Love Joys

Like so many other reggae artists of the seventies and eighties, the Love Joys were introduced to me by girl friends. In 1982 I was given a cassette tape: Lovers Rock by the Love Joys. I still think the album is one of the greatest soul records of the eighties. And it’s a milestone in the history of reggae. Here you find marvellous songs about loss, lost and found love, injustice, social critique and redemption, sung and written by two Jamaican cousins from Brixton, England: Sonia Abel & Claudette Brown. Their voices seem perfectly made for each other, creating an unheard harmonized sound that has never been matched. In 1981 they left for New York to hook up with Lloyd ‘Bullwackie’ Barnes in his famous North Bronx reggae studio: Wackies. Not only did they the backing vocals for other artists like K.C. White, they also produced two impressive albums and a 12” – probably the best records Wackies ever released (another classic is Horace Andy’s Dancehall Style, 1983). Since I first listened to the Love Joys, I never stopped playing those records: songs like All I Can Say, Studio Man, Stranger and Long Lost Lover have become part of my sonic genetics. Recently there has been a kind of Love Joys revival - audioblogs like Schrikdraad (http://schrikdraad.blogspot.com/) and Black Magic Plastic (http://blackmagicplastic.blogspot.com/) have posted songs and comments and readers/listeners have expressed their respect. However, many Love Joys biographies on the web only tell half of the story: “After recording these seminal female roots records, they disappeared, never again recording for Wackies or anyone else”. Elsewhere it reads: “The group quickly appeared and disappeared, releasing their only album Lovers Rock in 1982”. But there is more to the story. Sonia Abel got married to famous Jamaican bass player Jah T. (Jati) Allen and changed her name into Marla Allen. Jati has played with many artists, most notably with Cedric ‘im’ Brooks and in the eighties he was a member of the Wackies band, producing that singular New York reggae sound. In the nineties Marla & Jati formed the Natti Love Joys and founded their own reggae organization and annual festival: Camp Reggae in the Smokey Mountains of East Tennessee (http://www.campreggae.com/). Since 2000 they have released several albums and their music ranges from reggae to triphop. Recently the Natti Love Joys have put out the cd Thingz (2006). Marla Allen plays the keyboards and she still displays great vocal talents. In 2002 another illustrious duo, Rhythm & Sound, hooked up with Claudette Brown, the other half of the Love Joys, as a part of their With The Artists-project. In typical Rhythm & Sound fashion they asked Claudette to sing over their electronic dub riddim: the result was an awesome nostalgic 10”: Best Friend – which is totally reminiscent of the Love Joys sound of the eighties. Coincidentally it has been 25 years since Reggae Vibes was released. So I decided to pay tribute to the Love Joys – not too nostalgic, but in an updated fashion, like a kind of 25th anniversary present. Hope you’ll dig it. posted by hyphen at 7:46 PM