Contents - Beth Lesser

set going. Traveling frequently gave Ronnie the opportunity to pick up anything
the sound might need, all those things that were ‘expensive and dear’ at
home, like boxes of dubplates, and phonograph needles. Officially, Tony was
the selector. He would normally arrive at the dance at 10 pm and play until
three or four in the morning. In the early evening, the warm up crew would
be in place. Tony still played his 20 minutes of soul, but focused on the ruba-dub,
constantly updating his dubplate collection at Channel One, Gussie’s
and King Tubby. Virgo was getting so popular, they started getting calls from
abroad begging them to tour.
So, two weeks into October, 1982, the sound packed up and flew to New
York. When they showed up in Queens, to play their first dance, they were
greeted like celebrities. Radio jock Gil Bailey * came out to interview Tony and
the crew for his program. For a while, Virgo ruled. But things started going
bad. Nicodemus was shot at a dance that Tony was selecting with Emperor
sound in Washington, DC. “Then, I went to Chicago and that same problem
[occurred] and I say, ‘It’s coming like this thing getting out of hand’. Then I
play in Connecticut one night and one my way there some police stop me and
ask me if I am Tony Virgo.”
Things were getting too hot for the selector. “Shortly after, I play in Queens
one night and leave the sound in Queens, and they burn off the lock that night
and thief the amplifiers them and some of the speaker, and mash up some of
the dub[plates].” Tony had to borrow equipment and cut some new plates, but
he was starting to long for the tour to wrap up and see the sound safe at home.
Life in the U.S. wasn’t turning out to be as easy as it looked from afar.
At that point, Tony suggested to Ronnie, “‘Let’s not live in America. Let’s
take the sound and go to England and move on, and go back to Jamaica.
Make we just play four more dance here and move again’. But Ronnie got
caught up in a lot of woman stuff and stuff like that.” The sound was going
down, so, eventually Tony left and started to select the champion New York
set, Papa Moke.
Tony ended up staying in New York as a coveted selector for many years.
He finally gave up the sound business and got more involved with his church.
But for a long time, he continued to keep busy producing a few artists like
Cocoa Tea and his good friend, Carlton Livingston.
Meanwhile, Soul to Soul hadn’t weathered the change to rub-a-dub well.
In 1982, Rosa sold the equipment to Studio 54 and moved to Canada, went
back into the sound business, where he became a leader and a role model for
local sounds in the burgeoning Toronto dancehall scene.
The lone ranGer STyle
In 1980, Lone Ranger was sizzling hot. Every sound he touched reached
*. Gil Bailey is now into his fifth decade on the air and has an upscale fashion shoe named after him,
The Bailey, by Clae.
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