Burning Spear
b. Winston Rodney, 1948, St Ann's Bay, Jamaica, West Indies. Burning Spear, who appropriated the name from former Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta, then president of Kenya, entered the music business in 1969 after fellow St. Ann's artist Bob Marley organised an audition for him with his erstwhile producer Coxsone Dodd. The three songs Spear sang for Dodd that Sunday afternoon included his eventual debut, Door Peep, a sombre, spiritual chant quite unlike anything that had so far emerged in the music, although perhaps a reference point may be found in the Ethiopians and Joe Higgs. Door Peep and other early Spear sides like We Are Free and Zion Higher emerged in the UK on the Bamboo and Banana labels. Spear continued to make records for Dodd until 1974, including Ethiopians Live It Out, This Population and New Civilisation, nearly all in a serious, cultural style, mostly without any commercial success, although Joe Frazier (aka He Prayed) did make the Jamaican Top 5 in 1972. Most of these songs can be found on the two albums Spear completed for Dodd. In 1975 Ocho Rios sound system owner Jack Ruby (real name Laurence Lindo) approached the singer who had been cooling his heels since leaving Dodd, and the two, along with pick-up backing vocalists Rupert Wellington and Delroy Hines, began working on the material that would eventually emerge as MARCUS GARVEY (1975), in honour of the great St Ann's born pan-Africanist. Marcus Garvey and Slavery Days emerged as singles perfectly capturing the mood of the times and becoming huge local hits. The public were at last ready for Burning Spear and when the album finally emerged it was hailed as an instant classic. Spear became recognised as the most likely candidate for the kind of international sucess Bob Marley And The Wailers were beginning to enjoy, and soon MARCUS GARVEY had been snapped up by Island Records which released it in the UK with an added track and in remixed form. This tampering with the mix, including the speeding up of several tracks, presumably in order to make the album more palatable to white ears, raised the hackles of many critics and fans. The album was very popular though, and soon Island had released a dubwise companion set entitled GARVEY'S GHOST (1976). 
Rodney began to release music on his own Spear label at the end of 1975, the first issue being another classic, Travelling (actually a revision of the earlier Studio One album track Journey), followed by Spear Burning (1976), The Youth (1976), Throw Down Your Arms (1977), the 12-inch Institution (1977), Dry And Heavy (1977), Free (1977) and Nyah Keith (1979). He also produced On That Day by youth singer Burning Junior, and Love Everyone by Phillip Fullwood, both in 1976. That same year Jack Ruby released Man In The Hills, followed by the album of the same name, again on Island, which marked the end of their collaboration. Spear also dropped Willington and Hines at this juncture. 1977 saw the release of DRY & HEAVY, recorded at Harry J's Studio, which satisfyingly reworked many of his Studio One classics, including Swell Headed, Creation Rebel, This Race and Free Again. In October that year he made an electrifying appearance at London's Rainbow Theatre, backed by veteran trumpeter Bobby Ellis and the UK reggae band Aswad. Island released an album of the performance that inexplicably failed to capture the excitement generated. 
In 1978 Spear parted with Island and issued MARCUS CHILDREN, arguably his best album since MARCUS GARVEY, released in the UK on the Independent One Stop label as SOCIAL LIVING, again using members of Aswad alongside the usual crack Kingston session men. 1980 saw him strike a deal with EMI who issued his next album, the stunning HAIL H.I.M., produced by Spear and Family Man Barrett at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong studio, on his own Burning Spear subsidiary. Two excellent dubs of SOCIAL LIVING and HAIL H.I.M. also appeared as LIVING DUB VOLS. 1 & 2, mixed by ace engineer Sylvan Morris. Throughout the following years to the present, Spear has continued to release albums regularly, as well as touring the USA and elsewhere. RESISTANCE, nominated for a Grammy in 1984, was a particularly strong set highlighting Spear's impressive, soulful patois against a muscular rhythmic backdrop. PEOPLE OF THE WORLD similarly saw his backing group, the Burning Band, which now encompassed an all-female horn section, shine. His 1988 set, MISTRESS MUSIC added rock musicians, including former members of Jefferson Airplane, though artistically it was his least successful album. MEK WE DWEET, recorded at Tuff Gong studios, was a return to his unique, intense style. His lyrical concerns— black culture and history, Garveyism and Rasta beliefs, and universal love—have been consistently and powerfully expressed during his entire recording career.