中国人和雷鬼音乐（英文的但是我相信很多人能看懂，简...

2009-06-12 01:16:05 来自: robin

The first Chinese arrived in Jamaica as indentured laborers for British sugar plantations in the 1850s and 1860s, and continued to immigrate voluntarily in small groups right up until the 1940s. Originating mostly from Guangdong and Fujian, Chinese immigrants in the Caribbean did exactly what they do elsewhere in the world: they opened small businesses, got rich and sent their kids to good schools.
从19世纪五六十年代一直到二十世纪40年代，陆续有很多中国人移民到牙买加，主要是福建人和广东人。他们跟世界其他地方的华人做的事情一样，做小买卖，很快赚了钱，然后送孩子去不错的学校。
But maybe Chinese doctors started using some of the local herbs in their remedies because something different happened in Jamaica: Kingston’s Chinese population was involved from the earliest days with the down and dirty ghetto music that became reggae.
但在在牙买加奇怪的是，这些华人不仅仅是开餐馆做小买卖，他们和其他地方的华人不一样的是，他们开始参与了牙买加的音乐发展，尤其是雷鬼音乐行程的过程。

leslie_kong.jpg此处是leslie kong的照片
Pioneering Jamaican Chinese record producer Leslie Kong
托马斯，吴（大概这么翻译）在50年代既在首都金士顿开办了第一个真正意义的sound system,牙买加的城市居民很喜欢在美国的灵魂音乐和布鲁斯音乐下跳舞。
牙买加的舞厅文化对于世界音乐的发展功不可没，是第一个dj开始使用toasting，或者说是在音乐的同时说话的。这种风格演变成了后来的ragga和dancehall。hip-hop也部分起源于这里。


The first Chinese Jamaican music pioneer was Kingston hardware merchant, Thomas Wong, better known as "Tom The Great Sebastien". He is generally credited with developing the first real dancehall sound system in the early 1950s. At that time, urban Jamaicans liked to dance to American soul and blues music, but local bands were not very professional and it was much cheaper to have a DJ selecting records than to hire an entire band. Jamaican sound systems were the world’s first dance clubs in the contemporary sense of the word, and Jamaican selectors were the first DJs to start “toasting” or talking over the musical tracks, a style that later led to ragga and dancehall. Many music historians trace the roots of hip-hop to Jamaican sound system DJs, via DJ Kool Herc who went to New York 1967 and started rapping over records.

当年他们的“国嗓”是byron lee（此君也是中国人，至少一半以上），50年代他唱摇滚和r&b，
But in the 1950s, hip-hop was a long way off and Jamaican music was only beginning to define itself as a national style. One of the key figures in making reggae music Jamaica’s national sound was Byron Lee. Lee sang rock and roll and rhythm and blues in the 1950s, and together with his band the Dragonnaires, played a leading role as bandleader and promoter in transforming ska from a west Kingston sound into a national and later internationally renowned musical form. Ska grew out of a fusion of American soul and local Caribbean rhythms. It’s fast pace and steady beat made it really popular as dance music, and it later morphed into reggae as well as gaining a strong following in the UK with -- strangely enough -- punks and skinheads.



以为最多产并且成功的制作人是leslie kong，他拥有一个冰激凌店和一个唱片店。他最大的成功是于jimmy cliff德长期合作。jimmy cliff想要得到一个机会录音，一天，jimmy cliff在他的冰激凌店门前唱歌，终于获得了他的垂青。于是他们开始了Beverly这个厂牌，他成功了，jimmy cliff的音乐生涯也开始了。
1962年leslie也为当时只有17岁的bob Marley录制了bob的第一首歌。他为Desmond dekker录制的单曲曾经进入英美的前十名。（这是bob都没有的成绩）
One of the most prolific and successful reggae producers was Leslie Kong (pictured above). Kong owned a combination ice cream parlor and record shop called Beverly's. He got interested in the music business after selling records, and started producing records with a recording studio upstairs from the ice cream parlor. Kong was the first producer to spot Bob Marley’s potential. In 1962 Kong released Marley’s first two recorded songs: “One More Cup of Coffee” and “Judge Not”. Although neither of these songs ever became hits, Marley’s went on to become reggae’s most celebrated musician and the most famous Jamaican of the 20th century.

Kong’s major contribution to reggae was probably his longer-lasting association with Jimmy Cliff who was also Kong’s first artist. In 1961, Cliff was hoping to get sponsorship to record a song he had written called “Dearest Beverly.” The young singer stood outside Beverly’s Ice Cream parlor singing the song. Kong was enchanted, and agreed to fund the recording. Beverly’s record label was born, and Cliff’s recording career was launched. Kong also produced Desmond Dekker’s “Poor Me Israelite” the first record made in Jamaica to hit the top ten in Britain and America. The song topped the British Charts in April 1969 and went to number nine on the American charts in July 1969, eventually selling over two million copies. This was Jamaica’s first real international hit.

Singles from Beverley's Records:

beverleys_1.jpg

beverleys_2.jpg

可惜37岁死于心脏病。天妒英才啊

Kong himself died of a heart attack, aged 37, in August 1971. A Rastafarian legend says that Bunny Wailer (of Bob Marley and the Wailers fame) put a curse on Kong when Kong released a sub-standard collection of hits called “Best of the Wailers”. The story goes that just after Kong’s accountant told him how much money he would make from the record, Kong went home and died.

Jamaica’s Chinese community is still very much involved in music. Reggae record liner notes are still full of names like Chan, Chung, Lee, Hookim and Chin. In addition to musicians and producers, Chinese Jamaicans have been active on all musical fronts: Old-timer Byron Lee promotes a new Jamaican popular style called Soca (a kind of carnival music) while Karl Young (Yang) runs IRIE FM, Jamaica’s all-reggae radio station. In fact, if you want to know more about this strange corner of history, one of the finest histories of reggae music was written by two Chinese Jamaicans named Kevin Chang and Wayne Chen.
还有很多中国人包括广播电台的老板，很多中国人都参与到雷鬼音乐中。
如果你还觉得不够，最好的雷鬼音乐书籍之一的作者也是两位中国人，他们叫Kevin Chang and Wayne Chen

reggae_routes.jpg

“Reggae Routes” is available on amazon.com .
在亚马逊书店可以买到
- by Jeremy Goldkorn
- A version of this article appeared in LE magazine in 2001. The images were pinched from various places around the Internet.

转载自：
http://www.danwei.org/chinese_reggae_pioneers.php