[Today: Celebrating reggae's most famous Chinese-Jamaican producer...]
Once Leslie Kong and his brothers started selling records out of Beverley’s – the family ice cream shoppe – it was only a short hop for him into record production. Kong was the right man in the right place several times over – he launched Jimmy Cliff’s career, recorded Bob Marley’s first single, and worked with all manner of reggae stars, including Toots & The Maytals, The Wailers, Desmond Dekker, and just about any other important Jamaican artist you care to name.
Kong’s production work is marked by the shuffling beat of Rock Steady – a more danceable precursor to reggae music. Because of his role in helping transform the music of Jamaica through some of the island’s most talented artists, Kong has been referred to as “the Sam Phillips of reggae” by critic Greil Marcus. It’s an apt, if rather mind-bending, comment on the dimension of Kong’s influence upon the genre.
He makes a cameo in the film The Harder They Come, appearing in a scene where he’s directing a recording session with Toots & The Maytals. If the film is to be believed, Kong was a steadying presence in the studio – low key but with a firm hand on the wheel. He was also known to be one of the few Jamaican producers who dealt fairly with artists financially, which is one reason he was able to work with so many rising stars.
Leslie Kong died from a heart attack at age 38 in 1971, but not before producing some of the finest music of the late-60’s. The songs on The King Kong Compilation were all recorded between 1968 and 1970, and it’s a murderer’s row of great tunes. From Desmond Dekker’s ‘Isrealites’ to The Maytals ‘Monkey Man’ to Ken Boothe’s ‘Freedom Street’, the music compiled here represents reggae at its best, and adds up to an appropriate tribute to one of the genre’s founding fathers.
Listen: Freedom Street [Ken Boothe]
Listen II: Israelites [Desmond Dekker]
*****
[Unbelievably, this album has gone out of print, and is now extremely collectible. Used cd copies are currently selling on Amazon.com for as much as $65, so grab it if you find it!]
Tags: Beverley's, Bob Marley, Greil Marcus, Jimmy Cliff, Leslie Kong, reggae, The Harder They Come, The King Kong Compilation, Toots & The Maytals
11 December 2008 at 12:17 pm |
Damn!
Out of Print, you say?
Guess I’ll have to dig out my copy from all the record boxes in my attic and digitize the damn thing!
It *IS* an Excellent compilation.
Kong knew his business… both records and ice cream.