'Joker Smoker' a good dancehall set
published:
Friday | April 11, 2008
Triston Palma
On the cover of Joker Smoker recently re-released in Green-sleeves' retro representation of its extensive back catalogue, Triston Palma's vintage is clear.
And it is not only that his face is so obviously boyish, or the Kangol perched on his head is from a different era of style, as are his many gold chains. It is also that he is bare-chested, a no-no for upstanding reggae artistes in these times.
Another indication of the set's era is that the final four songs on the 14-track album are dubbed 'Additional CD Tracks', marking this one as coming from the time when full-length vinyl presentations were limited either by medium or choice. OK, so it came out first in 1982.
So I popped in a set, produced by Nkrumah Jah Thomas, by a man I know mainly for the dancehall boom shot 'Entertainment'. And what I found was a good collection of rockers, where the rhythm does as much as the singing and the take of the topics is interesting.
A good singer
Of course, Palma can sing. There is no doubt about that; this set presented mostly in the dancehall time-honoured fashion where showing vocal prowess by holding notes for an extended period takes second place to carving out an individual style. And he does.
On the opening, Innocent Man, Palma laments the fate of those languishing behind bars without just cause, observing that "some cannot afford a lawyer, dem haffi get a legal aid". He follows with Babylon (the rhythm of which was re-used for Tony Rebel and Swade's Just Friends), where the hornline emphasises the pleas, "Babylon no bother fight against yu brother", but closer to the end the source of the 'fight' is identified as he says "low de yute dem mek dem smoke sensimilla".
Heartfelt matters
The weed topic is, naturally, repeated in the title track.
Palma goes into heartfelt matters for two songs, Give Me, Give Me Your Love and Lonely Man (he does sound insistent on the former and plaintive on the latter) before the title track. It is a roots-rocking indictment on those who would turn smoking the good (or bad, depending on your point of view) stuff into a parasitic affair. He opens "smoking is a habit, some man can't maintain it", going on to elaborate "dem a beg yu sensimilla, gi dem sensimilla dem a beg yu a Rizzla, gi dem a Rizzla dem a borrow yu light".
And it goes on. Horrible practice, good song.
The standard is maintained throughout the set. The extensive use of reverbs on Two Timer adding to the soundscape. In one of those sonic coincidences Ghetto King is on the same rhythm as Bounty Killer's Down in the Ghetto, Palma declaring his regality and kingdom. Of course, he is a Lover Man to boot and, after revisits to love (Give Me a Chance) and harsh reality (Time So Hard, which begins with one of those penetrating beeping sounds that herald heavy dub), a good set wraps up with an extended revisit to the title track.
