Soul to avoid confusion with a New York musician of the same name. After "Scratch" added a little text, he arranged the recording in his Black Ark studio in May 1976 with Sly Dunbar on drums, Boris Gardiner on bass and Ernest Ranglin on guitar. Junior Murvin sang the title in his typical, Curtis Mayfield- like falsetto . The text of the piece, which was distributed by Wildflower, was intended to reflect the political and social upheaval in Jamaica and made the song known across national borders, especially in the British punk scene . Murvin's debut album of the same name came out in 1977 and became a critical and commercial success. Almost four years late, the title track entered the UK single charts on March 5, 1980 . It stayed there for eight weeks and peaked at number 23, which earned Murvin an appearance on Top of the Pops .

Further career

Due to a nervous breakdown of Perry, a second album together was not made and Junior Murvin could no longer build on the success of Police & Thieves . With Joe Gibbs he recorded the single Cool Out Son in 1979 , which was at least a small hit. Further albums with producers Mikey Dread ( Bad Man Possé , 1982) and Henry “Junjo” Lawes ( Muggers in the Street , 1984) did not receive the desired attention. On the apartheid produced by King Jammy , Murvin made a change in style to dancehall in 1986 . Solo and as part of the Jah Postles, the singer toured worldwide and performed in Europe, including England, France and Germany.

reception

Junior Murvin is almost exclusively associated with the single Police & Thieves today . After its appearance in England, the number developed into an anthem of the annual Notting Hill Carnival , which ended in violent rioting in 1976. Not least because of this, the police, who found the text inciting, banned British radio stations from playing the title. The Clash covered the song on their self-titled debut album in 1977 and provided an additional boost in popularity within the London punk scene . They were one of the first bands to combine punk rock and reggae, which Bob Marley, for example, paid tribute to in the same year with the song Punky Reggae Party . In 1978, Murvin's original version of Police & Thieves was included on the soundtrack of the Jamaican feature film Rockers .

The Australian musician Paul Kelly mentioned Junior Murvin in his alternative Christmas song How to Make Gravy from 1996 ("You'll put on Junior Murvin and push the tables back"). Murvin's second best-known piece, Cool Out Son , provides musical accompaniment to the 2010 EA computer game Skate 3 .

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Police & Thieves
  UK 23 05/03/1980 (9 weeks)

Studio albums

  • 1977: Police & Thieves
  • 1978: Tedious
  • 1982: Bad Man Posse
  • 1984: Muggers in the Street
  • 1986: apartheid
  • 1989: Signs and Wonders
  • 1995: World Cry
  • 2007: Inna de Yard

Singles (selection)

  • 1967: Miss Cushie (as Junior Soul, with Lynn Tait & The Jets)
  • 1969: The Hustler (as Junior Soul)
  • 1970: Philistines on the Land
  • 1976: False Teaching
  • 1976: Police & Thieves
  • 1977: Tedious
  • 1979: Load Shedding
  • 1979: Cool Out Son (with Welton Irie and Prince Weedy)
  • 1980: Cross Over
  • 1982: Bad Man Possé

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ian Burrell: Reggae singer Junior Murvin dies aged 64. The Independent , December 2, 2013, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Gareth Davis sr .: 'Police And Thieves' Singer Is Dead. The Gleaner, December 2, 2013, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Junior Murvin - Obituary. The Telegraph , December 3, 2013, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i David Katz: Junior Murvin obituary. The Guardian , December 3, 2013, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b Chris Maume: Murvin Junior Smith: Singer whose song 'Police and Thieves' struck a chord both in his native Jamaica and in 1970s London. The Independent , December 4, 2013, accessed April 7, 2018 .
  6. ↑ David Katz: People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Omnibus Press 2006, ISBN 978-1846094439 , pp. 246-249 (English).
  7. ↑ Official Charts - Junior Murvin. The Official UK Charts Company, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Junior 'Police and Thieves' Murvin dies at 67th Jamaica Observer, December 2, 2013, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Peter Vincent: Reggae star Junior Murvin, of Paul Kelly and The Clash fame, dies. The Sydney Morning Herald , December 3, 2013, accessed April 2, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Chart sources: UK
personal data
SURNAME Murvin, junior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Murvin Junior (real name); Junior Soul (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jamaican reggae musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1946 or 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Port Antonio
DATE OF DEATH 2nd December 2013
Place of death Port Antonio