Barbados native, Dalton Sinclair Bishop alias Jackie Opel, is known as the Jackie Wilson of Jamaica -- and deservedly so. In addition to being powerful his voice had quite an impressive range. And Jackie Opel, it is said, had the moves too.
Jackie Opel invented spouge, the combination of ska, calypso, and gospel music (as well as other genres). The characteristic spouge instrumentation included the cowbell, bass guitar, trap set and other percussion instruments. Saxophone, thrombone, and trumpet were added later.
Example of a "cowbell"
In the early 1960s, he was discovered by Byron Lee, the band master of the Dragonaires, who brought him to Jamaica. There, he started performing with the Skatalites as one of their lead singers. He recorded as a solo artist first on Coxsone Dodd's Studio One label, and afterwards on Justin Yap's Top Deck label and Edward Seaga's Wirl label. His styles included ska, R&B, soul, gospel, and calypso. He is credited with inventing spouge music, a fusion of ska, calypso, and R&B music. Opel performed duos with Doreen Schaffer and Hortense Ellis, and in 1964 was backed by WailersBob Marley and Peter Tosh on "Mill Man", "Hairy Mango" and "A time to cry" and maybe some others like "I Don´t Want Her".
Opel eventually moved to Trinidad and then subsequently to Barbados. On 8 March 1970, he died in a car crash in Bridgetown, Barbados.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Opel)
No comments:
Post a Comment