Keep On Trying \/ Shu Be Dup \/ In This Time \/ Gone Already \/ Come Home\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/scan484.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Officially the nicest guy in the reggae industry, it is with great respect that I upload Norman Grant’s entire output for Virgin Frontline released between 1978 and 1979. Two excellent showcase LP’s showing the wonderful harmony’s that this reggae outfit produced. The third in the\u00a0trilogy of Twinkle Brothers late 1970’s recorded UK released LP’s\u00a0became available\u00a0in 1980 and was entitled ‘Countryman’. Indeed a fine LP but that LP was released on the plain Virgin label, so I left it off this post!<\/p>\n
Norman Grant is still a fine man, polite and kind to this Penguin at all times,\u00a0and he still continues to perform to this day! Good on him.<\/p>\n
This post dedicated to Jock, not the\u00a0‘Dub Massacre’ series\u00a0released in the 1990’s but vintage Twinkle never the less.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Text below courtesy of reggaelicious.pbworks.com and reggaenews.co.uk<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/scan485.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Twinkle Brothers were formed in the early 60’s in Falmouth, Trelawney, Jamaica. Their first success was when they won the Trelawney Mento Festival in 1962. For six consecutive years they won at their parish level. In 1968 they won two gold medals in the all island competition; Norman Grant for best solo and the Twinkle Brothers for best group. Norman said about these years;<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won at our parish level from ’62 right up on to ’68 we won two gold medals. In the all island. I won as a solo artist and also as a group, as Twinkle Brothers. So there was two gold medals in yunno the whole Island. In ’69 we won again and in 1970 we took part in the festival song contest. It was like Toots & Maytals \u2018Wat a Bam Bam\u2019. Desmond Dekker and the Aces. We came third that year. \u2018Boom Shacka Lacka\u2019 won. Hopeton Lewis. But yunno, as I say. Within the whole things was also like election. With the festival song It was politics. Where you from? From when we did the shows everybody love us. But when we came to the voting it was political. But it was still good for us because we made our name now. Proving that we where in a different style and category of our own. \u201c<\/p>\n
In 1970 the Twinkle Brothers started recording for Bunny Lee and released a couple of acclaimed singles, the first being the festival song \u2018You Can Do It Too\u2019. They did approximately 14 tracks for Bunny Lee with songs such as \u2018Not Who You Know\u2019, \u2018Miss Labba Labba\u2019, \u2018Sweet Young Thing Like You\u2019, \u2018Best Is Yet To Come\u2019 and Normans solo effort \u2018Miss World\u2019. Bunny Lee also helped the Twinkle Brothers in getting a session with Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry for whom they did a couple of tracks of which only one got released, \u2018Reggae For Days\u2019.<\/p>\n
During the years 1973 and 1974 they worked with Phil Pratt doing the songs \u2018Friends\u2019, \u2018No Big Thing\u2019 and \u2018Do You Own Thing\u2019. In 1975 their debut album, \u2018Rasta Pon Top\u2019, was released and shortly after in ’75 Norman Grant joined the Sonny Bradshaw Band (with Dean Fraser) in a tour to Guatemala, Mexico.<\/p>\n
It was also in the mid 70’s that Norman Grant opened up his record store in Falmouth.<\/p>\n
By 1976 their second album, \u2018Do Your Own Thing\u2019 (also got released in 1977 as \u2018Miss Labba Labba\u2019) was released. It further showed the roots Norman Grants vocals had in soul music. The following year in 1978 they got signed to Virgin Frontline and released the album \u2018Love\u2019. The odd choice of releasing it as a 10″ LP raised quite a few peoples eye brows in the record stores but it soon got released as a 12″ release with a couple of more songs added to the playlist, but now on Normans own Twinkle imprint. The second album on Virgin Frontline was \u2018Praise Jah\u2019 (1979). Shortly after this the Twinkle Brothers, the Gladiators and U-Roy got transfered to Virgin Records as Frontline got terminated. They released the album \u2018Countrymen\u2019 in 1980. It was their last release with Virgin.<\/p>\n
After the Twinkle Brothers got dropped by Virgin Frontline (that had by now decimated their reggae output tremendously) Norman Grant focused mainly releasing music on his own Twinkle label that now had moved its headquarters to the UK.<\/p>\n
In 1980 when Jacob Miller passed away Norman Grant joined Inner Circle upon arriving from an American tour. He toured with Inner Circle for a short while but no recordings where done with Norman on the vocals. He was soon back with the Twinkle Brothers.<\/p>\n
The late 70’s also saw Norman Grant working together with Jah Shaka, cutting dubplates for him and soon also releasing proper records. They released two albums with Jah Shaka the first one being \u2018The Right Way\u2019 (1984) and the second one being \u2018Rasta Surface\u2019 (1991). The album \u2018Underground\u2019 (1982) also featured productions by Jah Shaka. It was the Twinkle Riddim Section that backed Shaka on his recording \u2018Revelation 18\u2019.<\/p>\n
Interview with Norman Grant – Twinkle Brothers<\/strong><\/p>\nAs I travel my path of life I truly feel blessed to do the works I do. Meeting up with Twinkle Brothers again after nearly ten years was just another blessing. We last meet up at Milliondollar Club in Wolverhampton. Grant said \u201cMe never know it\u2019s been so long\u201d. He firstly told me that Ralston was back home in California USA, they had just finished touring South America, but he would be singing Jehovah for him. This track can be found on the album \u2018All The Hits\u2019. It\u2019s a must-have album if you\u2019re a real reggae buff. Previously the brothers had been together doing the normal festival circuit. Twinkle have been performing on the international circuit of festivals for the past ten years, the festivals seem to be evolving into bigger events every year.<\/p>\n
Grant said \u201cit is nice to do an event like this evening at the Drum it\u2019s more personal so we can get closer to the people\u201d. Grant was looking forward to doing other stuff apart from the hits. He said \u201cI know de musics been playing cos like there\u2019s lots of sound systems round these parts that\u2019s heavy weight that play roots cos twinkle brothers plays roots reggae. We are still underground in comparison to other major players in the industry\u201d. \u201cThe way I put music out I put the message out weather the thing sell or not because in the long run it will sell, some songs take longer to sell than others. I\u2019m not in it for the quick fix\u201d.<\/p>\n
So you\u2019re really in it for the love of the music. \u201cReally that\u2019s how we started out. I haven\u2019t done any other job all my life so it is also my business you know. I\u2019ve been paid to sing since I was ten. We started out singing in competitions in 1962, when Jamaica got its independence. These competitions were called Pop and Mento festival and we represented our parish. We won gold as solo artist and as a group we won gold medals from 1962 to 69\u201d .That puts you on 4 decades in the industry. \u201cI think I was doing it before that in the hotels with different bands. I think all these things help me with my melodies and to write my own songs, because a lot of people use other people\u2019s melodies without even knowing it.”<\/p>\n
Your style of music is Shaka style – that heavy rootsy style. “Well Shaka style of music was around before Shaka” is what Grant was trying to tell me without taking back anything from Jah Shaka sound system. ” I made my first record for Beverly’s in 1964 – you know Lesley Kong\u201d. Now there\u2019s a man I’d like to meet.<\/p>\n
Grant went on and listed some of the artists that worked with Kong. He also says that once you find your own style of music you will stick with it. Sometimes you got to create a style but mostly you just go with it. I asked if Ralston brings the American influence in to the songs and Grant said \u201cno not really because I do most of the writing. Once you have that style you want be influenced by other things. Once you create a market your fans expect you to do it. If you switch you\u2019ll lose your fans.<\/p>\n
Talking about albums Grant filled me in with more datails of his career. What\u2019s your label called now because I\u2019m thinking Rasta Pon Top? “Its Twinkle. The first album out was, ‘Rasta Pon Top’ it\u00a0was put out on the Grounation label in 1974 that\u2019s when I first came to England. We were working with Bunny Lee in 1971 even Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. We did some songs for Dynamics. We were doing it even without thinking about the money. We had to rehearse because even if it was only one track we had to do it in one take. You do what you have to do\u201d.<\/p>\n
We talked about music and the youth of today and I said how some of the youths of today\u2019s easy come easy go world think they don\u2019t have to work and everything will be dropped in there laps. \u201dif you check out the biographies of these stars you will see just how hard they do work.” Grant went on to say that he worked with all the new reggae artists coming out of Jamaica and where ever else they come from to do the reggae festivals, but one artist he calls by name is Fantom Mojah. This was the very same artist that Gramps from Morgan Heritage came up with when I asked what artist you rate that is coming out right now. I know a lot of DJ\u2019s that rate Mojah as a good up and coming artist. Grant also named artists like Aisha who has a new album out on Ariwa music on Mad Professor\u2019s Ariwa label. “The album is the best I\u2019ve ever heard from Aisha, I love it – she has defiantly grown.<\/p>\n
Rebecca, Alison, KD Levi & Steve Santana are some of the artist that Twinkle brothers have out all over the world. Grant said, \u201cI often drop in the local record shop to listen to what is out. With my music as soon as I got 14 tracks mastered I put it out but I also put out 7\u201d and 12\u201d There\u2019s always stuff out there for the crowd that support Twinkle.”<\/p>\n
We talked about what is out there and Grant said \u201cthe DJ thing has run its cause. Back in the old days we used tell the artist that couldn\u2019t sing, You cant sing that\u2019s why them become DJ\u2019s or sing jay\u2019s\u201d That\u2019s the good thing about reggae it takes you so many ways because all over the world there are reggae communities. All I try to do is do my thing I don\u2019t see myself as changing but every day I grow\u201d.<\/p>\n
Twinkles advice for you is \u201cremember there is not just one type of people in this world, it\u2019s a melting pot so people have to learn to live with one another, with your neighbours and brothers and sisters. I\u2019m into peace and love in my lyrics. Even when I sing reality I have to remember that lots of people are listening to the music. I sing about how I feel and you must remember that you can get three different meanings from one lyric. Music can influence people so I always try to remember that because as a singer you got to be diplomatic, not like a politician or a preacher, but you still have to know how to get your message across, yah know\u2019 them say Soft answer turneth away wrath\u2019 it\u2019s just how you deliver it. Right now we are living in an aggressive time even the leaders when they give a speech they are aggressive in there speech and the preacher is rar rar in his sermon.” Grant roared like a lion. He\u2019s telling us we are here on borrowed times. “Well really we need more love and love haffi share. Yes and really only the rasta man preach peace and love all dis time\u201d. What is your next project after this? “I\u2019m off to Jamaica to recharge my batteries but I will be back to do some dates in Italy then ill be back in England for Christmas.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Free Africa \/ Solid As A Rock \/ Watch The Hypocrites Love \/ I Love You So \/ South Africa Praise Jah \/ King Pharoah \/ Africa \/ Dread In The Ghetto \/\u00a0Jahoviah Keep On Trying \/ Shu Be Dup \/ In This Time \/ Gone Already \/ Come Home\u00a0 Officially the nicest guy in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-downloads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3016,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/killyourpetpuppy.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/IMG_4202.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/IMG_4207.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/IMG_4197.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i192.photobucket.com\/albums\/z149\/pengy1966\/IMG_4200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n