Let's talk about the Jolly Boys project.
That was quite interesting. The story of who The Jolly Boys were and what makes up mento music is so rich in content and pre-dates reggae. I ignored mento for 20 years, because to me it was just this marginalized "for the lobby of tourist hotels in Montego Bay" music — a bit uncool. It was only through taking them into the studio and listening to songs such as "Night Food" — which was written in the '40s and its distinct theme is oral sex. There are songs about corrupt politicians, about the woes of alcoholism and about women who are unfaithful to their men — this is not tourism music. This was sociopolitical music of its time that came from the cane fields — the post-slavery music of Jamaica. I've been somewhat out of the front line of the music industry in the last six years because I was renovating the property in Port Antonio and expanding it into a small private hotel along with the studio. That's where I was introduced to some old boys that are from the area called The Jolly Boys. They've been a band since the 1940s. They came up to the Bushbar, which is our restaurant in the bush, and that's when I noticed there were only four of them. There used to be six. I started chatting to Albert, one of the newer members of the band, and he's 72 years old.
He's the "new guy."
