Included here is my interview feature with Sonia Abel-Allen and Tony “Jah T” Allen, formerly of the Love Joys, the groundbreaking reggae outfit from the Bronx, New York that recorded two landmark reggae albums with producer and Wackies label founder Lloyd “Bullwackie” Barnes. Sonia Abel-Allen breaks her silence after 25 years to discuss her role in one of the greatest reggae groups to ever emerge on the US reggae scene, her legendary recordings for the “Studio Man,” and a life lived in Jah Light.
The Love Joys first walked into Lloyd Barnes’ Wackies House of Music on White Plains Road, Bronx, New York in early 1976. Sonia Abel and her cousins Claudette and Marcia Brown were fourteen years old at the time. They called themselves The Crystals, fashioned after singer Barry White’s backing vocal trio. One hour earlier, The Crystals were on the sales floor at Brad’s Record Den just up White Plains Road giving an impromptu live acapella performance for the house, packed to the gills with rabid record buyers. The shop’s owner, Brad Osbourne, was so impressed by the performance that he immediately sent them down the road to Bullwackie’s.
“We knew we had a really good act. [Brad] says to sing a song for him and we pop out with this Abyssinians tune ‘Sweet Feeling.’ This was when the Abyssinians were baldheads. They had a song called ‘Sweet Feeling.’”
Love Joys would eventually cover the song “Sweet Feeling” with Jah Batta while recording at Wackies. Bullwackie released the tune as a 12” double-sided single on the Top Ranking International label in 1981. According to Abel-Allen, the Love Joys never received any royalties from the release of this tune or from any of the other Love Joys material released under the Wackies or Top Ranking International imprints, including their debut album Reggae Vibes (Top Ranking International, 1981).
“So he stopped the music in the store and it was all eyes on us, these fourteen year old sweet girls, and we sang the song for him. And he listened and he said ‘You know what…there is a guy up the road here that you need to go see. You will fit right in with him because he does reggae. He may not believe you guys because you are so young and cute in your little uniforms but you coming hard with the reggae, that is hardcore. You need to go 241st Street. Your man is there. His name is Lloyd.”
“At the time I lived at 233rd Street and White Plains Road. So we walked the few blocks to Wackies and we walk in to the place. I remember the front of the store and it was downscale from what we saw at Brad’s. It was rough you know. But I liked it because it seemed rootsy. So I walk in and I meet a guy named Dougie, he was an engineer. And he looked and said ‘look at these little girls up in here! Come check this Wackie!”
Engineer Douglas Levy (Prince Douglas) was part of the original Wackies studio crew from 1974 to 1976. For a short time he had his own label – Hamma – within the Wackies collective. As Bullwackie’s main engineer, Levy helped create the signature Wackies sound. His productions include Tribesman Assault (1977) by Roots Underground, Sugar Minott’s Jamming In The Street (1986), Jah Children Invasion Chapter IV (1987), and the highly sought after Dub Roots by Prince Douglas.
“So I say to Wackie ‘look we are singers…we are a group.’ And he’s like ‘yeah, what you sing?’. So we sang for him the same tunes we sang for Brad and he kind of stepped back and looked at us with this smile on his face and he said ‘you girls are welcome in this studio any time. You are my girls. You are my group’. And he loved us. He really loved our group. It was the Love Joys who put Wackies on the map.”
Sonia Abel-Allen is as affable, self-effacing, and delightful as anyone you will ever encounter. Born in Brixton, South London to Jamaican parents, Abel-Allen recalls the hours upon hours spent as a youth in her bedroom tuned in to Top of the Pops or Luxembourg Radio singing along to her favorite tunes.
“When you are born to Jamaican parents in a place like Brixton you have that influence of that beautiful Jamaican culture. Music was such a big part of life in Brixton, especially ska and Blue Beat. We could hear Desmond Dekker and John Holt and Jimmy Cliff and guys like that. There was always music in my house. My dad was a fan of music so we were exposed to everything from reggae to soul to country. My sister introduced me to rock with bands like the Stones and Deep Purple and Zeppelin. I liked it all.
My mom left and moved to New York and she took my sister. She would come back and get me in like a year or something. So my dad watched after me. That is when I really got into singing. I was about twelve years old. I could get Luxembourg radio in England so I could hear all the stuff playing on German radio. I also was really into Top of the Pops. I used to be up in my bedroom singing along with the radio. I remember my mom asked me what I wanted, you know, what I was into. And I told her I wanted a microphone. I didn’t know if I could sing! I even ran to my sister’s house and sung to her and she said ‘you got something there girl.’
So I asked my mom to send me records of the Jackson 5. I loved Jermaine Jackson. So my mom sent me the microphone and my sister Chris Abel sent me some Jackson 5 records and that is when the light turned on. I could plug my mic into the radio and sing along with the records and hear my voice.”
She arrived with her mother in the Bronx, New York in 1974 – a cute, twelve year old English girl with a wicked cockney slang thrust upon the unforgiving streets of one of the world’s toughest neighborhoods.
“Coming from England to the Bronx was a nightmare. My mother tried her best to kind of integrate me into New York but it was just so different…culture shock. I came from a house, had lived in a house my entire life and coming to an apartment in the Bronx…New York was rugged. It was very broad and vast to me. It definitely had no reggae culture to it, no Jamaican culture, not like in Brixton. My mother was very supportive though. She supported my singing and modeling…she sent me to modeling school in New York. My father too you know. He was very supportive of my music. He always said ‘if you going to sing you should sing like John Holt (laughing).”
The roots of the Love Joys were planted at the Abel apartment in the Bronx when Sonia first met her two cousins Claudette and Marcia Brown.
“I remember first meeting my cousins Claudette and her sister Marcia in the living room at my house. We were talking and they fashioned themselves singers! I was like ‘I’m the singer…who do these girls think they are (laughing). So I said ‘let me hear you sing.’ And what they sang really impacted me. It was really beautiful and it really affected me. The harmony was just perfect and it just moved me. So then it was my turn and I carried on with my little tune and they liked it. So we are there and we say let’s try and do this song together. Now remember, I used to sing to myself so my harmony was not great. See my music existed in this little world that was all my own. I spent hours and hours in my bedroom singing along with records and the radio…singing to the wall…it never occurred to me…I never imagined singing or trying to make this work with a group.
So that is when we started a group. The name of our group was The Crystals. We started doing school competitions and talent shows at Roosevelt High School on Fordham Road where we all went to school. We practiced every day at the house or out on the stoop. My life at the time was consumed with music and sports…I did track and field and I loved it, long distance running, sprints, 100 meter, 200 meter.”
The very first record Lloyd Barnes cut with the Love Joys was their cover version of Barry White’s “I Belong To You.” The single, released as a 7″ on the Versatile Records label in 1976, is a dreamy, dubby love song featuring instrumentation by Wackie’s house band Reckless Breed and an expansive atmospheric mix by Bullwackie.
It is during this period that Abel begins penning lyrics, building a foundation upon which some of the Love Joys most memorable tunes are built. Sonia Abel is, without a doubt, the most gifted songwriter to emerge from Wackies House of Music. Her songwriting is heavy, even grim at times. Her writings deal with serious, weighty themes, however, the spirit of her lyrics comes from a bright place – one of hope and unwavering positivity. In many ways, her writing is emblematic of Wackies’ distinct New York sound – that unmistakable “ruff-n-tuff” dark, industrial, dubby, atmospheric sound that epitomizes the spirit of New York – rough, rugged and dread, but full of life and hope.
Wackie’s reggae sound is a true American original. While there is disagreement among artists regarding who played on what, or when this or that record was cut, there is no mistaking the fact that Lloyd Barnes was, and still remains, an exceptional studio engineer. There are very few producers who can lay claim to their own “signature sound.” Duke Reid, Coxsone, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Henry “Junjo” Lawes are a few who crafted their own distinct sound within the confines of four studio walls.
In his small, unassuming Bronx studio, Bullwackie crafted a sound that was fundamentally Jamaican, infusing it with American musical elements of funk, blues, R&B, and Philly soul. Of course, it is no small thing that some of New York’s most talented reggae musicians, including ex-Congo’s’ bassist Tony “Jah T” Allen, called the studio home.
“My mom Icyline Allen lived behind a church in Kingston 11 right next door to Tyrone [Downie]. He was 15, 16 and I was younger, like 14. Bob [Marley] used to come around and he see me in front of the church and ask me to go get Tyrone so that how I come to know Bob you know. So I would play music out by the church and across the street from me lived Super Cat. So Harold Butler used to come check Tyrone Downey because Tyrone is a jazz player you know and Harold Butler know I play bass and he said Cedric Brooks is looking for a bass player. So I go play with Cedric in his group United Africa.
“The players in that band were Harold Butler, the great drummer Calvin McKenzie, there was a trumpeter, I play bass, I think we did like two albums. Desi Jones joined on drums when Calvin left. After that I was in a traveling play called A Pack of Jokers for one year. Then I got a call to play on this Michigan and Smiley record called “One Love Jamdown.” They were trying to get someone else to do bass for the tune but I was at Tuff Gong one day recording with the Meditations, they used to use me on the bass from time to time, I was so humbled you know because them used to use Family Man or some other famous bass players. So that tune is the one that got me out of Jamaica, the “One Love Jamdown,” it was a huge hit, a number one.
So Tyrone used to take me around Bob’s house and one day I ran into the Congos’ wife, you know, Cedric [Myton’s] wife. She say the Congos they looking for a bass player. CBS brought us to New York, there was this movie called Jamdown, and we did the music for the film and CBS brought us to New York. This was 1980.”
The Congos signed with CBS in 1978 and immediately began pulling together tracks for an album. Congo Ashanti (1979) was the first album the Congos released as part of their deal with CBS followed by Image of Africa in 1980. Tony Allen’s masterful bass work features prominently on Image of Africa and several of the tunes from the album appear in the CBS documentary Jamdown. The album also features another future Wackies musician, Fabian Cooke, on drums.
“They were sending us to this big music festival, the Midem Festival in France with Sting and Steel Pulse and all a dem. So we rehearsed in New York and the plan was to fly to Europe to play this festival…it would be such a big thing for us you know. But the problem is Cedric’s wife would not allow for us to fly on the big jumbo jet like CBS had us booked. There was too expensive for us and people are starving in Africa and blah, blah, blah so she switched the ticket and put us on this economical flight that fly us to Brussels and then from Brussels we have to take a tour bus to France and we missed the Midem Festival Mike. That is something nobody knows about because I know Cedric didn’t tell nobody.
When I came back to New York nothing happened and Lee “Scratch” Perry’s wife, Sista P, Paulette, came to see me at the Congos house in Brooklyn and she say ‘what are you doing, you in New York, you cannot just sit around, get yourself together, I will come and get you next week, we will go see Bullwackie this wicked producer.’ So Cedric and dem left, they just left us there at the house, just me and the drummer Fabian Cooke. So I went there to Wackies with Paulette and I stayed there at the studio for a year. I met all my heroes there Mike, John Holt, Ken Boothe, Clive Hunt, Horace Andy, The Heptones. Here it is I come from Jamaica where all a dem get their start and I don’t ever meet them until I get to New York.”
Both Tony Allen and Fabian Cooke would go on to play in one of New York’s most talented and sought-after reggae bands, Itopia.
The Love Joys’ debut album titled Reggae Vibes was released on the Florida-based Top Ranking International label in 1981. The album consists of ten songs recorded by Sonia Abel and Claudette Brown from 1976 through 1980/1981 at Wackies House of Music. The material is impressive, even exceptional at times. The songs which alternate between lovers rock and cultural roots were all written by Sonia Abel. Abel and Brown have an obvious chemistry and they harmonize beautifully, creating a sound that is much stronger than the sum of its parts. While the album was largely overlooked upon its release, the Love Joys did experience some success in England thanks to their cover version of the Abyssinians’ “Sweet Feeling.” However, the true impact of the album is only now being realized.
Reggae Vibes is a landmark reggae album. It is really an incomparable album if you truly consider the originality in the sound and writing. Sonia Abel’s voice and lyrical delivery is reminiscent of talented female vocalists like Olive Grant and Debra Washington. The album has a heavy, haunting, almost melancholic sound that separates it from the other notable albums by female reggae artists of the era – artists like Sonia Spence, Susan Cadogan, and Sheila Hylton. It is without a doubt one of the best reggae albums ever recorded in a US recording studio and it is also one of the best reggae albums ever recorded by a female vocal group.
Among the more popular tunes on the album like “Sweet Feeling,” “Jah Light,” and “Stranger Get Out of Here,” was a hauntingly beautiful tune titled “All I Can Say.”
“At the time, the dancehalls were really getting violent. One night there was another shooting at the dancehall so I left and hailed a taxi. I think the song was written before I got home.”
Abel-Allen sings into the phone, breaking down her lyrics to the song.
“Too much killing to socialize
That not wise my brothers
Stand on His right hand
Sure to be a better man”
“I’m talking about the violence and the shootings you have to endure just to socialize, just to go out one night to the dancehall.”
“What is your cause, disobeying Jah law
Destroying His kingdom, do you wanna burn?
Children will play now-now, grow up and go astray
Look behind the corner,
Babylon is gonna take them away”
“Here I’m talking about the fact that, as a child it is OK to play in the streets, but when they grow up it is no longer acceptable. ‘Look behind the corner, Babylon is gonna take them away’…I started to see the youth get harassed by Babylon, by the police, for just being on the corner, for just being outside in the streets. I saw it happen with my own brother you know. As a child it was OK for him to play in the streets, look around the corner and Babylon snatch him right up.”
Bullwackie described his approach to making music to journalist George Rush in a 1982 interview as they sat at the mixing desk recording John Holt’s cover version of Grover Washington’s “Just The Two of Us.”
“Dub is mental. But the drumming keeps it physical.” Wackie reaches over and works the syndrum. “Hear that? That’s a sweep. It comes from the syndrum. We use an echo unit and a reverb unit. Reverb makes the sound denser. It gives the snare drum slap a sort of water atmosphere, what we call a splash. When I’m dubbing I’ll be concentrating on the splash with my left hand and then I’ll reach over with my right hand and kick up the echo. Like bam!
If a record doesn’t sound like it comes from Jamaica, we go back to the studio. Right now I think we’ve finally got a sound that can fight with anyone. We’re pressing 10,000 copies of Wackies Warrior Dub. I say to people we must be able to make it. We are Jamaicans. We have the culture. Why not? Plenty of electricity here.”
Although Bullwackie seemed content with his studio’s sound, others were not so sure. Customers in Jamaica were less than impressed and they did not hesitate to communicate this to Randy’s.
“People were critical of Wackie’s sound and it really did hurt him” recalls Abel-Allen. “He was so confident in the artists who recorded there – his artists – he truly believed in us. One day I noticed that he was very upset and I asked what was wrong. ‘People are killing our sound Sonia” he says. ‘They saying its no good.’ This is when I sat down and wrote ‘Studio Man’.”
Included on the Love Joys debut 1981 album Reggae Vibes, “Studio Man” is a stunning piece of writing from Abel-Allen, especially in light of the back story.
Abel-Allen begins singing the lyrics into the phone, her voice is so well-preserved, seemingly stronger now than ever.
“Who is that man?
Where’s he from?
Who is that man?
Take me to his destination.
I’ve been hearing rumours about you
I’ve been hearing rumours about you
Rumours, upon rumours, about the studio man
That rest uptown – that rest uptown
Rumours that you don’t take anything
And I’m wondering, yes, I’m suffering
Won’t you please let me hear?
Won’t you please let me hear?
Who is that man?
Where’s he from?
Who is that man?
Take me to his destination
Take me to his destination”
“That is me singing as a little girl seeking this man out, the Studio Man. I get to his studio and I’m asking for him to let me in.”
“Some say he’s cold as ice/I guess they’re the ones with no respect/And don’t treat him right/I heard them talking/Talking ’bout you ain’t got no home/How you dub and mix music from night until dawn/From night until dawn/From night until dawn, yeah.
Wackie used to sleep on the floor in the studio you know. At one point it became his home because he had to sell his place in order to keep the studio.”
In an instant I understand why fans have such a strong affinity for the Love Joys – their talent, their story, their vibe. I understand why filmmakers came to New York from Europe to interview Abel-Allen for a documentary about the studio (Bullwackies in New York). I understand why artists like Sugar Minott, John Holt, Johnnie Osbourne, even Bullwackie himself had such love and respect for this group.
“There were definitely some great memories from those days. Regardless of how things work out in the end between the Love Joys and Wackie, regardless of how he exploited all of these young artists who believed in him, who looked up to him as a father figure, he did provide a place for us…he provided a platform for us that would not have been there otherwise. There is nobody else who would have given us the opportunity hat Wackie did. Its unheard of for someone like me, someone as young and inexperienced as we were, to just go to a studio in New York and ask for an opportunity. But Wackie too all of us in and provided a platform for us to experiment with our music, to refine our music.
I mean, think about it, all of those songs on the first album, those songs didn’t happen overnight. Its not like we created those songs during studio sessions booked for the album. Those songs took years to take shape. Years and years, maybe four, five, six years before they ever got released.
There were tough times though, very tough times. I remember seeing John Holt at the shop. He was there to record. I remember him telling me how hungry he was. I rode my bike up the block and bought him a Jamaican meal and he was so, so grateful that I did that for him. Here is this man, this legend, a man my father had so much respect for as a singer, so much so that he was what I was to aspire to, my father telling me ‘if you’re gonna sing, you gotta sing like John Holt.’ This legendary figure can’t even afford to eat.
It was heartbreaking. I remember seeing him selling his own records out the trunk of his car. One time he took some of his records to Brad’s [Record Den] on White Plains Road to sell. I saw Brad tell him that he didn’t need any John Holt records, and that he could not sell any John Holt records. I was stunned to see this. I paid John for those two boxes of records and I walked them right back into Brad’s and I set them up on the counter and said ‘You can’t do that to John Holt! Do you know who this man is? Here, you take these records and you sell them. I stormed out of the store and I was just heartbroken. I will never forget that day.
I’ve seen too much of that. People just destroying an artist, their spirit, all of their hopes and dreams, people just destroy them and take everything away.”
When it came to the payment of the artists recording in his studio Wackie’s policy, or at least his explanation for not paying the artists was that all royalties were invested back into the studio for maintenance, utilities, and equipment upgrades. It is in the same 1982 interview with Rush that Lloyd Barnes talked about the culture within the shop and his financial arrangement with those who worked and recorded there.
“We’ve got, I would say, twenty people who help out here. They work up front or if, say, I need a drummer, someone will fill in. Just about everybody does some engineering. We have a strong unity force here, a roots force. But I tell you, if I had to pay them for one week, I’d have to run away. We charge $80 for an hour of studio time. We’ve got some big names here, Leroy Sibbles, Ken Boothe. Sugar Minott – he had a hit in England with “Sometime Girl.” Who else, Roland Alphonso, Dillinger, even Augustus Pablo. But most times I won’t take their money. Because someday they may do a song for us. We do own a lot of tapes, we are just waiting for the right time.”
Wackie’s distribution model at the time was about as low-end as his bass level. He would normally press between 500 and 1500 copies of a single or LP (his largest single pressing was between 5,000 and 6,000 copies, however, at the time of this interview a pressing of 10,000 copies were planned for an album tentatively titled Wackies Warrior Dub) and distribute them locally, selling them on a consignment basis at local reggae record shops. Not having the connections for distribution in the Caribbean, he would send copies of his records to Randy’s in Jamaica who would distribute them throughout the island and in Trinidad and Tobago. He would eventually establish relationships with distributors in the UK (JetStar, Cartel), and Jamaica (Youth Promotion).
“I never saw a penny from any of those Love Joys records that Wackie sold” explains Abel. “I don’t think anybody did…Junior Delahaye, Jahtti. We were all just young artists who had this dream, this dream to sing and perform. We were grateful for the platform that Wackie provided but we were also naive to the business and so was Wackie. He’s not a business man. He’s a studio engineer.
Anything that did come in I gave straight to Wackie. I remember something came to the studio in the mail one time for Love Joys…a check. I just gave it to Wackie. I mean Mike, you have to remember that I was just a kid, a little girl among all these men.
At one point this guy Parrot at Island Records wanted to release “It Ain’t Easy” because they loved that track. But Wackie was holding tight to the song and they dropped the idea.”
It wasn’t until much later, long after leaving the studio that Abel-Allen realized the full extent of the situation. While many of Wackies’ artists went unnoticed in the US, the Love Joys had a following in the UK thanks to a distribution deal Bullwackie had with JetStar Records.
“I returned to the UK when I was older and I paid a visit to JetStar. I remember the guy telling me ‘Sonia, I sent money to Wackie for the record sales. I sent thousands of dollars.’ He actually got Wackie on the phone while I was there in his office and he asked Wackie about all the checks he had sent for Love Joys. Wackie said that he put the money right back into the studio and to pay bills. It was an uncomfortable phone call and finally Wackie said that he couldn’t speak about it right then and hung up.”
It is unknown how much money Abel-Allen lost on the JetStar distribution deal. Having never negotiated an agreement with Bullwackie about royalty monies there is no telling how profitable the Love Joys were at the time. And while the situation still bothers Abel-Allen, it is not something she dwells upon. She doesn’t come off as a bitter person, however, she regrets the way Wackie chose to deal with the situation.
“We had a real vibe there at Wackies. We really were like family. We trusted Wackie and he really did love us and the other artists. He had framed photos on his wall of all the talented, young artists who recorded there. I don’t doubt that he really cared. But he didn’t have to do it this way. He exploited us because we were young and we were naive. He sold us out.”
In 2002, Bullwackie signed a deal with the Berlin, Germany-based Basic Channel to re-issue the Wackies catalog, including the Love Joys LPs and 12”s.
“Basic Channel dealt upright and honestly with my lawyer…they were very gracious and supportive. If a record company wants to release my music and they go to a producer like Wackie, well, he wasn’t my producer, he was the studio man. He never sat down with me and helped me write a lyric or work out a song. I never gave him permission to sell my music or my writings.
So the Basic Channel deal went down without my knowledge. Wackie told them that he didn’t know where I was and that he had actually written songs with me. I had to take them to court in order to get paid. Guess what I got paid? Two thousand dollars because of some statute of limitations. Twenty five years of exploitation from Bullwackie who sold all my music to Germany. Eventually they settled with me. They had to sign a paper that they were exploiting my music and they can continue exploiting my music…I basically gave them permission to continue exploiting my music.
I also had to take Bullwackie to court. I had to get my music back from him. So I took him to court and I won back all the rights to my music, publishing and distribution. Wackie can no longer sell anything Love Joys, or promote or mention on his page, nothing.”
However, the exploitation of the Love Joys’ music did not end with the Basic Channel deal. According to Abel-Allen, Bullwackie sold “All I Can Say” to X-Box for the Saints Row video game.
“Bullwackie hustled the music. You don’t have to hustle the music. Great music is great music and it don’t need to be hustled.”
Included below is my exclusive interview with Tony “Jahtti” Allen of Itopia and the Natti Love Joys.
MR – So the Love Joys disbanded in what 1982/83? Is that when the Abel & Allen thing began to take off?
JT – “Yes. Me and Sonia started recording as Abel & Allen. Around 1984 we met Sonny Ochai from Japan. He was planning the first JapanSplash and he was recruiting artists from the Wackie studio for the concert. At that time quite a few artists were in limbo in the States, they used to come through Wackies from time to time.”
MR – Like who?
JT – “People like Sugar Minott, who played on the JapanSplash show was a regular at the studio. Horace Andy was there for a while, Johnny Osbourne, Heptones, Leroy Sibbles and Naggo Morris, John Holt and even Lee “Scratch” Perry and more.”
MR – So talk about JapanSplash. Were you guys involved?
JT – “Sonny was interested in having Abel & Allen as a part of the package to Japan. But I Jah-T was not legal to travel so that was not to be.”
MR – What were you guys doing at the time here stateside?
JT – “Sonia Love Joy was pregnant at the time with our daughter Jean. We stayed around Wackies for a bit more before moving upstate N.Y. to a little town named Shandaken. That’s the era when we had a tragedy in the family, while I was on tour playing bass for Sugar Minott my son drowned. On my return from the tour we had a memorial show in Woodstock. Sugar Minott had always hinted that we should perform together as a group, up till this time Sonia was Love Joys, and I was Itopia bass player of the Congos band who came here to USA from Paris after a failed tour. We put together a band to perform at the memorial for our son. We continued the band as Abel & Allen using our last names as we are fans of Ashford & Simpson. In Woodstock after the memorial a local promoter Leah Boss introduced us to a booking agent in Woodstock who had some gigs for us.”
MR – So what kind of shows were you playing?
JT – “At the time we weren’t even familiar with the artist we were opening for it was around 1986. We opened for Joan Jett And the Blackhearts twice, Debbie Gibson, the Clash, The Ramones, Psychedelic Furs, The Band, Marshall Tucker Band some may elude memory in between those we had the local promoter Leah Boss from Upstate Reggae book us a few openings with Jimmy Cliff and also had us on her shows in Woodstock.
We met the Bad Brains bassie Daryl Jenifer and guitar Dr. No who resided in Woodstock as well we became friends so we had times when the bassie Daryl would jam with us and Dr. No played guitar with us when we open for Jimmy Cliff in Poughkeepsee NY and other gigs.
We met lots of interesting musicians there in the area like Karl Berger international pianist who performed for our memorial show. He arranges for the German philharmonic orchestra and even people like Sly &Robbie back in the day.
After a few years living there The Meditations came through for a gig and we are family. My sister has a son with Ansell Cridland (“Woman is Like a Shadow”) hit singer in Meditations. They suggested we check out Arizona for music work because Woodstock close down during winter and its cold. So we moved to Arizona within months, we got in and started to perform in Tucson. We met Mikey Dread. I knew him from Jamaica. I played bass on an album for him song name “Jah Jah Love Will Keep Shining in the Morning.” He was a radio DJ in Tucson at the time around 1988-89. Danny Clarke of the Meditations resided there too so he helped us get situated in Tucson.
We performed in Phoenix, Flagstaff and also together with Danny Clark of the Meditations we performed in the Grand Canyon for the Havasupai people, one of our most memorable shows. We also performed for the Tohono O’odem indians from time to time they really love reggae music. After a spell in Arizona we left to visit London as it the home of Sonia Love Joys and Sugar Minott had hinted to us that reggae is big in England.”
MR – So what was the London scene like?
JT – “After arriving in London, it took time to get used to it but we started booking a few small shows like the one at the Brixton Domino Club where Aswad drummer Zeb son Sol played drums for us only 13 years old. We stayed with his mother Pet in Angeltown Estates in Brixton. At the time we ran out of money and needed help so we started calling around where we met Colin, a record producer interested in Love Joys and Rae Cheddie, who gave us a place to stay as he was a Wackie foot soldier in England.”
MR – Was there any Love Joys fan base there?
JT – “We finally had to find out where Love Joys music was distributed and we met Jet Star president Mr.Palmer in North London. He told Love Joys he had sent money for them but she never got any. Long story short, we met a couple who had a local band, I forgot the name….Mickey was the Drummer and his Queen played keyboards. We did a few songs there for the Abel & Allen album Two Loves in My Life. We went to Mad Professor studio where we met Dennis Brown, he bought a few promotional T-shirts and gave us encouragement to stay in the music business.”
Wackies records saturated the UK reggae charts during this period
MR – So you weren’t there long, right? When did you come back stateside?
JT – “When we got back to the US we did the title track (“Two Loves in My Life”) with Cedric Brooks playing sax. He was my music teacher in Jamaica. I also performed with his band back then United Africa. Monkey Man (Wade) was the drummer on the song. After that album, which was not released, we went back to Woodstock to visit, maybe 1993. The promoter Leah Boss told us about the Woodstock 21st anniversary show. We got a spot on it with Santana and Richie Havens and more. We left to Florida where we started to perform all over different venues. After 2 years we moved to Atlanta. By this time we had two children, the second child was born in the Woodstock mountains at Kingston hospital upstate NY. His name is Avram. After moving to Atlanta and perform a few seasons as Abel & Allen we met a lady who told us about music conventions. We paid our fee and decided to try it. We performed downtown Atlanta at the convention center with people like Nine Mil, Da Brat, and others. We got a recording contract with Masters Entertainment from Washington DC with Andre Reams. We stayed with them performing at Conventions around the US. It was short-lived but we had the best time of our life. We had another child in Atlanta Bemi. Our friend Mike Cacia who manages Toots mentioned to us that him and Toots were on tour in Europe and they were in the car when they heard Love Joys on the radio! He also found Love Joys album in a huge record store in NY, so he suggested that we find a name that keeps the Love Joys in it because Love Joys had a little name in Europe already, just build on that.”
MR – So is this when the Natti Love Joys came into being?
JT – “Yes. We changed the name to Natti Love Joys, that was around 1996 when the Olympics came to Atlanta. Anyway we became the number one Caribbean band in Atlanta three years in a row backing all kinds of Jamaican artists Like Nadine Sutherland, Sister Carol, Sugar Minott, Tony Rebel, Ken Boothe, John Holt, Alton Ellis, Melodians, performing with Tommy McCook, getting together with the Studio One band Joe Isaacs on drums, Pablove Black on keys, Bunny Brown and Sonia Love Joys on keyboards opening shows and myself playing bass for the artists. We had a good run in Atlanta. We did the New Years Eve show for Atlanta Peach Drop at the end of 2001, opening for Three Dog Night and Sugar Hill Gang.
We also opened for Jimmy Buffet show downtown Atlanta for the radio station Z93 at the time. After doing festivals and events for a few years we got some land in the Tennessee mountains, it borders North Carolina and Georgia in a little town Turtle Town Tennessee.”
MR – Talk a little bit about Reggae Camp…such a brilliant idea. Who came up with this concept?
JT – “Within a few months of living here Sonia Love Joys came up with the idea of having a reggae festival on our land. She named it Camp Reggae. It’s now 16 years old. It’s twice a year, Memorial Day weekend and Labor day weekend. We have changed a whole region where it is Caucasian only in 16 years with our culture and music.”
Various Wackies press…
LEGENDARY REGGAE 