Desmond Dekker: Original Rude Bwoy (1941-2006)
Arriving at Norman Manley International in the late 60s, en route to UWI and the sunset red hills and the Julie mango season, there was for many Guyanese the anticipation of hearing and dancing to Jamaican rock steady. Students returning home had talked about its irresistible rhythms. When you heard Desmond Dekker you marveled at his sound – that plaintive falsetto sound, those faithful backing vocals, the searing guitar work in “007”.
Slowly you came to understand that “Rude bwoy” behaviour had something (and nothing) to do with an absence of good manners; that the street life of darkskinned Jamaican youth was harsh (“Rude bwoy get offa circuit charge”) and frequently enraged by vicious red-stripe baton licks.
But that falsetto sound! You hear it sliding and gliding in “Keep a Cool Head”, “Mother Long Tongue”, “A It Mek”. Later it would be dismissed as pleasantly “chirpy” by the conscious Marley rebels who were turning to the Africa-calling chants of Burning Spear, and that big embosoming Nyabinghi drum.
Round about that time the American soul singer Al Green was winning hearts with his falsetto. His was a distinctive, sexy-American sound oozing a sweetman’s glamour and game. “Let’s Stay Together” and “I’m so Tired of being Alone” sent you onto the dance floor for an interlude of slow sway & grind. Came the 70s; Marley’s “One-love” jams were still filaments of song floating in his head; roots reggae, moving away from the practice of Jamaicanizing American/UK hits, had begun to take root, and dancing feet no longer waited for the Al Green romantic-love falsetto.
Desmond Dekker’s “rude bwoy” falsetto, well-tempered in his island creole, was edged with societal worries. His was poor-folk dance music, rooted in his shanty Jamaica; closer in mood to the Portland Maytals than Trench Town Marley. The straightforward honesty of his delivery eventually gained him a foothold in the market. Suddenly his music was exportable. Immigrant souls grooved in basements to his beats and mod London youth found they could “relate to” the anger and style of his island culture.
Marley would later eclipse him with his world-trodding “sufferer” sound, but it would have been hard for Dekker to alter his timbre, to ask his horns and backing vocals to riff with the new times (even though his “007” is as powerful a hymn to Kingston inequalities as Marley’s “Burnin’ and Lootin’”.)
In radio archives somewhere there’s a BBC interview in which a curious BBC voice was asking Dekker if his “Israelites” had anything to do with the political problems of Israel at the time. In 1968 “Intensified [Music like Dirt]” won the Festival Song competition, but the decision did not make everyone happy. Many found the lyrics crappy (“Girls can’t hide from intensified guys.”) and the music barely interesting.
Tributes and reports of Dekker’s passing have surfaced in news media around the world. This from The London Times (5/26) adds to the romance and the legend of the man: “Born Desmond Adolphus Dacres in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1941, he was orphaned as a child and sent to grow up in the rural surroundings of Seaforth in the parish of St Thomas. By the mid-teens he was back in the Jamaican capital where he worked as a welder.” (The name change from Dacres to Dekker! Years before Ethiopia & the Ras inspired a revolution in colours, hats and hair culture!)
His high-pitched delivery would probably be considered too batty-soft by today’s dancehall standards. His bass lines don’t pound, his all-male backing vocals aren’t hard enough to blast car CD competition off the road. Besides, his songs came out of a personal struggle with the unscrupulous. Still, you imagine today’s dancehall Beenie men could have taught him a thing or two about management and marketing, about riddims tougher-than-tough, and postures more menacing than Jimmy Cliff’s.
“I just write what I see and hear happen,” he once said, reflecting that innocence of the pioneer 60s when the exploited reggae artist, closer in spirit to the exploited masses, didn’t yet understand the power of today’s cordless stage performer who prances & screams at sweating crowds.
He moved away from his island, took up permanent residence in England, and seemed always ready for work. Bankrupt but unbowed, they say. Hoping perhaps the reggae beat would rise again to give his career one last soaring revival. His island falsetto all but lost in today’s global wailing. Then one morning – bam! – heart attack. What a way a hard life ends! (W.W.)
