Strangejah Cole

The cynic would say that Stranger (Strangejah, since the mid-80s when he lived in Canada) Cole's debut single Rough and Tough being number one when Jamaica became officially independent in 1962 was an ominous sign of things to come.

Not that Cole wrote Rough and Tough about the state of the nation's affairs then and to come. It opens by trimming an adversary to size and handing out some advice:

"Who are you that I should be mindful of?

You run for refuge and were rescued that's a fact

Then why lie and try to bite the hand that feed you?

Yes the good you do lives after you"

Then it portends of hardship for the ungrateful:

"You could huff, puff and puff till you bus

It shall be rough, rough and tough on your side

So stop lie, don't try to bite the hand that feed you

For the good that you do lives after you".

For Cole, though, the song was and continues to be a blessing.

He pointed out that while Rough and Tough was his first number-one hit as a singer, topping both the JBC and RJR charts, it was not his first number-one. In 1961 he wrote Two Little Black Birds, sung by Monty Morris, which hit the top of the charts. Then "(Arthur) Duke Reid told me I had a voice like Derrick Morgan and I should go and write a song for Patsy and one for myself."

He wrote When I Call Your Name for himself and Patsy and Rough and Tough for him alone. "I didn't have a real reason behind it," Cole said of the latter. "I came up as a writer and many ideas came to my head."

Both songs went to the top of the charts, When I Call Your Name succeeding Rough and Tough.

Rough and Tough was recorded for Duke's Treasure Isle label at the then Federal Records (now Tuff Gong) on Marcus Garvey Drive in a mid-afternoon session with The Skatalites, Cole remembering Lloyd Knibbs, Lester Sterling, Don Drummond, Tommy McCook and Gladstone Anderson among the crack musicians at the session. He described Rough and Tough as "slower ska. It was not that kind of speedy ska. It come between rocksteady and ska".

The Sunday Gleaner asked Cole if he thought he had a hit on his hands when the session was finished and he laughed as he said, "Every song feel like a hit when you're doing it. You feel so good and you think everything is going to happen for this song."

Number one

Eventually, everything did happen for Rough and Tough, after it had taken root in the dancehall and was then picked up by radio, hitting the number-one spot a month before Independence and staying there through the festivities.

Cole pointed out that When I Call Your Name and Rough and Tough came out on the same 45 rpm initially, but when Reid saw that they were both popular, he put them on separate discs.

Having had several hits and been involved at the start of the careers of Ken Boothe and The Techniques, Cole said he was satisfied with what he had done in music. "I am very happy about what happen in this business, happy to be there as one of those who build the house and so many come live in it. Some try to break it down, but it is a strong house and it will survive," Cole said.