The Life and Times of Earl Moodie (Reggae Related)

http://www.beyondracemagazine.com/articles/moodie.htmlBronx Dynamite: The Life and Times of Earl MoodieArticle by Anne Galvin; Photograph by Beth Fladung Earl Moodie marks the passage of time using Bob Marley???s death as a milestone. The proprietor of Moodie???s Records on Boston Road in The Bronx, in some ways, lives the classic Jamaican immigrant???s story, and in many ways, lives the exceptional life of someone who has experienced and continues to contribute to music history. The brightly lit, family run store houses stacks of the latest 7 inches straight from Kingston, which Moodie???s in-store ???selector??? will happily play for customers on the two turntables tucked behind the counter. Beyond the selection of CDs and ???hot off the press??? releases, necessities for any self-respecting New York DJ, Moodie???s is also a rich source for old school Reggae gems, clearly collected by a proprietor with a deep knowledge and love of the genre.Born in the rural Jamaican Parish of St. Mary, Moodie???s family moved to August Town, a part of Kingston made famous by the current Reggae phenomenon Sizzla, where he completed school at age fourteen. Even after leaving work at the law firm that employed him, his self-described ???great love for the music??? drew him to now legendary Reggae studios like Randy???s and Coxsone Dodd???s Studio One, as well as West Indies Studio, which would eventually be bought by Marley. By the time he was sixteen, Moodie???s aunt, who was living in The Bronx back in 1969, sponsored him to come to New York to continue his education. While singing at a school concert, he was approached to join a 9-member band that was looking for a lead vocalist. According to Moodie, ???We did some openings for Max Romeo, played at Max???s Kansas City and a couple of places in the Village which led to tours in across the United States.??? The group initially went by the name The Dynamites (not to be confused with Clancy Eccles??? session band) and eventually evolved into The Stepping Stones.They operated out of Bullwackie???s, Lloyd ???Bullwackie??? Barnes???s studio at Carlisle Place and 213th Street, widely recognized as the first Reggae recording studio in New York. Barnes started his music career in Jamaica as a singer, recording with one of Reggae???s originators, Prince Buster. Bullwackie???s also housed the Tafari Record Label and produced ???70s classics including ???Tribal War??? by Little Roy. Eventually the studio moved to 241st Street, where Bullwackie formed The Chosen Brothers. They recorded the original version of ???Good to Be There,??? by Barnes that was later covered in 1984 by the group Chalice and became a bonafide hit.Moodie describes ???Bullwackie??? Barnes as ???One of the first???real straight up, real open.??? He would, ???groom artists that then could carry on the work.??? Moodie also describes his band???s tenure at Bullwackie???s as part of its downfall. Since the band regularly rehearsed at the studio, they unintentionally became in-house musicians who would back up other artists who had come there to record. The way Moodie explains it, ???There was no time to rehearse! I???m trying to keep my job doing auditing, and then I quit my job to become a full time member of the band. Most of the days, we weren???t able to rehearse because the band was playing behind someone in the studio!??? Backing up other artists during studio sessions eventually caused The Stepping Stones to lose their identity and disband. Moodie then recorded a solo album and six or seven singles with Wackie???s.The ???70s in New York was a very exciting time for Moodie, who became part of the vibrant Village music scene. He describes heading downtown to hang out, proudly donning a pair of platform shoes, and frequently crossing paths with musical icons of the era like Jimi Hendrix. When asked about the presence of other Jamaicans in the Village scene, he said, ???Max Romeo was a good friend of mine and he used to hang out there all the time and then whenever Bob was in New York, you know Tompkins Square Park? That???s where he hangs out, and that???s where I used to hang out most of the time. I used to go to CBGB???s, you know? They used to play Reggae there all the time.???Moodie began working at Brad???s Records in 1974. The store was owned by producer Brad Osborne who was also the founder of the fundamental Clocktower label. During that period, Moodie opened performances for vocalist Jacob Miller, the one time lead man for Inner Circle. Miller used to hang out at the record store, which was a major attraction for foundational musicians including the inimitable Peter Tosh, ???Rhythm Twins??? Sly and Robbie, rootsman Dennis Brown, and Dillinger ???The Dub Organizer,??? when they came to the city. Reflecting the excitement of New York during the ???70s, some of the most memorable moments for Moodie were when The Rolling Stones would come in to buy records. ???Those guys used to love Gregory Isaacs so much, man, that when they came, anything that Gregory Isaacs put out, they would buy like two hundred, three hundred copies of each of them! Most of the time when they came, we???d just close the store and whenever they???d finish shop, you could just close the shop for the rest of the day! They loved Gregory Isaacs and they used to love John Holt.???According to Moodie, Brad Osborne was not just his boss, but also his teacher and an excellent producer. He describes Osborne, whose life was cut short by a gunman in the early ???80s, as ???a person who was very meticulous about instrumentation. And he was a person that give to ???The Upsetter??? [Lee ???Scratch??? Perry], who we found out in later years was like the greatest producer that ever came out of Jamaica. A lot of times when he was recording he had two bass players playing harmony and that was unheard of in most music, much less Reggae music. I really, really learned a lot from him. He was a really, really great human being and a great producer.??? Moodie???s love for the music went beyond selling records to trying to understand the nuances of production and the techniques used by different producers that made their sound unique. He claims that at one point in time he could identify just about any record that had come out of Jamaica by listening to the first bar. After hearing only a brief snippet, he could identify where the song was recorded and who played on it. Of this period of Reggae music, he said, ???I thought it was going to take over the world. That???s what I thought. But then Bob died and something happened. I don???t know what happened.???Moodie left Brad???s Records in 1981, ???around when Bob Marley died.??? Shortly thereafter, he and four co-workers from Brad???s opened their own store. It was during this time that the Dancehall style began to take hold. ???The music started changing after Bob died. It eventually found a home with Yellowman.??? Moodie???s Records put out a live album that was made from a dancehall cassette of a Yellowman performance. The album was so popular that the store sold approximately a thousand albums in two days. By 1984, Moodie had also gotten into production. ???After I opened the store, I slowly stopped playing with the band. Then I did some work with Gussie Clarke. He???s the one that produced ???Telephone Love??? [by J.C. Lodge] and he produced a couple of tunes with Dennis Brown. So I made a deal with him and I released a couple of records for him.??? Among those records was the tune ???Unruly Pickney??? by The Mighty Diamonds as well as ones by U-Roy and Sugar Minott. After these projects with Clarke, Moodie began producing his own songs with Howard Young arranging the instrumentals. He and Philip Smart recorded ???Don???t Turn Around??? sung by Owen Gray, which was a hit in New York and, by Moodie???s account, sold fort
y or fifty thousand copies. They also recorded Courtney Melodie???s tune, ???Modern Girl??? which was so popular that several versions of it were released. Frankie Paul???s sweetly romantic 1984 rendition of Jefferson Airplane???s love song ???Sara,??? which Moodie produced with King Jammy???s, was a big tune in both New York and Jamaica. Then venturing into the realm of hardcore Dancehall, they produced the sexually charged Shabba Ranks song ???Live Blanket??? which came out on his 1990 album, Just Reality.Moodie???s continued to put out records up until 1995, but he didn???t like the direction music had taken with the popularization of Dancehall. After Marley???s death, ???real Reggae,??? as he refers to the adherents of ???70s era roots music such as Black Uhuru, had shifted toward a Reggae/Rock aesthetic and started losing popularity. With a palpably sorrowful softness in his voice, Earl Moodie expressed that, because Bob Marley died, Reggae music, ???didn???t get a chance to go where it was supposed to go. It was left there, like??? hanging, and there was nobody to take up that mantle. After The Beatles, came somebody like The Rolling Stones, someone to fill that void, and they kept building their base. You know? And there was nobody to build that base so it was just left hanging. People were so crushed when Bob died, that it just stood there and then Yellowman came to fill that void, but he came with a different brand of music.???Looking back to his youth, Moodie remembers hearing the song ???Saltfish??? by, Calypsonian, The Mighty Sparrow. He claims that it was only as recently as 15 years ago that he finally realized the lyric ???Saltfish is the nicest fish to eat??? had sexual connotations. Of contemporary music, he commented, ???But now you find that rappers and Jamaican artists just blurt it out.??? He sees many contemporary producers as short-sighted, looking for fast money from a trendy hit song, rather than building new artists for long-term payoffs.Of his record store he ruminated, ???This is one of those unique places. I don???t think you???d find a store like this somewhere else, you know???? He went on, ???That reminds me, there was somebody came in here recently asking for [Country singer] Marty Robbins, you know? And that???s something that we carry. As he start looking around and he saw Louis Jordan and all this other stuff that we carry, and, at the same time we carry the old Reggae products, but if you wanted a Frank Sinatra, you could also get it too. You know? It???s one of those places??????Although it is clear that Moodie feels ???real Reggae??? never had a chance to flourish, as it might have if Bob Marley had survived, he still dedicates himself to preserving the tradition. Through his store, Moodie manages to share his passion and deep musical knowledge with his contemporaries, who thirst for the Reggae sound they enjoyed while growing up, and with the next generation, who may love dancehall, but who also value the importance and style of its antecedents.