Derrick Morgan - In London

Not only did the Skatalites play on every record in the ska era, they most certainly would have barely been paid much at all. As highlighted in the film The Harder They Come, Jamaican musicians were often much neglected and the record label would most often be corrupt. For a young up-and-coming musician, life was tough. They were barely paid, and the music was a big part of Jamaican life and culture. In fact, the statistic of people emigrating to England from Jamaica, a fair selection of them wrote down as their profession being a musician. It is probably something like one in four people, a huge number. But then Jamaica is a third world country. Reggae in England is often synonymous with the punk scene, as punks in England had not recorded any music up until nineteen seventy-six or thereabouts, so the music they listened and played along to was, in fact, reggae music, thus The Clash having this massive reggae edge. 

Derrick Morgan - Moon Hop

Rumour has it that there is one band that played on every ska track, and that band is the Skatalites. They played under many aliases over hundreds of recordings. Roland Alphonso is the saxophonist and Don Drummond the trombonist. Drummond is considered as one of the greatest trombonists to ever live and his life marred with tragedy. He developed a fierce hatred of white men and often spat on them in the street. He drifted into mental illness and murdered his girlfriend and spent the rest of his life in a mental asylum after the police cracked down on the music scene it is believed. Many people in the scene believe Drummond was fine. It is a peculiarity of the Jamaican music scene and enigma involving one of the finest trombonists to ever grace the planet.

Black Uhuru - Red

Anyone who is interested in the life of Bob Marley should watch the documentary Marley by Kevin Macdonald. It tells the remarkable story of Marley from his humble beginnings in rural Jamaica, where his father was a white English cotton farmer and being half white, Bob was subject to bullying. He survived assassination attempts and was a massive football fan and believed football was true freedom, so much so that playing in his spare time he cut his foot when he was not wearing any sufficient footwear, and this cut got infected and had to travel to Europe for treatment. His friends and colleagues thought everything would be fine and Jah would look after Marley but it was not to be. Marley also economically looked after poor families from Kingston and was a devout socialist.