Wayne Marshall Biography

Born Wayne Mitchell, Marshall spent his early years in the Barbican area of Kingston, until his Father, a self-made successful businessman - relocated the family uptown.

Destiny moved the Mitchell family three doors away from the home of the Father of digital Dancehall, Lloyd `King Jammy` James. 'The King' had sons that were in young Wayne's age group, so the Waterhouse studio soon became a pre-ordained second home for the music-loving teenager.

Sparring with 'The Big Man's' offspring meant that the studio was at their disposal, causing Wayne to start checking music on a serious level from an early age. It was early '94 and Bounty Killer was as 'hot as hell'.

Marshall recalls meeting a few of the now hot acts when they were just trying to get a buss'. For example the now `Energy God` Elephant Man was then wearing tear-up clothes and Determine was then begging.

Thrown into the mix were the big artistes who came and went all day long. `At King Jammy's I got to know the ropes in the deep heart of Dancehall - dub plate style!`

Using his pass to the Mecca of Dancehall wisely, Wayne began copying Bounty Killer's style and pattern at school - Wolmers' Boys'. `Because I was at Jammy's, I would always have strictly pre-release Bounty Killer material and done the place! Any new tune that Jammy's released for Bounty I learnt them straight away and was ready to pop it off anytime anyone asked me at school - all day, every day, first verse, second verse, anything you want’.

The fruits of that labour are evident in Wayne Marshall, the artist, and Wayne Mitchell, the acclaimed songwriter. `From a young age I saw the channel of originality I should run through,` Marshall said.

Despite his adulation for the `War Lord`, age difference and Bounty's fearsome rep for being unapproachable kept the two entertainers apart...for the time being.

Marshall's abounding self-confidence allows him to freely acknowledge his skills and he recognised his own talent for creating lyrics as soon as he began penning soulful lyrics at 14. `From I was seven years old I always dreamed, visioned performing in front of huge crowds of people,` Marshall reveals. `Until I realised I could sing and make the girls dem cry, so I just sang and made the girls dem cry!`

Parental influences often dictate that children grow up to become lawyers, doctors, and pilots, and the like, but Marshall's parents let their son choose his own path. `As an uptown youth, you are convinced that you should strive for something your schooling can bring you, not something that your natural talent can bring forth,` he explains. `I look on it as a sin for me to neglect my natural talent and force myself to do something else.`

Wayne Marshall says that he could not imagine doing anything other than music, `Nothing else could make me feel happy, only music. I couldn't work and be happy. When I was young I used to listen to music and sit down and wonder how I used to feel this ting so.`

As with most things, it didn't take Marshall long to work it out: `Musicians feel and hear music differently from people who just listen to music. When you have the vibes to write and create music you feel the real musicians around you easily.`

Marshall says that he was influenced by a number of international and local acts. `Sade - I felt her deeply growing up. We used to get vibes from all different places -Sanchez, Atlantic Starr, Bel Biv Devoe, Baby Face, Beres - all dem cats.`

At 17, Marshall's voice matured, finding its natural pitch in a song he wrote called 'Champagne Wishes, Caviar Dreams'. Vocal versatility, another trademark of Bounty Killer, had manifested in Marshall's voice box and he went for the gap. `I decided to use my high pitch sound, my singing voice and my deejay voice to lock the whole world,` he says, explaining his marketing strategy. `I knew that if I wrote the right thing, organized my stuff properly, that combination would be unstoppable.`

Despite Marshall's confidence and natural talent, Jammy's hit factory still overlooked him. `It was tough because all the flavor yutes I was around were telling me my stuff was the wickedest ting,` he remembers, `but I just kept writing and holding direct meditation in myself, to find and bring forth originality out of myself.`

Marshall was bursting to record on wax, so a friend organised an audition one evening with a producer at his studio. After a nervous introduction the producer insisted Marshall sing over a track he was listening to in the studio, ignoring Marshall's pleas to sing something original. `Sing back weh the singer sing?` Marshall asked himself. `This old time music that mi not even listen to?` As a result Wayne faltered and the producer dismissed him as 'needing nuff voice training, yuh no ready yet.'

The artiste decided he was going to disprove that producer, `I decided that I was going to prove him wrong,` Marshall says, voice still thick with defiance. `Prove that he gave up on something good because he didn't want to listen to my little song, that I wrote specifically to impress him that day.`

Disappointment fostered self-doubt, because he was a big man in the business, but the drama didn't even last a week.

He simply focused harder on his vocals. At last the chance came to voice on the Bada Bada riddim - the vehicle that propelled Wayne's Jammys labelmates Ward 21 to stardom. Marshall rode their wave of success, travelling with them on shows and collaborating with them on songs. `Ward 21 got bigger and King always forced me in the package - made me travel and eat all some food,` he says. `King always push me inna di link hard, even before me ever had a one hot tune.`

Despite his larger-than-life persona, Marshall is eager to learn and not above taking on board criticism. So Wayne attended voice-training classes of a very pleasant little white lady who has schooled almost everyone currently calling themselves Reggae or Dancehall artiste. `Every day I was there for an hour,` says Marshall. `I was caught up in the studio flex and didn't even have a car but I made sure I dedicated myself to her class.` His friends noticed the difference in his voice. `You ready,` they told him.

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Mad Cobra Biography

Mad Cobra hit #1 on the Billboard Rap chart in 1992 with the gold selling single "Flex". In fact he's only the second ever reggae artist to achieve that feat in over thirty years of trying. Not bad for a 26 year old who named himself after a character in the GI Joe comic books!

He was born Ewart Everton Brown in Kingston, Jamaica yet grew up in the parish of St. Mary's, only moving back to the capital in his teens where he fostered his interest in music by guesting on the Mighty Ruler, Climax and Inner City sound-systems. His uncle Delroy "Spiderman" Thompson was the engineer at Tuff Gong and in 1989 produced his first record "Respect Woman". That was followed by "Na Go Work", a duet with Tricia McKay and a small local hit. Before long Carl "Banton" Nelson and Captain Sinbad were producing him, encouraging the youngster to voice titles like "Ze Taurus", "Shoot To Kill" and "Merciless Bad Boy" in the wake of the Gulf War and Ninjaman's success with gun lyrics in the Jamaican dancehalls.

Those early tunes were snapped up by the hardcore fans and Cobra himself aroused the attention of Donovan Germain's Penthouse studio, where he teamed up with resident engineer Dave Kelly. The resulting singles "Yush", "Gundelero" and "Gun Confused" were hits; so too "Feeling Lonely" which he voiced alongside Beres Hammond. A best-selling album "Bad Boy Talk" was released in 1991 and established him as one of Jamaica's most promising dee-jay talents, albeit one who was soon in danger of excessive over-exposure.

That same year an incredible volume of his material was released. Both Spiderman and Captain Sinbad also issued albums ("Mad Cobra" and "Merciless Bad Boy" respectively), Penthouse had theirs and in the UK Jet Star compiled "Cobra Gold" which featured over a dozen of his singles for a wide variety of Jamaican producers including King Jammys ("O.P.P"), Bobby Digital ("Sex Appeal" and "Tek Him"), Sly & Robbie ("Be Patient") and Dennis Star ("Hearsay"). It was the beginning of the most prolific period in his short history.

Two further albums "Spotlight" and "Exclusive" appeared, with the latter subsequently withdrawn in the States due to the rampant homophobia of the track "Crucifixion". This before Buju Banton and Shabba Ranks attracted unpleasant publicity for the very same thing a year later. It didn't seem to do him any harm with his regular hardcore audience.

During 1991/1992 he had no less than five No.1 hits on the UK reggae charts and in one particular week had nine tunes on the Top 20! UK producers like Fashion, Mafia & Fluxy, Gussie P and Donneville Davis all recorded songs with him, so did Bee Cat in NY and also Top Rank based in JA's Montego Bay. At the height of Cobra's popularity they released the haunting "Love Fever"; evidence that he'd switched styles by chatting romantic lyrics over a rhythm owing a great deal to softer, R&B influences. Nor did the Snake stop there. At the beginning of 1992 he wrote "Flex", a love chat over a silky JA version to "Just My Imagination" which the Temptations sang back in the '60's. On the strength of this song he was signed to Columbia in the USA and within a few months he'd set new standards by topping the American national charts.

Unfortunately his follow-up with Richie Stephens "Legacy", failed to make any further impression and before too long he was back in action on the dancehall scene, despite having to endure a vicious clash with Buju Banton at the '92 Sting. Crossover success doesn't cut much ice in the ghetto areas of Kingston, not unless an artist is also cutting the musical mustard hardcore style.

Cobra wasn't, but he is now. In 1993 he returned to the dancehalls and once again could be heard booming over the sound-systems. "Mek Noise" for Red Rose & Malvo helped start the rout; "Matie Haffi Move" did further damage for Bobby Digital and "Big It Up", "Length & Bend" and "Fat & Buff" found him back at King Jammys in fine form, both for Jammy senior and his son John John.

In 2002, he was featured on the Black Shadow Records "buzz" rhythm, where his "Press Trigger" became a huge smash in the dancehalls. He later followed up with "Haunted" for Black Shadow's 20003 rhythm "surprise". "Haunted" made a huge impact on the reggae charts in New York and Miami.

The Mad Snake is back, and with a vengeance.

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Alton Ellis Biography

One of the first vocalists to enter the Jamaican music business, Alton Ellis was generally revered as the greatest and most soulful singer the country ever produced -- that is, until Bob Marley came along. Ellis had his first hit during the ska craze, but made his true lasting mark as the definitive solo singer of the rocksteady era. Sweet, smooth, and deeply emotive, Ellis was equally at home on Jamaican originals or reggae-fied covers of American R&B hits. He cut a series of ska singles for Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Studio One label, but reached his prime during the mid- to late '60s, when he recorded some of rocksteady's signature tunes for Duke Reid's Treasure Isle imprint.

Ellis was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1944, and grew up in the Trenchtown area as part of a musically inclined family. As a youngster, he learned to sing and play piano, the latter often by breaking into a local youth center to practice by night. In his early teens, he teamed up with another singer, Eddie Perkins, to form the duo Alton & Eddie. In 1959, after winning a prominent talent show, they recorded the single "Muriel," which became a substantial hit in Jamaica. Not long after cutting the follow-up "My Heaven," Perkins left to try a solo career in the United States, leaving Ellis a solo act.

Ellis recorded for Dodd's Studio One label during the early '60s, but made little money. Dissatisfied, he moved over to Reid's Treasure Isle in 1965, and formed a backup vocal trio called the Flames (the first incarnation featured his brother Leslie, and membership would fluctuate). Ellis quickly scored a major hit with the antiviolence plea "Dance Crasher," and the following year, he released what was arguably the first rocksteady single, "Get Ready - Rock Steady." Its innovative beat grew out of a session where the scheduled bassist didn't show up, forcing keyboardist Jackie Mittoo to play the bass part himself; Mittoo's left hand couldn't keep up with the frantic ska beat, so he elected to slow down the tempo. The result was a choppier rhythm that wound up allowing the vocalist to stretch out more, and soon the rocksteady sound had taken over Jamaican music, with Ellis leading the charge. He had several other major successes in 1966, including "Cry Tough" and the smash "Girl I've Got a Date," the latter of which became his biggest hit and signature song. He also cut several duets with Phyllis Dillon (making them Jamaica's answer to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell), as well as his sister Hortense Ellis (including a hit cover of Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do"). The classic LP Mr. Soul of Jamaica (later reissued on CD as Cry Tough) gathered many of his best Treasure Isle tracks.

By 1968, Ellis had resumed working for Studio One in addition to his output for Treasure Isle, making him one of the few singers to bridge the gap between the two archrivals. Most of his biggest hits of the late '60s came on Studio One, including the American soul cover "Willow Tree," "I'm Just a Guy," and "Sitting in the Park." In 1970, he released the album Sunday Coming, one of his strongest Studio One sets. Ellis later teamed with producer Lloyd Daley for a brief period, which resulted in the more Rastafarian-tinged hits "Lord Deliver Us" and "Back to Africa"; he also worked with Keith Hudson. However, he was still not receiving proper financial compensation for all his success. Disillusioned, he spent some time in the U.S. and Canada, then relocated to England on a mostly permanent basis in 1973.

In England, Ellis established his own Alltone label, which he devoted to both new recordings and compilations of his early classics. The international popularity of Bob Marley and the rise of roots reggae meant that Ellis' considerable legacy was soon overshadowed, but over time, he remained a fondly remembered pioneer of Jamaican music. He made triumphant returns to Jamaica with well-received sets at the Reggae Sunsplash Festival in both 1983 and 1985, and recorded a new single, "Man From Studio One," for Dodd in 1991. Numerous compilations of his work appeared during the CD era, illustrating his stunning consistency. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

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