With a No. 1 hit to their credit-”Red Red Wine”-and a string of well-received albums over the last decade, UB40 is the most commercially successful reggae band in the world.
That may seem odd, because the integrated octet is from Britain-a long way from reggae`s homeland in Jamaica.
But UB40 drummer James Brown says reggae was always in the air while the band was coming together in Birmingham during the mid-1970s.
”It was a working-class area with lots of immigrants from India and Jamaica,” Brown said. ”You stepped out the door and reggae was everywhere, on the street, at a party, blasting out of radios. We didn`t listen to rock at all then.”
UB40, which will headline at Poplar Creek Music Theatre June 21, emerged at a time when reggae`s influence was peaking, thanks to such artists as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.
”We thought reggae would one day rule the world,” Brown said with a laugh. ”We know now that`s never going to happen. But even though it`s a specialized music, it exerts tremendous influence.”
The loping groove of reggae can be heard in much of today`s most popular dance and hip-hop music, and its socially conscious lyricism remains particularly relevant in this age of political and economic upheaval around the world.
”UB40” wasn`t a name selected at random; it`s a euphemism for a British unemployment application, and the band was more than passingly familiar with it.”We were all out of work when we started the band,” Brown said. ”It was a very depressing time in the mid-`70s, but it`s even more difficult now.
”If the band collapsed today, we`d all have to get jobs, and I wonder if we could. None of us are rich and there are 30 children among the eight of us. It gives our music a special urgency.”
The jobless anthem ”One in Ten,” the anti-Thatcher ”Madame Medusa”
and the nuclear-war warning ”The Earth Dies Screaming” were written during the band`s early days, when it became an underground hit in the U.K. after a tour with the Pretenders.
”They had a No. 1 album and single at the time,” Brown said. ”Chrissie Hynde saw us playing in a club and asked us to join her tour. We went from playing small pubs to making a name for ourselves.”
In albums such as ”Rat in the Kitchen” (A&M, 1986) and ”Geffery Morgan” (A&M, 1984), UB40 expanded its audience with strong original songwriting. But the band is perhaps best known in America for its reggafied versions of well-known pop and R&B tunes.
An album of cover songs, ”Labour of Love” (A&M, 1983), yielded ”Red Red Wine,” written by Neil Diamond in the `60s. The song made little impact initially, then was rediscovered by a Phoenix disc jockey in 1988 and, five years after its release, hit No. 1.
”Labour of Love II,” released a few months ago on Virgin Records, aims to capitalize on that success with danceable covers of Al Green`s ”Here I Am (Come and Take Me)” and the Temptations` ”The Way You Do the Things You Do.”
”When we did the original `Labour of Love` we compiled a list of 80 songs we wanted to do,” Brown said. ”So we could do another three records easily.”
– Jonathan Richman, one of pop music`s most eccentric talents, will play Friday and Saturday at Lounge Ax, 2438 N. Lincoln Ave.
Richman has softened his sound considerably from his raucous early-`70s days with one of rock`s seminal groups, the Modern Lovers.
For insight into Richman`s personality, we called on ex-Modern Lover Jerry Harrison, a member of Talking Heads.
Harrison remains disappointed that Richman ”decided to consolidate the music and make it all about his voice and personality. He lost that hard-edged guitar sound.”
But Harrison adds that Richman still writes beautiful songs.
”We were riding through the Grand Canyon and he was refusing to look because he just had to write this song,” Harrison recalled with a laugh. ”It was called `Hey There Little Insect` and Jonathan was writing it because he used to be terrified of insects. His music was a way of overcoming fear.”
– Billy Bragg, who has long combined political activism with a career as a folk-punk solo singer, is the subject of an hourlong documentary to be released on home video this summer by Elektra Records.
But fans can get a sneak preview of the video, ”Which Side Are You On?” at 7 p.m. Sunday at Chicago Filmmakers, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
The documentary, produced by Chicagoan Bob Hercules, chronicles Bragg`s tour of the Southeast last autumn on behalf of mineworkers striking against the Pittston Co.
It portrays Bragg as a sort of modern Woody Guthrie, singing songs such as ”Help Save the Youth of America,” ”Power in a Union” and ”Ideology,” while discussing the plight of the working man with the locals. It`s the kind of film that even turns a trip to the convenience store into a political act. Platitudes predominate, and Pittston`s viewpoint isn`t represented, so we never get a sense of who or what Bragg is up against. And we don`t hear or see much of the other Billy Bragg, the one who writes classic, apolitical love songs such as ”Levi Stubbs` Tears.”
But a generous dose of Bragg`s most powerful music is presented, and that`s ultimately what saves ”Which Side Are You On?” from its
propagandistic pretensions.
– Henry Rollins, the tattooed lead singer of the legendary, defunct California punk band Black Flag, will give a spoken performance Saturday at Club Lower Links, 954 W. Newport Ave.
Rollins spends 10 months of the year on the road, so he has plenty of stories to tell. He`s a spellbinding, down-to-earth orator who thrives equally on humor and confrontation. He`ll be preceded on stage by local punk singer-social commentator Marc Ruvolo.
