Contents - Beth Lesser

I’m playing the piano and singing loud cause no one is there but me,” Frankie
reports.
Things were going smoothly until one day, the irrepressible Frankie got the
other kids to help him make little contraptions called ‘flappers’ out of braille
magazine paper. When the things were flicked, they made a sound like a gunshot.
The kids all took them round by the manager’s office and started firing
away. “Bo! Bo! Everybody ran! Just me standing there. And the principal came
out, ‘[strict voice] What was that a while ago? You know, you guys disturbed
me. Who and you was here?’ – ‘It was just me alone.’ And he said I’m lying,
cause it sounded like twenty of then firing one time. I got myself in trouble - I
couldn’t sing for a year.”
Banned from the music room, Frankie found other outlets. During holiday
time, he was introduced to singer Jacob Miller who brought him to the soldier
camp to meet a band he knew called the Mighty Tides, and asked if he would
like to do some gigs with them. “I used to sneak out of the school Tuesdays
and Thursdays for rehearsals.”
The Mighty Tides consisted of all police officers, soldiers, security officers
and inspectors. The leader was the saxophone player, Mr. Manhurst. “I was
the only school boy in the band. I was young, fourteen years of age, doing
Cabaret. I stayed with that band for a while. I went all around Jamaica, Ocho
Rios, Portland, Negril, Montego Bay, performing Cabaret, performing songs
like, [sings] ‘I only know when she, began to dance with me, I could have
danced, danced, danced, all night.” *
Frankie started worked with a band called Fabulous Five back in 1976.
Long time band leader, Frankie Campbell, had positive memories of the
youth, “Frankie Paul went to the Salvation Army School for The Blind with
members of the ‘Fab five’ band and our brother group, (the mainly visually
impaired) Unique Vision. He performed with us on many occasions while
his career was still growing. His success as singer in the visually dominated
dancehall market owed much to the uniqueness of his voice and vocal interpretations.”
His next step took him a little closer to his success in popular music. One
day High Times ** was holding auditions. “I was passing along and I touched a
little note there and Chinna said, ‘Wha’? Bring the youth there come, bring
him come, man!’ There, he recorded ‘African Princess’. ‘Tell Me Why’, ‘I Need
Your Loving’, and ‘Gunman Around Town’. “I recorded an album, actually
and they sent it to Japan. The first time I am hearing about this country. I
heard about it in school, but the first time I’m hearing people talking about it
out on the streets. They sold it to Overheat Records in Japan.”
Frankie Jones, who was working with Kenneth Hookim at the time, in-
* From My Fair Lady but interpreted by Frankie with a soulful inflection
** The High Times label was owned by veteran guitarist Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith and named after the High
Times band he used to lead.
162 | RUB A DUB STYLE – The Roots of Modern Dancehall