Contents - Beth Lesser

would know my voice, my tempo, and I wouldn’t have to look at him to know
the song playing, just know. We have that down pat, you know.”
U Roy was in demand for overseas tours, and in his absence, Jah Screw
would take care of the music. Jah Screw recalls, “U Roy’s girlfriend, Vivian,
she was the manager who runs the sound. U Roy often have to go and tour.
And between me and she, at that time, I would take care of all the dubs and
all the specials, all she would have to do is just give me the money. So, often,
at the time, he wasn’t the one who was paying us. She was the one. When we
mash up the place, she was there, taking care of all the business. When U Roy
gone about him thing, I said to her, ‘Vivian, you got to change those boxes, we
need bigger boxes’, she would work along with me cause I was there. I spend
most of my youth days, giving all of my time to King Stur-Gav.”
Despite Vivian being an easy person to get along with, it was hard to work
for a sound with an absentee owner, so Joe and Screw took their act to Ray
Symbolic around 1975. Joe describes Ray Symbolic as “a discotheque sound –
they used to play a lot of soul records, R&B, and they was doing their thing
before I come along. [In those days,] they have sounds like Stan the Soul
Merchant, Gemini, and a lot of sounds that were playing R&B stuff, like a
mixture. Ray Symbolic used to play that way. But, when I come along [to]
deejay, they turnover to the reggae part now. I start to deejay and then they go
back to the soul. But after playing more and more, a lot of promoter wouldn’t
want us to play the soul. We become hard core.”
For the following years, Joe and Screw switched between the two sounds,
Ray Symbolic and Stur-Gav, easily and often. Joe was becoming more popular
every day. Now working with Errol Thompson at Joe Gibbs Records, he
scored big with ‘Leave fe me Girl Arlene’ and ‘Drunken Master’. At the time,
Joe was talking slackness on the sound. “[Joe] did slack when him just come a
Stur-Gav. He was one of the slackest, most dirty mouth deejay you ever hear,”
U Roy ruefully recalls. “Same thing with Charlie [Chaplin] when Charlie just
come.” U Roy had to tell them to cool it.
But the style that Joe will always be remembered for is the fast talking
style. Joe would punctuate his phrases with a quick ‘Bong diddley’, or suddenly
launch into a lengthy, “bong didley bong diddley bong woodely woodely
…” It was Joe’s signature scat singing style, different from U Roy’s distinctive,
‘yea, yea, YEA’, and ‘Waaaaaahh!’ Joe’s style was a little more modern - something
new that spread among the deejays until it became part of every toasters
repertoire. Hardly a song went by in the dance with at least one ‘diddley’ or
‘woodily’. Soon deejays were coming up with their own improvised riffs, like
‘cree cree cree cracka’ and adding ‘bim’, ‘right!’ and ‘ribbit!’
STur-Gav in The ‘80S
Stur-Gav suffered a significant setback in 1980 when it was shot up during
a session in Jungle. U Roy remained quiet for a year or two and then brought
the set back with a new configuration including deejay Josie Wales as “The
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