​

New Dimension Recording Studio opened in December 1971 by two men: Arnold Wedderburn and John Templer. Arnold Wedderburn was a Jamaican electronics engineer who worked at JBC Radio Station. He wrote scripts for airplay and, in 1972, worked on equipment to transition JBC from AM to FM stereo. Templer was from England, and his role was that of an investor. Others who assisted are Delroy Butler, a.k.a. Delroy Denton, who was the chief technician. Recording engineer Dennis Thompson was present at the start and worked on a three-record Count Ossie album and with Merritone Sound System on their productions at New Dimension. The Fabulous Five were very active at New Dimension. Wedderburn and Templer documented their work on the New Dimension record label on the 1973 three-disc album entitled “Grounation” by Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari and on tracks like Yvonne and Lisa’s “Close to You” (1972) and Peter Scarlet and The Fabulous Five’s “Oh Dad” (1972).
 
Audio engineer Dennis Thompson worked with Winston Blake and Count Ossie at New Dimension. His good friend Wilton Currie would join him at the studio as sessions were underway. Thompson immediately recalled his work with the studio, the precise street name and address, and equipment specification when asked. Interview 
 
I was involved with that studio. 5 Eastwood Avenue, off Eastwood Park Road. Electronics engineer Arnold Wedderburn and investor John Templer started that studio. Templer was an English man who lived in Jamaica, and Jamaica adopted him. Wedderburn was in communications. He studied in America and came back home and decided to start a recording studio. One night he went to a Grounation with Count Ossie in Bull Bay. Arnold was an avid music collector, and his equipment was higher-end audio. So, he was a connoisseur. He was fascinated with Count Ossie. John Templer decided he had some money he wanted to invest and build a studio. They rented this house on Eastwood Avenue. They know I was involved in music, cuz I used to play at discos and clubs, so I say we can put it together – it’s a good idea. Count Ossie wanted to do this album, “Grounation.”  In two nights, we do it, and it came to three albums. They have enough material for five albums; we edit it down to three.  
     New Dimension was a two-track studio with quarter-inch tape running at 71/2 and 15 tape speed. The technical specifications: we had two Revox 77 and one Sony 850 – I think it was, with had three Shure mixers, four Advent EQs [equalizers], two Tannoy Lancaster speakers, McIntosh C-28 preamp, and two McIntosh 2105s. That was it, we made it work!
     I say to Winston [Winston Blake of Merritone Sound System] that we are going to build a studio. You always want to get involved in production, so come talk to John [Templer] and see what we can work out. I brought in Winston and say you want to be an associate producer. We started some auditions looking for new talent. Out of that came Beres Hammond, Ruddy Thomas, Cynthia Schloss, another man called Portious [sp?], and Mighty Diamonds. I started doing some production with I-Roy, The Heptones. Wilton [Wilton Currie] used to come down there and hang out with me down there. We were close friends, and when he leaves work, he come hang out.      
     New Dimension close down because of irregularities on behalf of one of the managers (Dennis Thompson, Interview by author, 09 July 2023).

(© Rich Lowe, July 2023)

"The Matador" and "Two Kings" are now available for purchase via Amazon. For more information visit the 'Books' tab above. Many thanks to all those who helped in the production of these books in order to preserve the legacies of Lloyd Daley and George and Vin Edwards.

​Two Kings, Book Quotes:
“Is the two ah we are King Edwards – Me and George. Two Kings” (Vin Edwards). 

“Is me love the sound system. I would sit outside of The Silver Slipper Club and was jus’ listening to Tom the Great Sebastian because I couldn’t pay to go inside. Some- times in the night, when I want go to listen sound, I walk and go listen Tom’s. He used to play the type of music that I like. Guys that love good music used to go there, and girls used to like to go there cuz it was safe” (George Edwards).

“We had a lot of creative ideas that we applied to King Edwards Sound System. George brought in a musical ‘ting that used to happen in America, starting on the road in New Orleans. In America, the people that played instruments would start in New Orleans, then move up to New York, and then move state by state on the road… What George did was to set a route for music to travel and play at many locations over ten to fifteen days. George’s all island tour would start in town – Spanish Town or Old Harbour or May Pen, and then come right back into Kingston. That was a good idea, that was George’s idea. In those days when we have eight hundred people in a dance, it a big dance” (Vin Edwards).

“Most important – to play sound system, you have something in your heart to love music. If ya don’t have that love, you can’t play it. This was how we conduct a dance: to get ready for a dance, we usually have four guys to help us, the guy who plays the sound and three other guys that lift the box. We draw our Hercules amplifier… After it reach twelve midnight, and if the dance ram – when I say ram, it means full, you don’t hassle the people too much. You have to play and watch what the people them doing. When you are playing half-time, now and then, you give them a one “Feel So Good.” I might play that one ten times in the night because Shirley and Lee is the best record that they make” (George Edwards).

ISBN: 978-1-7323825-6-5
Two Kings will be available worldwide via Amazon.com in Spring 2023
 
Contact Information:
E-mail: JamaicaWay809@gmail.com
Website: ReggaeJamaicaWay.com
Youtube: Jamaica809
Skype: Rich.Lowe8

(Rich Lowe, www.reggaejamaicaway.com, 2022)

The “Crop Over” is often recognized as the historical post-cane harvest celebration in Barbados that is now government-sponsored. The term means the sugar cane crop work is over; the harvest is complete, and it is the time to celebrate, especially if the crop is bountiful. Crop Over is a Barbados summer festival featuring market sales, food, drink, live music, and dancing. Crop Overs were also celebrated in Jamaica and date back to the 1700s (Cassidy p. 90). 
 
     Trumpet player Frank Anderson worked with many great orchestras:  Milton McPherson and his Orchestra, Val Bennett’s Orchestra, and George Moxey and his Band. He also worked with The Eric Deans Orchestra on lead trumpet beginning in 1949 and maintained his connection until Deans left for England. With Byron Lee And The Dragonaires, he played live with the band and recorded on the Byron Lee albums Sparrow Dragon Again and Many Moods Of Lee. Anderson recorded with the players who went on to form The Skatalites on tracks like “Exodus,” “Feeling Fine,” “St. Lucia,” “Wheel & Turn,” “Ska Ba Doo,” “Peanut Vendor,” “Occupation,” “Always On Sunday,” “Musical Storeroom,” and “King Solomon.”  Anderson formed and traveled extensively with his group, Frank Anderson & The Super Stars, in the US. 
     Frank Anderson is as strong as ever. He has a great list of stories that he frequently tells. Wherever he may be, strangers tend to gather around him as he reaches back into his memory for one of his stories. His list is continually growing and includes flying over Haiti with The Eric Deans Orchestra in a military plane riddled with bullet holes, carrying a gun in his twenties to make a statement, discovering where a fellow bandmember hid all of his performance money, returning visits from a ghostly woman when he was auditioning for Eric Deans, surviving a car crash at Stony Hill, his time with Nat King Cole, and the story that follows about a Crop Over Dance:
    
​A Crop Over Dance, as told by Frank Anderson, Trumpet player 
 
The crop over is the Jamaican farm workers and farmers; they work all week on the farms, and on Saturday night, they all would come to town for a dance. Eric Deans was smart, he would keep the performance early and play, and the people coming from the country to the dance would pass by. That’s what made him so good, he was one of those; hoity-toity think himself better. He would play for the country people coming by, and the truck would stop, and they come in and sit down and buy a white rum and coke, and white rum and water. Some get drunk, and the band would play. 
Country music was different from the city music. City are used to big band [like] Count Basie,  Duke Ellington, and Harry James. In the country, they like quadrille, like calypso [Anderson sounds out melodies]. The kind of calypso thing where you hold her close with gyrations. Like sexual intercourse. We would also travel up to the country parishes where the workers were living. It’s the strangest thing, their language is quite different [in the country]. I have to ask: “What did he say?” You come from Kingston; you are a city boy. I was only nineteen or twenty. Not that they are dumb in the country, they just speak different. We try to keep it Saturday, so we could come back to Kingston and play our Saturday gig because you could lose money. Don’t expect a lot of money neither because they don’t got money. The music is the entertainment, and when you come from Kingston, they treat you like a king! It was love.
This is the early 1950s, and back in those days, we drive into the country until we can’t drive no more, and then we get out at Sligoville. When we reach, we would have to go in a cart that a mule would pull. We would play some music and ride through the countryside, and people would hear and say: “The band is here! They gonna play at Center” Now, Center is not a big hall, is a big clearing. When it start, it has grass on it, like a golf area. These people would build a house in one minute. They would chop down bamboo and put up a shed with flooring [build a stage]. The band would go up there and play. 
This is a true thing. After a while, a guy named Val Bennett, who plays saxophone, came up there and brought his Kingston band, and he’s going to play his Broadway music, and [speaks slowly] they’re gonna like it whether they like it or not. Now, there’s this guy, he’s very intimidating. He’s barefoot, and he has a machete strapped to his side-they all do. Not that they would chop up anybody, but they are farmers. On Sunday, they put on their Sunday best to dress up like they are going to church. For you, they dress up, but not really much. Val Bennett goes out there and plays American music, and they stand out there, and they listen, and it was good. I’ll never forget it; Val play until somebody came up and say: “Listen, we don’t like that kind of music. We have had enough of it. We want you to play our kind of music.”  It’s mento [music] they want. Mento is a mix of calypso and African. You have the drum beat [sounds out the drumming]. Any kind of melody that you could come up with, you better come up with it fast. You don’t stop. Mento; it varies from slow, to medium, to fast.
The drummer works, and the trumpeters work. Val keeps us playing Broadway. The bad man in town with the machete, a black goliath, tall-looking down on everyone, come back up and say: “I told you we don’t like that kind of music. We want you to play mento!”  Val Bennett says: “I’m the band leader, man!” We tell Val to please listen to these people. He says don’t listen to them. We were little boys anyway. Y’know, the man came with the sharpest machete I’ve ever seen. He put it at Val’s neck and said: “No! Come with me, Val.” He took Val’s saxophone, and he reached up and tied it with a string to the roof of the shed they built, and it was twirling around. This is a true story; you can ask Mickey O’Brien about it. He was there! This man said: “Listen, Val, if you think you are Jamaican bad, touch that [extends the word] saxophooone!” We carried a big band down there, so the man say: “Now! You, you, and you. You play!” Ernest with his little guitar, the drummer play, the saxophone play, and me and Mickey play till our lips was raw. We couldn’t stop. We play the calypso song “Soldering,” and that was the longest calypso you ever hear in your life.
They have the big fire, and the curry goat is being cooked ‘round the clock, and the whole town is there. The music play till the drummer fall out, and then Mickey start playing the drums. You don’t stop because the guy has this machete. They took Val Bennett and say: “Now, Val Bennet! You gonna go down to the river, and you gonna be carrying water to the kitchen.” They gave Val Bennett a great big bucket, and two guys march him down by the river. He has to go fill that bucket and come up with water and supply the kitchen while they cooking the curry goat, rice, yam, and banana [laughs]. His shirt got wet up, and they have him take off his shoes, but he was not used to that, man! They tell Val that he can take a break and take a rest, and his saxophone just keep twirling around and around and around!       
     It was most embarrassing to him, and it was humorous to us. It was very serious, we didn’t want nobody doing anybody [didn’t want anyone to get hurt]. The band was saying [speaks in a hushed voice]: “They will chop him, chop him up.” We don’t bother try nothing because, by the time the police reach, he will be done. That man bring law and order to that town. You don’t go there and commit a crime, or you are not coming out alive. 
(Frank Anderson, Musician-trumpet, Interview by Author, 17 April 2021).  
 
                                                                                            Reference
Cassidy, Frederic G. 2007. Jamaica Talk - Three Hundred Years of The English Language In 
     Jamaica: Kingston, Jamaica: University of The West Indies Press. 
 
 

Many years ago, as a radio announcer playing Jamaican music, I searched for records on Eglington Avenue in Toronto and saw an advertisement for a dance that night. I attended the dance, and by sheer luck, I encountered and conversed with the tremendous Jamaican toaster Lord Sassafrass (Michael Johnson). This meeting was in 1985 and was still early in his career. I am fortunate to have known Jamaica’s Lord Sassafrass when he was thrilling Jamaican dance hall patrons and topping the Jamaican Hit Parade with “Pocomania Jump.” Sassafrass regularly worked with Black Scorpio Sound System alongside fellow toasters General Trees, Mikey Melody, Shuka Shine, Culture Lee, Echo Minott, and other greats. Close to forty years have passed, and Sassafrass is alive and well and living in Toronto, Canada. He continues to perform live, works on his “Skagichall” album for Horseman Records, and is occupied with a book project about his career.
Michael Johnson was named Lord Sassafrass by the great Jamaican producer and singer Lee “Scratch” Perry in 1978 when he recorded at the Black Ark Recording Studio. Sassafrass describes how he formed the full title: “Me name me-self after an American horse name Sassafras, a wicked grass horse, good pon the turf. Go to Lee Perry and him seh: ‘Well, we call ya Lord.’ That was in 1978 when I recorded ‘Green Bay Incident’ and ‘Green Bay Inquest’ [with Debra Keys] for Lee Perry at Black Ark.”
 
Over time I learned others had adopted the Sassafrass nickname. I know of three people/groups that use the title of “Sassafrass” in varying forms: Michael “Lord Sassafrass” Johnson of Black Scorpio, The Jamaican artist and poster maker “Sassa,” and the American folk group “Sassafrass” which started in 1999 at Bryn Mawr College. There has been some confusion over the years with this name, which recently swelled when the Jamaican artist Denzil Naar a.k.a. “Sassa,” died in July 2022. Some became confused when word spread that Lord Sassafrass had passed away, while it was the poster artist Sassa that died.
Denzil Naar is the iconic artist from Jamaica who created omnipresent posters in the 1980s. Naar went by the title of Sassa when he first started in the 1980s and, at times, adopted the nickname of Sassafrass. To say that Naar’s artwork was iconic is an understatement. His poster design, lettering, and coloring brought his posters to life. They conveyed dance information in tremendous detail while making the poster pleasing to the eye. His posters are positively mesmerizing and unmistakable long-lasting pieces of art. To some, these posters are mere advertisements for long past dances, but with Naar’s talent and ingenuity, they elevate and become everlasting. Rest in eternal peace to the artist Sassafrass.
 
Lord Sassafrass - The Original Horseman, teacher of the great General Trees, and DJ of Black Scorpio Sound System is alive. Don’t confuse, Lord Sassafrass may be on the backstretch of his last furlong, but he is alive and kickin’.  

By Rich Lowe, 2022 
reggaejamaicaway.com