1976 was a pivotal year in music: reggae was its peak and punk was an obscure art school sub-genre just about to be turned into a commercial anti-art dogma.
While punk flared up on the streets of London, Manchester and New York, Jamaica’s capital Kingston was literally on fire, with uncontrolled violence and gang warfare occurring during much of the decade. Political divisions and tribal loyalty were fuelling the economic distress afflicting the island.
Reggae reacted by getting proactive and putting down a roots agenda. 1976 alone saw some exceptional albums from Peter Tosh, Johnny Clarke, Linval Thompson, Burning Spear, the Mighty Diamonds, Tapper Zukie, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, King Tubby, and the genre’s sole superstar, Bob Marley and the Wailers, with Rastaman Vibration.
So it was a tough time to release a record with the danger of any record falling between the cracks, but among all of the above, please add this: War Ina Babylon by Max Romeo and the Upsetters (but commonly just attributed to Romeo), with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at the controls.
The music reflects the cover: a distraught woman holding her head in her hands with a handkerchief to cry into.
The magnificently roots reggae One Step Forward is a call to reject a narrow road to despair and urges politicians to take the “narrow” road to righteousness.
It opens side one, which contains the four heavyweight tracks that tie War Ina Babylon together. As we’re digesting the demagoguery of this, Romeo tears into Uptown Babies, a more accessible track, feathering the traditional pop modus operandi of musicians in other parts of the Americas, with a dissection of the class divide. For some, life isn’t a chore if you have a network of people to look after you.
“Uptown babies don't cry/ They don't know what hungry is like/ Uptown babies don't cry/ They don't know what suffering is like/ They have mummies and daddies/ Lots of toys to play with/ Nannies and grannies/ Lots of friends to stay with.”
How nice it is in Pleasantville.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks …
“Hear that little baby crying?/ Yes she's crying, she's crying/ She's crying because she's hungry/ You can hear her mama saying/ It ain't easy, ain't easy/ Ain't easy when you're poor, you see/ And speaking of life in the ghetto/ Where survival is the motto/ And putting it to you/ Poverty is a sin.”
Chase the Devil (later sampled by The Prodigy) begins with Romeo bellowing: “Lucifer son of the morning, I'm gonna chase you out of earth”, before it turns into this magnificent spiel on the righteousness of Rastafarianism and the dangers of turning to the ‘other side’.
Playing into the run-out groove is the title track, a spectacular, foreboding track that is up there amongst the best things Perry has produced – and this during a period in which he was positively hallucinating with ideas which he provided to Marley et al.
The second side seems almost an after-thought in comparison but neglect it at your peril. Stealin' (in the Name of Jah), is a gospel-style condemnation on the corruption of the clergy with an easy, swinging chorus.
“My father's house of worship/ Has become a den of thieves/ Stealing in the name of the lord,” and bemoaning the fact the clergy makes everyday sacrifices while the reverend drives a fancy car and “buys everything tax free”.
“Strike the hammer of justice/ And set my people free,” demands Romeo.
Tan and See sounds very much like the Wailers at their peak, with female backing singers; Smile Out A Style is back to Romeo’s late 60s early reggae sound, sans the smut, and the penultimate track, Smokey Room, is an infectious track with a hook line spitting out ‘riddim’ over and over.
War Ina Babylon is in many ways a snapshot of reggae; it harks back to the early almost soulful days of the mid to late 60s, to the movement to the political mourning; an expression of the anger of the Rasta people and also a nod to the movement towards the rockier sound of roots reggae at the time that Marley and his rump Wailers used to such effect after the ’73 split.
It was just the beginning of a tremendously fertile period for Perry. In under two years he would produce an impressive batch of albums, several of which remain classics, such as Junior Murvins’ Police and Thieves and the Congos’ Heart of the Congos. War Ina Babylon can measure up to those and many others and is an essential piece of the roots reggae canon.
Romeo and Perry fell out over this record (the singer apparently felt he didn’t get remunerated properly) and while he recorded for many more years (including working with the Rolling Stones), nothing quite touched on War Ina Babylon. I would also suggest seeking out Fire Fe the Vatican, an immense single that didn’t – but should have – appeared on this album despite coming out in the same year.
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