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| Members: | Roderick ‘The Dude’ Harvey
Junior ‘JB’ Brown
George ’Bulk’ Scarlet
Danny ‘Teacher’ McKen/McKenzie
Earl ‘Wizard’ Lynch
Wenty ‘Country Boy’ Stewart
Paulette ‘Lee’ Hatden
Pauline ‘Dell’ Spence |
| 1972 - 1981 |
| Place of Establishment: |
Wolverhampton
England |
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The first generation of Jamaican immigrants to the UK in the mid fifties brought their music with them, often as a reminder of home, but it was not long before musicians and vocalists began to create songs that did more than reminisce about the Caribbean. Naturally enough these UK recordings reflected and celebrated their unfamiliar living and working conditions while others sang of a darker side of their new environment. The music rarely deviated from the Jamaican template and, during the sixties, many of the records produced in the UK were often indistinguishable from their Kingston counterparts. Millie Small's cover of Barbie Gaye's 1956 American rhythm & blues stormer 'My Boy Lollipop', the first ever ska hit to "cross over", was recorded in London in 1963 with 'Accompaniment Directed By Ernest Ranglin'. It narrowly missed the Number One spot when it was licensed to Fontana and reached Number Two in the UK National Charts in early 1964 selling a reputed six million copies.
Tony Tomas' 1963 recording of 'Brixton, Lewisham' and Girlie & Laurel Aitken's 'Scandal In A Brixton Market' from 1969 provide two excellent examples of British themed 'Jamaican' music but, in the mid seventies, the next generation took a great leap forward when forward thinking home grown bands including Aswad, Capital Letters, The Cimarons, Matumbi and Steel Pulse began to fashion a new style of music that could not have been made anywhere else but the UK... albeit with a distinctive Jamaican flavour.
Capital Letters first got together in 1972 in Wolverhampton as ABC "but there was a band in Sheffield named A B C. We changed to the Alphabets and there was a band in Manchester called the Alphabets! So we had to change again..." Their impressive eight piece aggregation consisted of Roderick 'The Dude' Harvey on drums, Junior 'JB' Brown on bass, George 'Bulk' Scarlet on guitar, Danny 'Teacher' McKen/McKenzie on guitar and vocals, Earl 'Wizard' Lynch on keyboards and vocals and on backing vocals Wenty 'Country Boy' Stewart, Paulette 'Lee' Hatden and Pauline 'Dell' Spence. After building a formidable reputation on the live circuit performing cover versions of Jamaican hits... "the only soul we used to play was Wilson Pickett"... Capital Letters slowly developed a music that reflected their own experiences of life in the West Midlands.
They were the first group to sign with the fledgling Greensleeves label in 1978 and hit immediately with their debut twelve inch release, 'Smoking My Ganja', which achieved national exposure when John Peel championed the record on his Radio One show and then featured the band live and direct. Jerry Dammers was reputedly quoted as saying that 'Smoking My Ganja' convinced him that The Specials mix of punk and reggae would work and the group actually later recorded four songs with overtly political lyrics for the 'Bread & Water' EP in Dammers' 'Two Tone' style. Capital Lettersollow up twelve inch release to 'Smoking My Ganja' was the self-explanatory 'U.K. Skanking'
"Jamaican people have a special way to rock and sway in a Jamaican way
My U.K. brethren just got no way to shake a leg and play in that Jamaican way..."
'U.K. Skanking'
Their 'Headline News' album, produced by Greensleeves' Chris Cracknell, was released in 1979 and proved to be a commercial and critical success and, in the summer of that year the group embarked on a triumphant tour of the UK college circuit followed by a series of European concerts. 'Smoking My Ganja' hit home on the continent where it became an anthem and audiences in France, Spain and Holland eagerly embraced their brand of UK skanking. 'Run Run Run' and 'President Amin' were also massive European hits. But, despite being voted 'Best New Band' by Black Echoes readers at the 1980 Reggae Awards show, Capital Letters called it a day in 1981. The following year they briefly reformed to record the 'Vinyard' album at the Recordway Studio in Frankfurt, Germany after which the group again disbanded.
The 'Headline News' album, one of the defining statements of late seventies UK based reggae, remained in press ever since it was originally released and in 2007 Greensleeves Records re-released an updated edition that included twelve inch mixes of the group's singles and the sought after 'Bread & Water' EP. Greensleeves/VP then updated the canon by re-releasing 'Vinyard' in 2015 with added tracks from their John Peel session and outtakes from 'Headline News'. Capital Letters have continued to rehearse and record and recently told Angus Taylor "we've done twelve new songs... ready for an album". Original bassist Junior Brown left the group in the eighties and has released two albums, 'Reality' and 'Wolverhampton', with a completely different line up (also named Capital Letters) through Bristol's Sugar Shack Records.
Capital Letters have always defied the conventional straitjacket that musical 'purists' have tried to impose on them and have forged their own, proud identity. When did you last hear anyone say that 'real' reggae has to be made in Jamaica?
Sources:
Angus Taylor: Interview Capital Letters unitedreggae.com
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| May 10, 2016 Text by Harry Hawks
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