Red Gold & Green #34 - Junior Byles

It's a long held belief among a couple of my closest friends, that I'd been unwittingly clobbered by Covid very early on - here in fact. I never saw it myself and until now I'd always put my physical and mental collapse at the very end of 2019 down to the aftershocks of the personal annus horribilis I'd just endured. Today though, as I emerge blinking and bewildered into the daylight following a 100% guaranteed, 10-day bout with the aforementioned C19, I'm forced to re-evaluate that earlier illness. My main symptoms in each case were virtually identical - a complete loss of appetite, mad, feverish dreams (to the point of doubting reality) and incredible amounts of sweating (seriously, where does all that liquid come from?) So perhaps my chums were right all along and I was indeed among the first of us to have had a brush with this dreadful virus three years ago.

Here's the great Junior Byles, produced by the legendary Lee Perry, back in the halcyon days of 1972.

Junior Byles - Fever  

Saturday Scratch #43 - The Artibella Rhythm

The ska original of 'Artibella' appeared on Studio One in 1965, credited to Ken Booth & Stranger Cole (here). Boothe released his hit solo version of the song, produced by Phil Pratt, in 1970 (here).

In 1972 Lee 'Scratch' Perry produced his own interpretation of the 'Artibella' rhythm with The Upsetters, initially bringing in Milton Henry and Junior Byles to voice 'This World' over it and releasing the results under the moniker King Medious. Several further adaptations of the rhythm would follow.

Hot on the heels of the duet, Byles was back behind the vocal mic alone, creating his classic reading of 'Fever'. At around the same time, the song was also voiced to good effect by Susan Cadogan.

The versions poured out of the Black Ark. Here's Jah Lion with 'Hay Fever'.

Jah T voiced 'Lick the Pipe Peter', with Augustus Pablo's melodica accompaniment, though I prefer Pablo's instrumental 'Hot and Cold'.

There are more, but let's conclude this brief whistle-stop tour with a typically bonkers dubwise excursion on the 'Artibella' rhythm, 'Fever Grass Dub'.