[bomp] NY World's Fair ska

["paulk23@xxxxxxxx" <paulk23@xxxxxxxx>]

"Didn't Sir Coxsone Dodd and some other ska pioneers play the World's Fair sometime as well?"

Can't remember if Dodd made the trip too, but Byron Lee and his band played the New York Worlds Fair in 1964, backing Prince Buster, Eric Morris, Jimmy Cliff, the Maytals, and others.  They were trying to break ska as a "dance craze" in the U.S. market - didn't work.  Lee was selected because he was more palatable to the Jamaican upper classes than the islands finest ska band, the mighty Skatalites.  Those guys smoked ganja, some were Rastafarians, and they were more closely associated with the Jamaican underclass.

As a longtime ska fan (just the old stuff), I have to say that even though it is true that Lee later made a bunch of mediocre, watered-down rocksteady and reggae records, the guy gets a bad rap to some extent.  A lot of his early ska records, while they dont have the swing or jazz influences of the Skatalites (Lloyd Knibb  what a drummer!), are a lot of fun in their own right.  In particular, check out Beatles Got To Go, by Keith & Ken, where the lads are taken to task for not being funky enough for the dancehall audience!  Theres a line about calling the exterminator, I believe 

Still, it should have been the Skatalites.

Theres a video associated with the NY trip, called This Is Ska, made in B&W in about 1964, I think.  Well worth picking up if you see it.  A British guy (British-Jamaican?) narrates it, and theres step-by-step ska dance instructions.  The ska dance they demonstrate has very little resemblance to the 80s/90s style of ska dancing you sometimes see.

Paul


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