Native’s Adventures with Lee Perry at the Black Ark ... September 1977.

Wayne Jobson was born in Jamaica and grew up in the hills of the parish of St. Ann about nine miles from Nine Mile the birthplace of Bob Marley. His cousin, Dickie Jobson, started Island Records with Chris Blackwell and, at one time, managed Bob Marley & The Wailers while another cousin, Diane Jobson, was Bob Marley’s lawyer. When he was young Wayne spent time jamming with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and they inspired him to get into the music business. He formed the bands Little Madness and Native and the Little Madness track ‘Mother Country’ was re-released last year on Pressure Sounds’ Tommy Cowan compilation ‘Life Goes In Circles’ (PSCD/LP52)

The music on this album was recorded at various studios with engineers and producers that have subsequently become legends of reggae music: Lee Perry at the Black Ark, Errol ‘Errol T’ Thompson at Joe Gibbs’ studio, At Channel One with the Hookim brothers and with Wayne's friend and local North Coast producer Jack Ruby and his in house band The Black Disciples famed for their work with Burning Spear.

Wayne explained how he came to record at the Black Ark with The Upsetter Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry:

“One night in August 1977 Boris Gardner took me on a trip to see Lee 'Scratch' Perry at his Black Ark Studio in the Washington Gardens section of Kingston. The Black Ark was like a medieval space station with Scratch at the controls voicing the U.K. artist Robert Palmer. I watched in amazement as Scratch drove the mixing board like a Formula One racing car and extracted his mystical sound. Paul McCartney had been in the week before to work with Scratch on the little four track machine so you can be sure that it was the MAN and not the machine that was creating the magic here!! After the session I got up enough courage to tell Scratch that I had some songs to play for him on my acoustic guitar. He listened and then declared ‘I want to work with you because you are an Arawak Indian!’ I assured him that I was an Arawak Indian (of course I am not) and he said to come back in a few days to record.”

Wayne returned and the session took place as the in house Black Ark musicians were joined by Wayne on vocals and guitar. Songs such as ‘Rockstone’ and ‘Late September In May’ show Wayne as a thoughtful imaginative writer with a soulful voice and demonstrate Lee Perry’s adventurous spirit and willingness to always try new things. The tracks are imbued with that classic late Black Ark sound and these Native recordings are released here for the first time.

‘Rockstone’ is a unique release, full of the true spirit of Jamaica and its people of all backgrounds, ‘Out Of Many We Are One’, and Native and Little Madness were multi-cultural long before it was fashionable or profitable. Wayne has written the sleeve notes for the booklet and this release comes complete with the usual top quality Pressure Sounds packaging and remastering highlighting this unusual album.

Wayne Jobson is now a hugely respected DJ in Los Angeles and has been involved with various projects including ‘Red X’ the Peter Tosh movie on which he worked as producer and he is a constant contributor to and ambassador for Jamaican music and culture all around the world. We will leave the last word to Wayne:

“We had dreamed of this day from we had formed our first band in school to the matinee stage shows that we had attended at the Carib Theatre in Kingston listening in awe to superstars (to us anyway) such as The Techniques, The Paragons, The Gaylads, The Wailers, Ken Boothe and others… and now it looked as though it might just happen.”

Source : Pressure Sounds