Craig Stephen on an “artistic delight” …
I bought this
because a dub album featuring some of Jamaica’s finest musicians and producers
was a tantalising prospect in itself. But it was the cover and the subject in
hand that really drew me into taking it up to the counter.
It’s hard for this
writer to resist a football-based cover but it is also an artistic delight
abounding with colour, action and a fantasy story that sadly will never come
true.
The hero of Tony
McDermott’s artwork is The Scientist himself, aka Hopeton Brown who heroically strikes
late in the final against England, leaving the opposition looking helpless and
hapless.
The English
players are caricatures of the national team of the time - there’s Kevin Keegan
with his trademark permawave hairdo vainly tugging at The Scientist’s jersey,
while Viv Anderson vainly attempts to stop him from shooting. Glen Hoddle looks
on aghast and I do believe another star of the era Tony Woodcock is the fourth identifiable
English player.
Brown’s team-mates
meanwhile are reggae stars from his homeland. McDermott, a northern Englishman
who designed extensively for the Greensleeves label, drew Greensleeves-linked
artists such as Eek-A-Mouse, Eastwood & Saint, Michael Prophet, Yellowman
and Ranking Dread as Scientist’s team-mates, with producer Junjo as the
referee. Several of the Jamaicans are wearing an assortment of hats, as does the
whistler.
Obscured in the
top left hand side is some detail about the match so far. The small scoreboard
reveals that Jamaica are leading 6-1 with The Scientist bagging all the goals.
There’s nothing quite as pleasing in sport as thrashing your former colonial
overlords. The back cover is an image of Brown holding the famous World Cup
trophy aloft.
One curious aspect
of the cover are the jerseys. The opposition’s top is the one they wore at the 1982
World Cup, but the Jamaican side’s strip was a far cry from the traditional shirt
of mainly gold tinged with green. The diagonal striped shirt actually resembles
the national strip of Trinidad and Tobago with the thin gold stripe replacing the
white of the flag. Released in 1982 to coincide with the finals held in Spain,
it was wishful thinking that either side would contest the final, with
England’s supposed stars faltering at the second stage without scoring against
either West Germany or Spain. The Jamaicans didn’t bother to enter
qualification due to lack of money and a poorly prepared team.
And on top of the
magnificent cover is some music. Monumental music.
The Scientist was
a protégé of the legendary King Tubby in the 1970s and, released to his own
devices, made a series of albums in the early 1980s. These were issued by Greensleeves
with titles themed around his fictional achievements in fighting Space
Invaders, Pac-Men and Vampires with animated and colourful covers which were as
memorable as Wins the World Cup.
The reissue sleeve
itself introduces the tracks as “ten dangerous matches plus five extra time and
the golden goal”. There isn’t any track listing on the sleeve or the record so
I guess you can name them yourself.
The Scientist had
the backing of the Roots Radics, a Jamaican band that had released two
dub-heavy albums of their own in 1981 and 1982. The producer (or “referee”) is
the aforementioned Henry ‘Junjo’ Lawes, who played a key role in the shift from
roots reggae to the emerging dancehall sound. Many of the rhythms on this album
were versions of popular tracks from his productions.
Despite the limitations
of dancehall music of the time, the dubs are diverse and musically tight. Dub
is mainly about sonics and bass lines and these are delivered with aplomb.
There are versions of vocal tracks by Johnny Osbourne (the priceless Give A
Little Love among others), Hugh Mundell (Red Gold and Green) and Wayne Jarrett
which offer a divergence from some of the non-vocal tracks and the, at times,
predictability of such tracks.
