“So I spent my money to make this album. We The People Band was formed in 1975 and I just decided it was time to make this album a couple of years after. At that time We The People was really active, and you can find plenty of film on the internet with Dennis Brown all through that time, like ‘Live In Montreux’, and ‘Splashing The Palace’. Dennis Brown said that I was like his credit card – he used to say ‘I never leave home without my credit card!’ There is also that film called ‘Heartland Reggae’ with U Roy and Jacob Miller, where you can watch the same set of guys as on this album.
“On drums there was Devon Richardson, one of the greatest drummers that ever come out of Jamaica – in fact Sly Dunbar used to admire him a lot, and Sly would say ‘he is the only guy can play back what I am playing’. Devon and Sly were the two drummers who really played all the sessions at Joe Gibbs studio. Then you have Winston Bowen on guitar, that is ‘Bo Peep’. A lot of these guys came through my band and went on to long careers. Like Dean Fraser is on this album, but we called him ‘Youth’ on this LP. So being that I was like the senior recording musician at Joe Gibbs, I introduced these horns sections with these young guys – Dean Fraser and Nambo Robinson. Chico Chin was already in the band and Lloyd Kerr played trombone. Then there was Franklyn Waul, alias ‘Bubbler’, who also start with me – I had to go to his school to get him, and eventually he became popular and create a scene. Ruddy Thomas was the first lead singer for We The People, and then he learnt to work as an engineer at Joe Gibbs, and also as a percussion player. And Mighty Diamonds sing backup vocals.
“It was a really great album, but I never had proper distribution for it. It was just released in Jamaica but I used to sell it for export, so it still made it out to different countries. At the time I had given my first three albums to Trojan, and maybe they could have done a bit more, so I figured that I wouldn’t go that same route for this ‘Meet The People’ album.
A1 | Reality | 4:00 |
A2 | Life Ain't Easy | 3:19 |
A3 | You Hurt My Pride | 4:22 |
A4 | Ordinary Man | 2:50 |
B1 | Trench Town Girl | 4:31 |
B2 | Ah Rock Dis Yah Bass Line | 2:58 |
B3 | I Want To Go Home | 3:25 |
B4 | I Love You Girlie | 3:00 |