Reggae and me (2022)

As a boy, I struggled, with reading, writing and arithmetic. And with sport too. Although I was physically active, I couldn’t catch, throw, or kick a ball. I was vaguely interested in fashion and style (and considered myself to be a mod), but was sartorially naïve. Suffice to say, by my early teens, I was neither popular nor cool.

I started going to the termly school discos that were held at my secondary modern school, and, with encouragement from my friend Jacky, at the age of twelve, I began to enjoy moving to music. The music to which we ‘danced’ was the sophisticated side of mainstream pop: The Kinks, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones…exclusively white, as was the way in which we danced (much sliding of feet and wafting of hands). My hair, which was cut infrequently at a barber’s that didn’t so much style as trim, was parted on the side and hung slightly over my ears.  My shiny trousers were flared, and my shapeless shirts were pastel coloured.

Towards the end of the summer term of 1969, around the age of 13, I began to emerge from my domestic isolation and attend parties in other parts of town and outlying villages. I became more aware of fashion and, although I wasn’t yet confident enough to know what qualified as cool, I began to make more of an effort.  I began wearing my navy blue suit jacket, without its matching trousers. This had side vents, sloping pocket flaps, a ticket pocket and narrow lapels.  Almost fortuitously, it looked like a mod classic. It was made of good quality woolen cloth and had a cream coloured silk lining. I knew the jacket would go well with Levi’s, but also knew that my parents would never buy me a pair of these 'ludicrously expensive jeans'. My jeans, up until that point, were purchased from Redditch Market. They were thin, greyish-blue and shiny, and cost just 10/- (ten shillings)! Levi’s, which were thick, indigo and mat,  cost £6.10/- (six pounds and ten shillings)!  Working at a spring factory on Saturdays and a boarding kennels on Sundays, I soon managed to save enough money to buy my first pair of Levi jeans. And they were worth every penny! The elegantly tailored navy jacket with my new Levi jeans was a winning combination. However, my hair was still floppy, my shirts were still pastel, my flares, when I wasn’t wearing Levi’s, were still flapping, and my musical tases were still mainstream. Then, one Wednesday afternoon, in the autumn term of 1970, my friend Ian suggested we go to a new disco at St Benedict’s Church Hall, which was on our estate. I’d been to quite a few discos by now, and was beginning to really enjoy dancing, so, later that evening, Ian and I were striding hopefully along the tree-lined streets of Batchley estate towards St Benedict’s, dressed in our best flares, floppy hair flapping in the wind. We paid the small entrance fee and entered a space in which sharply dressed young men and women were dancing in ways I’d not before seen, to music I’d not before heard. Some of the music was fast and joyous, with a strong back-beat, the 2nd and 4th beats accented by tambourines and percussive riffs punched out by horn sections. Guitars were used more sparingly than in pop or rock,  providing chords, rather than melody or ornamentation, this was provided  by string sections, whilst the vocals were delivered with expressive passion. This type of music, I soon learnt, was called ‘soul’.  However, although I loved soul, it was the other sort of music that was being played that really grabbed me. This was slower, more stripped back. Guitar and organ chords emphasized the off-beats.  Kick drums avoided the first beat of the bar, rimshots emphasized the 3rd. Bone-shaking percussive bass lines gave the music its pulse. Like soul, it too featured tight brass sections, but what I loved most about it was the sound of the Hammond organ. I’d been studying classical piano for several years, but this new keyboard sound felt like an epiphany. This was reggae music!

The girls who danced to the soul music wore miniskirts and smart tops with large, rounded collars. They wore their hair either shortish and backcombed on top, or feathered (short on top, long at the sides). The boys wore smart parallel trousers with Ben Sherman button-down shirts, and loafers or brogues on their feet, leather soled, to facilitate maximum slide potential.  As they span, flipped and swooped…their sharp strides somehow seemed to go with the sharpness of the music. Although there was an overlap, the boys who danced to the reggae looked slightly different: they all had short hair. Some, though certainly not all,  had closely shaved heads.  They mostly wore Levi jeans, held up with narrow braces, usually red, but some wore sta-prest or tonic (iridescent) trousers, turned up quite high. Their shirts were usually checked and tightly fitted, Brutus and Ben Sherman being the most popular brands.  They often wore sleeveless sweaters or knitted waistcoats over their shirts. Some wore brogues or monkey boots, most wore cherry-red Dr Marten’s boots. The skinhead girls sported ‘rag-cuts’, very short hair on top, with longer fringes and trestles at the back and sides, cut neatly around their ears. They wore either miniskirts or, like the boys, tight-fitting Levi’s and braces with Ben Shermans or Fred Perry polo shirts. Some of the dancers were black. In fact, the black skins tended to be the most respected dancers on the scene. They were certainly the coolest (they might even have been Jamaican)! As the skins bounced gently up and down to the music, knees bent, fists loosely clenched…I recognized a way of dressing and dancing that was deeply alien, slightly frightening (skins did have something of a reputation)  yet deeply attractive.

Most of the revelers were on the spectrum between post-mod and skinhead, many occupying the middle ground, with boys sporting No 2 hair styles and girls feather cuts. Most would dance to everything that the DJs , Patch and Cracker, played. And the playlist was to die for, from ska, rock-steady and reggae to Tamla, Stax, funk and soul jazz. Apart from Ian and I, St Benedict’s was a flares and floppy fringe-free zone. There was no way we could have joined in with the dancing on that first night. The dances were real dances. Dances that needed to be learnt! And, with our flares (how I wished I’d worn my Levi’s!) and fringes, we’d have stood out like the sorest of thumbs.

The choreographic articulacy of the dancers, the cut of their clothing, the shortness of their hair, the seductive groove of the music, with its syncopated bass-heavy beat, found in me an eager convert. As I lay in bed later that night, mulling over the hair styles, the strides, the dances, the irresistible beat… I could barely sleep with the excitement of it all. By the time the following Wednesday came around, I was able to stride with a degree of confidence onto the dance floor at St Benedict’s. My head had been shaved with No 2 setting, I was wearing cheap but passable loafers, a close-fitting turquoise and lemon plaid Brutus shirt under my navy suit jacket and my dad’s maroon clip-on braces holding up my Levi’s. This the first time that I danced to reggae in public, and I’ve been dancing to it ever since! In those days we danced to Toots and Maytals, The Pioneers, Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker,  Derrick Morgan, The Blenders, Jimmy Cliff… When I was in the sixth form, I discovered Bob Marley. At Art School, I eagerly snapped up the first ‘Front Line’ album, which led me to explore roots reggae and dub (the Mighty Diamonds, Lee-Scratch Perry, Augustus Pablo, U-Roy, I-Roy and King Tubby). None of my undergraduate friends was into reggae, and the only reggae ever heard in mainstream clubs in those days was the deeply cringeworthy poppy variety, so I was deeply excited when Rock Against Racism came along in 1976, and reggae became ‘cool’ again. Most RAR gigs and festivals featured both punk and reggae bands. Many of these bands, notably Misty in Roots, would play at fund-raising gigs across the country for free. At the end of the decade, the mod revival/2 Tone scene arrived like a bolt from the iridescent blue. The kids listening to bands such as The Specials, Madness and The Selector in 1979 were wearing the same clothes I’d been wearing in 1970/71. I still had a Ben Sherman shirt that I’d bought when I was 14, and soon acquired a tonic suit (from a secondhand shop in Harrogate) that was the same as the one I’d worn when I was 15! 

I started playing samba percussion in 1986 and, when I discovered samba-reggae in 1989, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!  For those not familiar with the genre, Samba-Reggae was developed by Olodum, an Afro-Bloc from Salvador in Bahia. Situated on the North-East of Brazil, Salvador was close enough to the Caribbean to pick up Jamaican radio stations. Given that, by this time, black consciousness had become one of Reggae’s defining characteristics, its influence on the Afro-centric bloccos of Salvador was inevitable (the music was more influenced by Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff than the Rio samba schools). Within a few years of moving to Nottingham, I established the carnival arts company Sambawamba, with my mate Mat Anderson. Although we were exploring all forms of carnival music and arts, from samba to bhangra, it was raising samba-reggae baterias that became our stock-in-trade.  And what a brilliant time we had of it! We played Nottinghill Carnival a few times, we were awarded ‘best troupe’ at carnivals around the country, then began to work abroad, within the corporate sector.  In the early 1990s we were excited by Jungle, which evolved into drum’n’bass;  then, on the back of the acid jazz scene, Jazz Jamaica and the wonderful Ernest Ranglin.  Over the decades I encountered and fell in love with many new reggae-influenced artists, such as Jackie Mittoo, Sons of Kemet,  African Head Charge, Roni Size…but I never stopped listening to the old school reggae and ska  that I discovered at St Benedict’s disco in Redditch. My wife and daughters all love reggae music too. The Lewis-Joneses dancing enthusiastically to reggae, in the lounge, the kitchen, Broadway Media Centre or Rock City…is part of our family folklore. We were lucky enough to see Toots and Maytals at Rock City in Nottingham, a couple of years before Toots passed away. ‘54 46 That’s my Number’ is still our favourite LJ driving anthem, and we still skank along to Toots, U Roy, Jackie Mittoo, The Mighty Diamonds…at the drop of as stylus.
Although I love classical, baroque, minimalist, jazz, folk and ‘world’ music/s of every description, there’s little in life that gives me greater pleasure than feeling the reverberations of a reggae bass at a gig or festival. If I’ve a spicy veggie burger in one hand and cold beer in the other, it’s a close to heaven as an atheist can get!


A walk along the River Meden

Yesterday I went for a walk along a river with one of my young mentees. I took a photocopied OS map which Jamie (not his real name) looked after. We both used our own compasses (these being relatively new toys, we tend to use them more than is necessary!). The river sits in a valley that separates two counties. It skirts a colliery and several industrial and post-industrial sites. We talked as we walked. Often conversation was triggered by what we could see, smell, touch or hear. We heard the sound of the river change, relative to the shape and surface of the limestone gorge through which it cuts. We looked out for nuthatches, we saw jays (Jamie likes to discover new species). We frottaged a dry-stone wall (he had his sketch pad and graphite in his rucksack and wanted to use them). We talked about the different ways in which walls are constructed in different parts of the country. We noticed that the walls in the valley were covered in moss, whilst the ones in the fields were covered in lichen. We noticed one wall that had been constructed badly, with mortar. We discussed dry-stone walls in relation to the local geology. Jamie didn’t know what geology was last week. Now he introduces the subject readily. We noticed outcrops of magnesian limestone glistening in the winter sun, ranging in colour from almost yellow to almost red. The limestone runs in a seam that rises in mid Nottinghamshire and tumbles into the North Sea in County Durham.
We talked about the decline of the mining industry, and how this impacted the local economy.
Jamie loved jumping into large puddles. He especially enjoyed the ones that were still covered in ice. We found a cave. We made a snow man. We threw snowballs.
Jamie told me about the battle of Stamford Bridge, which was between the Saxons and the Vikings, and took place in Yorkshire, in 1066. He wondered if the Saxons might have beaten the Normans (at Hastings) if they hadn’t been so tired after their long march from Yorkshire?  We talked about the Vikings who joined the Saxon army at Hastings. How many were there? Did they become Saxons afterwards? This led to a discussion about Robin Hood and the outlaws, who were Saxons. Given how cruel the Normans were, was it any wonder that some of the Saxons, who had been deprived of not only their hunting rights but, in some cases their land, stole form their Norman overloads? This led to a conversation about ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. Jamie is reading Treasure Island. We talked about the relationship between Jim (obviously a goody) and Long John Silver (more than just a baddy?).
We worked out the length of the walk which led to a discussion about our average waking speed.
Our conversation encompassed arithmetic, geology, geography, ecology, physics, history, literature, aesthetics…experiential learning. This is how I learnt with my Dad. This is how everyone learnt with my dad. We all learn together as a consequence of being together. Jamie struggles at school, my dad struggled at school,  I struggled at school. But we all love learning!
It’s 25 years today since my Dad died. Reflecting on this makes me realize the extent to which I, like my brother and sister, am still ploughing his furrow.

published in Moments in Time, Adverse Camber, 2021


​
a Flaneur in the Fens
Chris Lewis-Jones
Radical Roots Literary Quarterly

commissioned by Transported, published in Radical Roots Issue 2, Autumn 2020
Radical_Roots_Issue_Autumn2.pdf

The sandstone bluff on which Nottingham Castle stands marks the geological divide between greater upland and lowland Britain. I know therefore that the land will gradually flatten before me as I drive east, especially once I pass Grantham. I am an artist and a flaneur, a hopeful traveller, and I’m heading to The Wash in order to facilitate a series of artwalks with members of the public. Participants will use frottage drawing techniques to explore and record the surfaces and textures of the towns and villages of The Fens, starting with Boston. I turn off the A17 and follow the South Forty Foot Drain for several miles. I cross the North Forty Foot Drain. As I approach Boston, I cross the Witham and enter the historic Market Place (the largest in England). To the east of the Market place, the old town is defined by the West Fen Drain, which, like the South Forty Foot Drain and the Witham, flows into the Haven, the narrow tidal channel that links Boston to the sea. Boston was bound to its hinterland and to Sleaford, Lincoln, the Baltic, the Hanseatic ports, the Netherlands and New England…by a network of ‘wet routes’. Travelling to or from Boston meant doing so by water. Following the demise of the Hanseatic League and the decline of both fishing and maritime freight, Boston no longer needed to maintain the active engagement with water that once characterised its daily life. However, signs of its maritime heritage can still be seen in the physical fabric of the town. Customs House, Pescod Hall, the docks, the drains, the iron buoys that litter the banks of the Haven, the plaques at Scotia Creek and St Botolph’s, speak to us in the voices of merchants, sailors, fishermen, bargees, settlers and pilgrims. And many of these locations provide easily frotted and visually arresting textures and texts.
Drawing as performance, on a fine day, in a bustling marketplace, always attracts a crowd, and conversations is always interesting. Although I undertake research beforehand, into the locations in which I work, I learn most from the chats that happen on the street, as people share their knowledge of local history, geography, farming, industry, fishing and salacious gossip. I do my best to engage people as I work and, once involved in a practical art activity, their conversation flows naturally. Often the flow becomes a torrent, infused with expletives, as happened in Boston, whenever certain topics, such as ‘Boris’, ‘Covid’ or ‘Brexit’, cropped up. However, I do find that debates, about charged topics, became less intense, when discussed whilst drawing. On 5th September, I was documenting an activity with my colleague Laura Hudson, when we attracted the attention of three young Latvians. Ugis, Rodions and Henriks were intrigued by our costumes (we wore matching brown coats and caps) and rolls of paper. I explained what we were doing, and they asked if they could join in. As soon as I handed out the paper and graphite, they were off! Each heading in a different direction, competing to find the most interesting surfaces to frott. Laura and I talked to the young men about their chosen surfaces and the stories these suggested. Henriks was drawn to the Crucifix that stands in the grounds of St Botolph’s Church. Was he devout? Was he Orthodox? Catholic? Or perhaps just interested in beautiful timber? I didn’t get to find out about his religious beliefs, but we did discuss the timber. I agreed with Henriks that an expert would be able to tell instantly if it was oak (we both felt it to be Oak). I wanted to ask Henriks how he felt about the symbolism of the cross, from his own cultural perspective, but, as I had known him for less than an hour, it didn’t feel appropriate. The important thing, in situations such as this, is to engage participants rather than ask questions which may seem invasive. However, I find participants are often eager to discuss ‘big issues’ as they work. Henriks made me wonder what John Cotton would have made of the cross. Cotton was the puritan Minister at St Botolph’s, and then the Hudson Bay Company (he was one of the founders of Boston Massachusetts). I doubt he would have approved of a life-size crucifix standing in the grounds of a protestant church. I am not even sure how I, a post-protestant atheist, feel about the symbolism of this crucifix, or any other! Whilst Henriks was frotting the grain of the crucifix, Ugis was examining the signage on a litter bin in Ingram Square. With their distinctive lettering, spelling just one word: ‘LITTER’, these municipal bins are popular with first-time frotteurs. Stroking a stick of graphite across a thin sheet of paper stretched over a sharply defined void, such as that made by a letter, laser-cut from steel, is instantly gratifying. The texture is revealed within seconds, the letter remains white. The effect is dramatic.
After frotting his litter bin, Ugis moved to the gravestones and historical plaques in the near-by churchyard. There are several plaques dedicated to the memory of pilgrims and others, who left Boston for the New World in the 1620s and 30s. He was impressed by the number of Bostonians who made that journey (a third of its population); and now appreciated why ‘Boston, Massachusetts’ was so called. Rodions was fascinated by the carved graffiti he discovered on the walls of the church, several examples of which he frotted. We talked about the care taken by artists and artisans, in the days before felt markers and aerosol cans, and how carved scripts with serifs indicated a pre 20th Century date. We also discussed the extent to which the common folk of this world were just as much part of its history as its kings. Because of their skill with a knife, their voices can still be heard today. We wondered how many of the pilgrims had carved their names or initials into the limestone or timber framed walls of 17th Century Boston. I could not help but ruminate, as we talked, on the routes taken by these young Latvians today. Travelling from Riga to Boston. Two Hansa ports. Two communities that would have exchanged goods, services and much more, in the Middle Ages. Did Ugis, Rodions and Henricks know about these links? I shouldn’t be at all surprised! Did the native-Bostonians, who voted to leave Europe in 2016, know that the status their town enjoyed in the past was as a direct consequence of its trade with Poles, Latvians, and Estonians? Boston’s physical and cultural roots run deep. For hundreds of years it was an outward facing town. It had to be to survive. Given that 15% of its current population was born in Eastern Europe, it still is. Six hundred years ago merchants from Boston sailed regularly to the Hanseatic ports. And merchants from Riga, Limberg and Tallin sailed to Boston. Four hundred years ago pilgrims sailed from Boston, first to Holland, then to North America. Nowadays migrants from Eastern Europe bring their entrepreneurial energy to the town, helping to keep it buoyant during austerity and fed during lock-down. I'm excited by the idea of these 'routes to roots', exploring the ways in which communities are held together by networks. The more we reveal these networks, the more we appreciate the extent to which we are linked. Art, especially art-on-the- street, is a great way of making these routes, roots and networks visible, tangible and relevant. I feel I’ve only just begun to scratch (or rather ‘frott’) the surface of this multifaceted town. In this case, graphite was my key, but there are many more creative keys to be tried, and many more creative conversations to be had.

Chris Lewis-Jones is a fine artist, educator, performer and lecturer based at Primary, one of the most exciting artist-run spaces in the UK. He is an Associate Artist at Nottingham Contemporary, a Lead Tutor in Craft Art & Design for the WEA across the East Midlands, a visiting lecturer at various universities, co-artistic director of Dog's Daughter, and Artistic Director of Nu-Urban Gardeners, a live art and creative landscape project, also based at Primary. 

Beyond Ikea (everything was white)
January 2022

I few years ago I enjoyed a memorable evening in Derby, in the company of my old friend Finbar. As is always the case, Finbar cooked me a delicious meal. The food, risotto with salad, was preceded by an aperitif, aperol, and accompanied by prodigious quantities wine. My contribution to the table was a magnificent looking boxed magnum that my brother had brought back from a chateau near Bordeaux. It had a rich, dark, fruity bouquet, in the words of Keats,  ‘a beaker full of the warm South’ that was much appreciated in the cool North. The wine was a birthday present that I’d been looking forward to sharing for a few months, and this evening felt like a sufficiently special occasion on which to do so. Towards the end of the meal, I told Finbar of a site that had impressed me a few days previously. It was late November, and I was heading northwest from Nottingham, for work. As I rounded a high bend on the A610, just before swooping down towards Giltbrook retail estate, with its Ikea super store, I was impressed by the whiteness of the Derbyshire landscape that lay ahead. The suburban sprawl between Nottingham and Ripley was its usual mixture of dull greys, browns and greens, but above and beyond, all of the hill tops were white with snow.  Perhaps it was because I was planning to move to Derbyshire, or maybe it was because I was looking forward to Christmas…or a little of both, but I found this particular vista, on this particular day, deeply exciting.
Its proximity to the Peak District was always one of the things that Ruth and I found attractive about living in Nottingham, but, after over three decades, we had tired of inner city living and yearned to be closer to those hills. I shared my response to the wintery landscape ‘beyond Ikea’ with Finbar as we ate. However, unbeknown to me, he was filming our inebriated conversation, and the phrase ‘beyond Ikea…everything was white!’ cropped up several times in his edit.  This created the impression that I was obsessed with Ikea (which I’m not) and the landscape beyond it (which, I suppose, am)! The film was an amusing and poignant record of our convivial evening together. I’m remembering this episode this morning because, when I drew back the curtains in our new home, I was thrilled to see a veil of white draped over the hills to the west and north of Belper. At long last, we have moved. I now live in that area, the area ‘beyond Ikea’, the area that, climate crisis notwithstanding, will be whiter than Nottingham, or anywhere else I have ever lived, every winter, for the rest of my life. And that is a wonderful thing.