Dennis Bovell

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Dennis Bovell
MBE
Dennis Bovell.jpg
Dennis Bovell performing live on Druga godba festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 28 May 2015
Background information
Also known asBlackbeard
Born (1953-05-22) 22 May 1953 (age 70)
Saint Peter, Barbados, West Indies
Genres Dub, lovers rock, reggae, post-punk
Occupation(s)Musician, record producer
Instrument(s)Bass, guitar
Years active1968–present
LabelsLKJ Records
Bovell (left) playing with Matumbi, Cardiff, 1978 DennisBovell1978.jpg
Bovell (left) playing with Matumbi, Cardiff, 1978

Dennis Bovell MBE (born 22 May 1953 [1] ) is a Barbados-born reggae guitarist, bass player and record producer, based in England. He was a member of a progressive rock group called Stonehenge, who later changed name and became the British reggae band Matumbi, [2] and released dub-reggae records under his own name as well as the pseudonym Blackbeard. [3] He is most widely known for his decades-spanning collaborations with Linton Kwesi Johnson. [2]

Contents

Biography

Born in Saint Peter, Barbados, in 1953, [1] Bovell moved to South London in 1965 and became immersed in Jamaican culture, particularly dub music, setting up his own Jah Sufferer sound system. [4] Running the sound system brought trouble from the police and Bovell was imprisoned for six months on remand, but was later released on appeal. [4] Bovell was friends at school with future rock musicians including keyboardist Nick Straker and record producer Tony Mansfield, both of whom later worked with Bovell. [4] He formed Matumbi in the mid-1970s. [1]

Bovell also worked as an engineer at Dip Records, the precursor to the Lovers Rock label, and he was a key figure in the early days of the lovers rock genre. He is also known for attempting to fuse disco rhythms with reggae, most notably with the hit song "Silly Games" by Janet Kay. According to Bovell, he wrote "Silly Games" with the sole intent of it being a hit song. [5]

He has produced albums by a wide variety of artists including Creation Rebel, I-Roy, the Thompson Twins, Sharon Shannon, Alpha Blondy, Bananarama, the Pop Group, Fela Kuti, [6] the Slits, [7] Orange Juice and Madness. He has collaborated with poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson for much of his working life. [2]

Bovell also co-wrote and co-produced the majority of material by British reggae singer Bobby Kray. [8]

In 1980, he wrote the score for Franco Rosso's film Babylon . Bovell has also written music for the 1983 television drama The Boy Who Won the Pools and Global Revolution (2006). [9]

In the BBC's Reggae Britannia , Bovell related a tale of strange goings on in the leafy London suburb of Barnes, where the John Hassell Recordings studio was based in a residential house, in a quiet street at 21 Nassau Road. John Hassell, aided by his wife Felicity, cut reggae dubplates with such finesse and understanding that the studio's output was to feed sound systems throughout the UK.

In 2012, Bovell produced the album Mek It Run. [10]

In 2013 he collaborated with dub producer / musician Gaudi, playing bass on his track "I Start To Pray" featuring Lee "Scratch" Perry and The Orb, included on Gaudi album In Between Times Six Degrees Records.

In Steve McQueen's 2020 film Lovers Rock, the second in his five-part anthology series Small Axe , Bovell has a cameo role and his song "Silly Games" is prominently featured. [11]

Bovell was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to music. [12]

Discography

Compilations

Appearances

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linton Kwesi Johnson</span> Jamaican poet and activist (born 1952)

Linton Kwesi Johnson OD, also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist. In 2002, he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His performance poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican patois over dub-reggae, usually written in collaboration with reggae producer/artist Dennis Bovell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dub poetry</span> Form of performance poetry

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<i>Bass Culture</i> 1980 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

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<i>Forces of Victory</i> 1979 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

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<i>LKJ in Dub</i> 1980 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

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<i>Making History</i> (album) 1984 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

Making History is an album by the Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. It was released in 1984 on Island Records. It was produced by Dennis Bovell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I-Roy</span> Musical artist

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<i>Dread Beat an Blood</i> 1978 studio album by Poet and the Roots

Dread Beat an' Blood is the debut album by British reggae band Poet and the Roots released in 1978 on the Front Line label. It was produced by Vivian Weathers and Linton Kwesi Johnson. The "Poet" is dub poet Johnson and "the Roots" are Dennis Bovell, Lloyd "Jah Bunny" Donaldson, Desmond Craig, Winston Curniffe, Everald Forrest, Floyd Lawson, John Varnom, Lila Weathers and Vivian Weathers. Vivian Weathers and Winston Curniffe were school friends of Johnson's. They all attended Tulse Hill Secondary School. Most of the tracks are based on poems that first appeared in Johnson's 1975 book of poetry Dread Beat an' Blood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaudi (musician)</span> Anglo-Italian musician

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silly Games</span> 1979 song by Janet Kay

"Silly Games" is a song written by Dennis Bovell that was first released in 1979 as a single by Janet Kay. The single was a hit not only in the UK, where it reached number 2 that summer, but throughout Europe. Kay's appearance singing on Top of the Pops made it the first lover's rock tune on BBC Television's flagship popular music show. The song appeared again in 1990 as a re-recording, billed as by Lindy Layton featuring Janet Kay, which reached number 22 in the charts. A remix version of Kay's original recording spent three weeks in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 62.

<i>Brain Damage</i> (album) 1981 studio album by Dennis Bovell

Brain Damage is the third studio album by Barbadian-British reggae musician Dennis Bovell, released in 1981 by Fontana Records. His first solo album under his own name, following two dub albums released as Blackbeard, it was Bovell's first recording at his South London-based Studio 80. Having begun to feel that reggae had not progressed as much as he would have liked, he conceived Brain Damage as an attempt to fuse the genre with numerous rhythmic styles from Europe, America, Africa and the Caribbean to highlight the genre's flexibility. The musician intended not to explore the international rhythms in a standard way but to take them to what he perceived as musical extremes. The direction was also inspired by the wide array of people in his audience.

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<i>More Time</i> (Linton Kwesi Johnson album) 1998 studio album by Linton Kwesi Johnson

More Time is an album by the Jamaican-British musician Linton Kwesi Johnson. It was released in 1998 through Johnson's LKJ Records. "Liesense fi Kill", about police brutality, was released as a single. Johnson supported the album with an international tour. The lyrics to many songs were reproduced in Johnson's book of poetry Mi Revalueshanary Fren.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Huey, Steve, "Dennis Bovell Biography", Allmusic. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 Veal, Michael E. (2007). Dub. Wesleyan University Press. pp. 231–233. ISBN   978-0-8195-6572-3 . Retrieved 26 May 2009.
  3. ↑ Thompson, Dave (2002), "Reggae & Caribbean Music", Backbeat Books, ISBN   0-87930-655-6.
  4. 1 2 3 Larkin, Colin (1998), The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae, Virgin Books, ISBN   0-7535-0242-9, pp. 35–36.
  5. ↑ "Dennis Bovell: UK Reggae, Lovers Rock, and the Power of Linton Kwesi Johnson". Afropop Worldwide. 2013. Archived from the original on 19 March 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014. To this day, that song is still on the radio constantly. But that song, it was constructed to be a hit.
  6. ↑ Cumming, Tim (30 March 2006). "Dennis Bovell: The dub master". The Independent. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  7. ↑ "Dennis Bovell and the Dub Band". Barbican. Archived from the original on 27 May 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
  8. ↑ Lester, Paul (13 June 2007). "No 122: Bobby Kray". The Guardian . Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 6 May 2009.
  9. ↑ "Dennis Bovell (I)". www.imdb.com. Retrieved 26 May 2009.
  10. 1 2 Jeffries, David (17 July 2012). "Mek It Run – Dennis Bovell: Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  11. ↑ Bakare, Lanre (23 November 2020). "Could Steve McQueen start a lovers rock revival with Small Axe?". The Guardian .
  12. ↑ "No. 63377". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2021. p. B16.
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