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Eddy Grant
stands amongst an elite group of artists as one who
has not just merely moved successfully across the
musical spectrum, but has actually been at the
forefront of genres and even created one of his own.
From pop star to reggae radical, musical
entrepreneur to the inventor of ringbang, the artist
has cut a swathe through the world of music and made
it his own.
Born in Plaisance, Guyana, on
March 5, 1948, the young Edmond Grant grew up on the sound of his
homeland, tan singing, an Indo-Caribbean vocal style whose roots lay
in south Asia and are the backbone of modern chutney. Then in 1960,
the Grant family emigrated to England, taking up residence in the
working-class Stoke Newington area of London. The young teen's musical
horizons swiftly expanded, embracing R&B, blues, and rock that
percolated across his new island home.
In 1965, Grant formed his first
band, the Equals, and long before the days of Two Tone, the group was
unique in being the first of Britain's multiracial bands to receive
any recognition. The West Indian contingent comprised Jamaican-born
singer Lincoln Gordon, with his twin brother Derv and Grant both on
guitar, while the rhythm section of bassist Patrick Lloyd and drummer
John Hall were native-born white Englishmen. Like most of the teenaged
bands roaming the capital at the time, the Equals cut their teeth on
the club and pub circuit and finally inked a label deal with President
Records in early 1967. Their debut single, "I Won't Be There," didn't
crack the charts but did receive major radio support. This, alongside
an expanding fan base wowed by their live shows, pushed their first
album, Unequaled Equals, into the U.K. Top Ten. At the request of his
label, Grant had also been working with the Pyramids, the British
group who had backed Prince Buster on his recent U.K. tour. Besides
composing songs for the band (and one for Buster himself, the rude
classic "Rough Rider"), Grant also produced several tracks, including
the band's debut single and sole hit, "Train to Rainbow City." In
1968, the Equals scored their own hit with "I Get So Excited," the
group's debut into the Top 50. Although their follow-up album, Equals
Explosion, proved less successful than its predecessor, as did the
next single, the quintet's career was indeed about to explode. "Hold
Me Closer" may have disappointed in the U.K., where it stalled at a
lowly number 50, but in Germany, the single was flipped over and "Baby
Come Back" released as the A-side. It swiftly soared to the top of the
German charts, a feat repeated across Europe. Later that spring, a
reissued British single finally received its just due and reached
number one. Even the U.S. took notice, sending the single into the
lower reaches of the Top 40. Sadly, this turned out to be a flash in
the pan. The Equals' follow-up single, "Laurel and Hardy" died at
number 35, its successor did even worse, while their new album,
Sensational Equals, didn't even make the charts. New hope arrived when
"Viva Bobby Joe" shot into the Top Ten in the summer of 1969, but its
follow-up, "Rub a Dub Dub," just scraped into the Top 35.
Understandable, considering the Equals roller coaster of ups and
downs, Grant now turned his attention elsewhere.
In 1970, he started up his own
specialty record label, Torpedo, concentrating on British reggae
artists. He also utilized the label as a home for a brief solo career
under the alias Little Grant, releasing the single "Let's Do It
Together." But the artist hadn't given up on the Equals yet, and good
thing too. Later that year, their new 45, "Black Skinned Blue Eyed
Boys," slammed the group back into the Top Ten. And then, the
unimaginable happened. On New Year's day in 1971, Grant, all of 23
years old, suffered a heart attack and a collapsed lung. If lifestyle
played a part, it wasn't because he drank, took drugs, smoked, or ate
meat, it was due to Grant's only vice — a hectic schedule. He quit the
group at this point and the Equals soldiered on into the shadows
without him. He sold Torpedo as well and with the proceeds opened up
his own recording studio, The Coach House, in 1972. Grant continued to
produce other artists and release their records through his newly
launched Ice label, but his own musical talents were seemingly left
behind. It wasn't until 1977 when Grant finally released a record of
his own, the Message Man album. It was three years in the
making and a stunning about face from his previous pop persona, even
if "Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys" had suggested a change was imminent.
Tracks like "Cockney Black," "Race Hate," and "Curfew" were
politicized dark masterpieces laced with aggression and anger. But the
album also included some lighter moments, including "Hello Africa,"
which featured a sound that the media hadn't even invented a word for
yet. Grant dubbed it "kaisoul," an amalgamation of kaiso (the
traditional word for calypso) and soul. Caribbean legend Lord Shorty,
the acknowledged inventor of this new crossover hybrid, labeled it
solka. Neither term stuck, however, once the Trinidad and Tobago press
came up with their own label — soca. But regardless of what it was
called, the style was just one of many hybrids that Grant was
entertaining. Message Man may have proved a commercial failure,
but that didn't dim the artist's vision for one second.
Two more years passed while
Grant wrestled with its follow-up in the studio, composing, producing,
and performing virtually
the entire album himself. The end result was 1979's Walking on
Sunshine, one of the greatest albums of the decade. While the
B-side featured a clutch of seminal musical hybrids, the centerpiece
of the album's A-side was "Living on the Frontline," a dancefloor
classic that blended tough lyrics with an electro-sheen, a sense of
optimism and a funk-fired sound. Released as a single, the song roared
up the British chart, while becoming a cult hit in U.K. clubs.
Inexplicably, the album itself didn't chart at all, nor did its
follow-up, 1980's Love in Exile. However, in the next year,
Grant finally cracked the market wide open with Can't Get Enough,
which finally breached the Top 40. His singles' success had continued
uninterrupted across "Do You Feel My Love," "Can't Get Enough of You,"
and "I Love You, Yes I Love You." A phenomenal live album, Live at
Notting Hill, was recorded in August 1981 during London's Notting
Hill Carnival. The following year's Killer on the Rampage slew
its way into both the British chart and the American, where it landed
at number ten. The album spun off "I Don't Wanna Dance," which topped
the chart in the U.K., while the exhilarating "Electric Avenue," from
his next album Going for Broke, landed at number two on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Nothing else would equal these
dizzying heights. Three more singles followed by the end of 1984, but
none managed to break into the Top 40. In the U.S., only one,
"Romancing the Stone," actually made the chart, charming its way into
a respectable berth just outside the Top 25. That was his final
showing in the U.S. On both sides of the Atlantic, 1987's Born Tuff
and the following year's File Under Rock were passed over by
the record buying public. However, the British gave the artist one
last Top Ten hit in 1988 with "Gimme Hope Jo'anna," a highlight of his
1990 Barefoot Soldier album. Unfortunately, its 1992 follow-up,
Painting of the Soul, went the way of its last few predecessors.
By then, the artist had long
ago left the U.K., having emigrated to Barbados a decade earlier. Even
as his own career had taken off back in England, Grant was spending
much of his time mentoring a new generation of soca talent. He opened
a new studio, Blue Wave, and lavished most of his attention on it,
which explains the gap in his output between 1984 and 1987. By the
time "Jo'anna" had fallen off the chart, Grant was well on the way to
creating his own mini-empire. Besides giving new stars-to-be a helping
hand, Grant also moved into music publishing, specializing in
calypso's legends. Over the years, Ice has thrilled the world by
making the back catalog of multitudes of stars available, Lord
Kitchener, Roaring Lion, and Mighty Sparrow, to name a few. And almost
uniquely amongst Caribbean artists, Grant has maintained control over
his own music, and Ice, of course, has kept it available. Across
Grant's solo career, the artist has continued to experiment with
different styles in ever-changing combinations. Pop, funk, new wave,
reggae, Caribbean, African, and even country have all been melded into
his sound. 1992's Painting of the Soul was heavy with island
influences, while the next year's Soca Baptism is a collection
of covers, from hits to obscurities, all dosed with a modern sound.
By this time, Grant was hard at
work in the evolution of yet another hybrid style — ringbang. Many of
the genre's elements are easily found in the artist's earlier
recordings, from African rhythms to military tattoos, alongside soca
itself and dancehall rhythms, many of the latter influenced by Grant's
own previous work. The new style debuted in 1994 at the Barbados Crop
Over festival. Since then, the style has continued to intrigue, but
has yet to create the international success that it's always
threatened. Much of this can be laid at Grant's own door, through a
simmering dispute with other artists and the legal ramifications of
the genre's trademark. A vociferous supporter of artists' rights,
Grant first ran into trouble in 1996 when he demanded his label's
artists receive adequate copyright fees from Trinidad and Tobabgo's
Carnival. A heroic stance that infuriated the festival's organizers,
this was quickly overshadowed by the public outcry over soca itself.
As far as T&T was concerned, the inventor of soca was island native
Lord Shorty, who announced its birth in 1978 with the Soca Explosion
album. However, Grant insists otherwise, crediting his own "Black
Skinned Blue Eyed Boys" as the first-ever soca record. Needless to
say, his public proclamations of this fact continue to infuriate T&T
and other Shorty supporters. But politics aside, the greater factor
may be in ringbang's trademark. Once Grant filed it, the word could no
longer be used by other artists without express permission. A perusal
of any soca, calypso, or chutney hits collections shows the importance
of the use of the genre term to the actual song, and just how many
titles feature the term. By preventing artists from using the word
ringbang, few outside the Ice stable were willing to explore the
genre. Even so, Grant managed to organize the Ringbang Celebration
2000 as part of T&T's millennium festivities. The event, which went
off without a hitch, created further ill-will due to its price tag, a
whopping 41 million (U.S. $6.5 million). The artist himself performed
two songs at the event.
In the new year, he recorded a
new version of one of them, "East Dry River" while in Jamaica,
appropriately enough in a ska style. The previous year, the artist
released the Hearts & Diamonds album. Grant continues to make an
impact on both sides of the studio, with his music always an
intriguing concoction of sound and his studio work equally innovative.
Ice itself is equally instrumental in the music world, both in its
preservation of past legacies and its attention to new artists. |
