This week’s offering is more than a little inspired by the 2020 film Lovers Rock.
Writer-director Steve McQueen’s loving portrait of a house party was one of the best films of last year. I’ve included a few tracks from the soundtrack by Gregory Isaacs, Janet Kay and others.
Though this collection takes us back the last days of the rocksteady era and early days of reggae, it features artists like Ken Boothe, Johnny Nash and John Holt and Hortense Ellis.
They enjoyed international hits with versions of well-known love songs and originals that would go on to be clone classics of the genre.
Here’s a playlist of music artists who died this year. Although their beautiful voices and talents were lost in 2020, we can enjoy them for years to come.
Musicians are often our collective voices, sharing ideas and feelings through their lyrics and melodies that the rest of us struggle to express. It’s why the deaths of musicians are often difficult to process.
It’s hard to say goodbye to the people who made the art and culture that define our times and speak so directly to us. This collection features soul, hip-hop, country, jazz, and other artists that have been taken by COVID-19, long illness, natural causes, gun violence, and overdoses.
There’s only one way into this world, yet they keep making up new ones to take us out. But I digress. Please enjoy this collection of music that will resonate for eons by folks we’ve lost on this trying trip around the sun.
An early Happy New Year to you all. I can’t scrape 2020 off the bottom of my proverbial shoe fast enough.
Johnny Nash had no particular episode of personal hardship in mind when he composed “I Can See Clearly Now” in the early 1970s, though over the years it has struck a firm chord with generations who appreciate its feeling of new hope emerging from the despair: “I can see clearly now the rain has gone / I can see all obstacles in my way / Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind / It’s gonna be a bright, bright, sunshine-y day.”
He died last week at age 80.
Nash was American but spent time living in Jamaica in the mid-1960s, and the island’s influence on his music came to the fore in 1968, when his rock-steady compositions “You Got Soul” and “Hold Me Tight” were Top 10 hits in the UK, helping to kickstart a period of mainstream interest in reggae that remains to this day.
His reggae-fied version of Sam Cooke’s “Cupid” made it to No. 6 in the UK the following year, followed by “Stir it Up,” written for him, and later reclaimed, by his friend Bob Marley. That was a UK No. 13 in 1972, only months before the release of “I Can See Clearly Now.”
This playlist includes many of Johnny Nash’s recordings, songs by him, Bob Marley, and other early reggae artists, plus many of the cuts that dominated the radio in 1972 alongside Johhny Nash’s enduring song of hope.
Hope you enjoy this tribute collection. Next week I’ll be back with a more “seasonal” offering.
Until such time, stay safe sane, and kind… and vote!
