MP3 request "ring the alarm" - tenor saw

Lawrence

classic joint. anyone got a 320?

AKallDay

i have both the orig and the buju 90's re-edit and a heap of riddims i can load when i get home later.

too bad about tenor saw. i think he would have a great career if he hadn't been murdered so young. he had such a great voice.

Gary

ohhh I second this request....

Lawrence

thanks AKallDay . look forward to them both.

TNG

Go nuts:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/rgrfmn

bassie

too bad about tenor saw. i think he would have a great career if he hadn't been murdered so young. he had such a great voice.

murder as in the car hit him on purpose? I thought it was an accident?

hemol

too bad about tenor saw. i think he would have a great career if he hadn't been murdered so young. he had such a great voice.

murder as in the car hit him on purpose? I thought it was an accident?

I thought he was running drugs and got caught up, no?

Super dope song. First time I heard it was in one of the first Baker videos.

hogginthefogg

Cashless to thread.

bassie

explanations of him being murdered over drugs and over money seemed flimsy to me, wondered if something new came to light...

Okem

Okem

From the Gleaner

Ring the alarm, Tenor Saw is coming. Although this month marks 20 years since his death, the legacy of Clive Bright, one of dancehall's most influential and unique singers, lives on.

Tenor Saw's death was mysterious. In 1988, the 22-year-old's decomposing body was found in bushes near a road in Houston, Texas. One version is that he was shot; another was that he was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. But his mentor, singer/producer Lincoln 'Sugar' Minott, said he really died of pneumonia.

This, he believes, occurred after he got into an altercation with promoters about not being paid for a performance. He was allegedly beaten, left in bushes, exposed to the elements and died from pneumonia.

It was a great loss to dancehall music as Tenor Saw's voice was unlike any placed on a 'riddim'.

"The voice was so powerful, something that come from the church, like a Pavarotti kinda thing," is how Minott describes Saw's sound which influenced other artistes of the 1980s,including Frankie Paul, Junior Reid, Nitty Gritty and Michael Palmer.

But his impact did not stop with his passing; his songs are still being played. Hits like Roll Call, his first single produced by George Phang's Powerhouse label, Lots of Signs, Pumpkin Belly, Golden Hen and the dance essential Ring the Alarm are still popular choices for radio, dances and compilation CDs.

Great talent

The talent, which produced these hits literally crept on to Sugar Minott's doorstep.

"I see a youth outside a lick the stone outside of the studio at mi house. So I check him and him seh, 'bwoy Fadda, a long time mi a try yuh nuh and mi caan get nobody fi listen mi'," Minott recalled.

This was the beginning of Tenor Saw's relationship with Youth Promotions, Minott's record label and sound system. A big break came when he accompanied Minott to King Jammy's studio in Waterhouse, where Minott was cutting songs on the new computerised Sleng Teng rhythm. With a dub plate, made to have four songs, Minott sang three and the eager Tenor Saw seized the opportunity to prove his worth on the other.

Birth of 'Pumpkin Belly'

"Him seh, 'Fadda, mi have something fi dat rhythm too'. So him beg mi a dub plate and mi gi him. That's how 'the song of an old-time proverb', Pumpkin Belly, was born in 1985," Minott told The Sunday Gleaner.

Tenor Saw would go on to create the classic Ring the Alarm during a lyrical battle between Youth Promotions and another sound system. Minott produced his debut album, Fever, in 1986.

Clive Bright grew up in the impoverished community of Payne Avenue in the constituency of south west St Andrew. The songs that would make him famous were mainly about everyday life, even referring to advice his grandmother gave him in Pumpkin Belly. He also had a spiritual side.

"He was serious about his work and getting paid, and he always tried to sing songs of consciousness, there was always a message," said Minott. There was a dark side.

"There was an anger about him, I figured that was his struggle coming up," Minott added.

If he were alive, his mentor thinks Tenor Saw would still be rolling out the hits.

"Just imagine Garnett Silk, just imagine if Bob Marley was still around. I don't even know where I could put him, he was like a little institution by himself," Minott said.

bassie

I can see how a decomposing body can be a beaten body mistaken for one hit by a car - and the other way around. but being fatally shot is pretty clear cut!
anyway, thought something definite had come out.
enough morbid talk, man was a force.

bull_ox

Two other favorites from him that don't get enough attention:


Golden Hen

hogginthefogg

"Pumpkin Belly" and "Golden Hen" don't get enough attention?

hemol

I love that the dude that stumbled upon that sleng teng in his casio keyboard--can't remember who it was, but it's in the Jammy book--boasts about finding it, and takes credit like he did something. No love for the dude in Japan that programmed that thing?

AKallDay

oh cool someone beat me to posting it.

well as long as this has turned into a tenor saw appreciation post i will say that another undervalued track of his in addition to golden hen and pumpkin belly is I Got to Be There aka Roll Call so here's that and after it the buju banton re-edit of ring the alarm:


tenor saw Roll Call


tenor saw and buju Ring the Alarm

Okem

I love that the dude that stumbled upon that sleng teng in his casio keyboard--can't remember who it was, but it's in the Jammy book--boasts about finding it, and takes credit like he did something. No love for the dude in Japan that programmed that thing?

Lets not get it twisted. Jammy and Wayne Smith changed the game with sleng teng, saying it's just some preprogrammed rhythm from some Casio keyboard, is like saying Warhol just copied some soup tins.

FYI apparently the rhythm setting was trying to recreate Eddie Cochran's "Somethin' Else", so should he get the credit over 'the dude in Japan'?

Lawrence

So no one got it at 320 then?????