Totally different to Niney’s work was Junior’s latest production for Pete Weston, a version of the Folkes Brothers hit Oh Carolina. This was another chance for Junior to use his much loved lyrics mix up techniques, over a bright and cheerful rockers rhythm complete with a string synth melody line.
1976 also saw Junior back in the studio with the Ja-Man production team of Swaby and Hollet, with an original song, Know Where You’re Going, which has an outstanding mid-tempo Channel One rhythm, some nice touches on the piano and fine harmony work. Junior sings for repatriation in a strong clear voice that really rams home his lyrics…”Don’t Fight It, Get On Board”.
Advance, Micron’s subsidiary label issued their second release from Junior in the form of Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, a version of the soul tune, featuring some great horns and an outstanding rhythm. Overall it perhaps ranks as the best production from Pete Weston & Micron, Junior singing very well, with a lot of feeling.
Can You Feel It from producer Lloyd F Campbell stands as one of Junior’s most personal songs with lyrics like “Oh time and time I’ve traveled this road my knees get weak from this heavy heavy load, and I feel it SUFFERATION EVERYDAY.” Added to those lyrics is the Pick Up The Pieces rhythm that Lloyd has recut very well.
Perhaps Junior’s strangest record is Weeping, also produced by Lloyd F Campbell. Here Junior’s mix up lyrics is taken to it’s most extreme. Essentially of course it’s about sufferation, but then the confusion begins when Junior sings of “Have you ever seen stones, get up cry.” It’s plain that it makes sense to Junior, who sings the lyrics with intense passion. A great dub of this Rockers rhythm is to be found on the B side, Weeping And Wailing.
“Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, some are begging this and some are begging that, some pitchy patchy walking down the street…. Well I don’t really know, but that’s the way story goes, an whole lot of suffering, out deh, out deh. out deh. This is the introduction to Pitch Patchy for the Ja-Man label. A song of praise to Jah is the real message in the song, but those opening lyrics are well charged.
Jordan
Jordan, the album for producer Pete Weston, was recorded in 1976 and came out in the spring of 1977. It is a solid set of music that contains recuts of A Place Called Africa, a medley of Beat Down Babylon and Curly Locks, which are good but seemed unnecessary at the time.
Sometimes a recut can add something to the original, but the only real difference between these recuts and originals is the pace. The recuts are quicker and in the process something gets lost.
The title track Jordan is a recut of Pitchy Patchy, but this time the process works in reverse. Horns and phasing are used throughout the tune to tremendous effect. Some great lead guitar can also be heard.
Mystic Revelation, a new tune, is constructed in a similar way as Junior sings lyrics like “I Had to kill the rent man, cause I didn’t have a cent.”
The other new song is I Ain’t Got, which concerns with poverty as well as offering the only real solution to the problem.
The remaining four songs Bur 0 Boy, Lorna Banana, Oh Carolina and Ain’t Too Proud Too Beg are remixes of the single releases, sometimes with the addition of percussion and electric piano and string synth. Bur 0 Boy perhaps benefits most from this work.
Jordan represents a second fine album from Junior. One that has aged well and sounds better today than it did when it was released.
Around 1977, Niney the Observer produced Junior again, this time releasing the works on 12″ through his connections with Count Shelley’s Third World operation. One Love wasn’t very memorable, but the B side, It’s Boring, featured Junior singing about how boring London is, which can only mean he visited the city, that has no pity and is full of iniquity.
Natty Dreadlocks/Sick-More-Tree/What Kind Of World/Easy Stepping, issued under the name of Junior Boyce, had the same sort of impact as the first disco, which wasn’t great, but this was still great music.
Junior then took a break from the business that lasted until 1978. When he returned, it was to be for Joe Gibbs and Errol T, with whom he recorded Heart And Soul. It could have been a very productive and creative relationship as Joe and Errol had recently produced many fine roots records together, notably with Dennis Brown and Culture. Heart And Soul was a fine effort. Junior singing this time for more devotion to Rastafari, over a cut to the Mean Girl rhythm.
A year later came the second and last production to date from Joe Gibbs and Errol T, Dreadlocks Time, which uses the Ba Ba Boom rhythm, and to a certain extent the lyrics as well. Although Junior’s voice still sounds as good as ever, a lack of inspiration can be heard throughout the tune. Perhaps Junior was now well and truly fed up with the business, as after the release of Dreadlocks Time nothing was heard from him until early 1982.
It was then that he recut Don’t Know Why. Don’t Be Surprised is the new title given to this Blacka Morwell production. it really finds Junior at his best again. A sad love song that Junior gets very involved with, pushed along by a firm Roots Radios rhythm.
Jamaica’s most potent talent form the ’70s had made it into the ’80s with style. It was around about the time of the release of Don’t Be Surprised in the UK on 12″ that Blacka Morwell announced that he was soon to be releasing a Junior Byles LP
He made this statement on Tony Williams’s show on Radio London. At the time The Morwells had an album on Nighthawk a US reggae label – Best Of The Morwells. Not long after Blacka Morwell’s statement, Nighthawk the St.Louis based reggae and blues label also announced that they had a Junior Byles LP to release. Everyone including myself, assumed that it was the Morwells produced LP. Four years later we were to discover that it was a Niney the Observer production!