Roy Panton looks youthful in his black Kangol hat, yellow on black print jacket, gold chains and rings. He introduces himself and tells us that he’s from West Kingston, an urban area in the capital of the small Caribbean island of Jamaica. Living on a small island didn’t stop him from gaining access to all forms of music. When he was younger he listened to popular recording artists from America like jazz musicians Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole. But he mostly listened to ska, which like him, originated from Jamaica. “Born on ya. Come from ya,” as he puts it. 

He puts a song called No More on a record player to let us hear a sample of the music of the times. Ska was very popular in the 1960s. Its style combines calypso, and mento music from the Caribbean, drawing on its roots from West Africa combined with rhythm and blues from America. Ska, with its skank-able beats and relatable lyrics about life in shanty towns, falling in love, spirituality, sexuality, work or even death, is the music that gave birth to reggae. We see old footage of people dancing in the streets, waving flags and celebrating Jamaica’s independence from Britain. These were revolutionary times. This was the golden age of ska. 

In this just-released National Film Board of Canada documentary presentation, Sounds & Pressure: Reggae in a Foreign Land, filmmakers Graeme Mathieson and Chris Flanagan follow the lives of Jamaican music legends who left their island home to plant new roots in foreign soil. Through archival film footage and intimate interviews Mathieson and Flanagan explore the lives and careers of Jamaican musicians and industry professionals who migrated from Kingston to the much cooler climes of Ontario. The five-part series focuses on ska duo Roy & Yvonne, reggae artist Nana McLean, dancehall musician Johnny Osbourne, reggae artist Leroy Sibbles and record producer and label owner Jerry Brown. 

Jamaican Ska Duo Roy & Yvonne

In this joyful story, Roy & Yvonne, a couple engaged in a love affair with music eventually find romantic love with each other. The best thing about this story is that it is not fiction; it’s a real-life, happily-ever-after fairytale. We meet the namesake musicians who formed one of the first Jamaican ska duos, decades after they went their separate ways, as they reunite and rekindle their magic in Scarborough, part of the greater Toronto area.

“Her name is Yvonne Harrison. She used to be my singing partner. We went separate ways in the ‘60s. I would love for us to team up and perform again,” says the dapper Panton, as he walks his way across the old town centre in Kingston, Jamaica in the first scene of part one. He sings, “The girl went away and left me, with an endless memory,” the lyrics to a song that holds much sentiment for them both.

Panton tells the story of how he and Harrison came together and accidentally (or strategically) gives us the history of his music career first. “I met Stranger [Paxton],” who decided to form a group called The Rovers, he says. Panton and Paxton performed together on songs like Rough ‘n’ Tough, but they never got the chance to record as a group. Panton says he then made a couple of singles for record producer Sir Coxsone Dodd, who suggested that he team up with a local singer named Millie Small. They released singles like We’ll Meet, their first song, under Roy & Millie, which “was a huge hit,” he adds.

The next thing you know, Millie went to England. She worked with Jamaican-British music producer and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. “Blackwell took her under his wing,” says Panton. The first song they produced, the loveable My Boy Lollipop, became an international hit. The song “Blow up the world,” says Panton. After that, Panton says he started performing with Harrison as Roy & Yvonne. 

“The funny thing about Roy, they call him smiley, because you see his smile before you see him,” says Harrison, laughing, over background footage of her partner dancing and singing. She describes Panton as “an upstanding guy” and “a happy person,” although she says she has “no recollection” of how she met him.

She’s all dressed up too, elegantly, in a classic long-sleeved blouse, over-sized cabochon pearl earrings, gold chains and a short updated 1950s hairstyle. Harrison explains that their relationship was purely professional at first. She didn’t mind working with him. 

He says, “She catch on quick and that’s why I team with her, and she had a golden voice.” They both agree, they were just singing partners.

In the early days of their career, they performed a song called Two Roads on radio shows on Christmas morning. After that they went to Carib, took the bus to do another show, then maybe to another venue called the Palace, Harrison explains. The two singers were also involved with the first ever video recorded in Jamaica in 1964 with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires backing single or multiple singers on vocals. Of about 10 different vocal acts Yvonne was the only female and the Dragonaires were an all-male band.

Here is a one-minute clip of Roy & Yvonne singing Two Roads Before Me from Ska, Ska, Ska (also known as This is Ska) recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, 1964. The complete 35-minute documentary is below:

The host of the event at the Sombrero Club describes ska as “original and indigenous. The music of guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass and drums” played in a “monotonic, grassroot rhythm. This beat has taken Jamaica by storm and is swiftly spreading to other parts of the world,” and comes complete with its own dance.

She enjoyed hearing her voice on the radio and seeing people dancing to her singing. To give us an idea of what it was like in those days, Harrison compares her involvement in Pantomime theatrical performances to ska shows. She says Pantomime was for sophisticated audiences who would “just sit and stare” at you, but the opposite was true for ska audiences who danced to show their enjoyment of the music. “Livelier, a jump-up kind of thing,” is how she describes ska in the film.

“Uptown people look down at ska, because in their mind it’s a poor man’s music,” but “the energy of the ska music was invigorating,” says Harrison.

Those vintage records have gained value over time. “Some of the records now are collectors’ items and they go for mega dollars,” she says. The song Endless Memory by Panton, that he was singing when we first met him, was recorded around 1968 or ‘69. It was never released on a record label. Panton says he sold a copy of the song for $600 U.S. Later, he found out that the original was selling for $5,000. “I left everything behind,” says Panton, talking about when he left Jamaica in 1972 looking for steady work. 

After he left, Harrison recorded music on her own. Knotty Screw Face was one song, which she says she didn’t really like, and Near to You. She later moved to the United States, but after visiting her sister in Kitchener, Ontario for a week she fell in love with the quietness and the calm, so she moved there. 

“I have no regrets of leaving Jamaica because I want the best for my family,” she says, “Had they been in Jamaica, I don’t know what kind of a job I would have been doing. I know I wouldn’t be doing the singing because you can’t live on singing.”

Reuniting and Bringing the Music Back to Life

She wondered about Panton when they were apart, and he would watch the video of This is Ska repeatedly but never thought to get in touch with Harrison. They eventually reunited after his divorce, and while she was going through a divorce. They became a couple and got married on a destination wedding in the Bahamas.

Promoter Mark Morales, who bought Endless Memory, hired them both. The story within the story — how Morales wanted to work with Harrison too but didn’t realize that he had spoken to her on the phone when he called Panton, was priceless. Morales wasn’t aware that the two musicians were a married couple. The film’s editor and writer have mastered the art of storytelling and getting the two stars of Roy & Yvonne to share details about their lives. Even the mundane day-to-day tidbits become enticing.

They went on tour and performed live decades after parting. The first show was in Mexico. The musicians were shocked to learn that the audience knew all the words to the songs and sang with them even though they didn’t speak English. The people who loved their music so much were “in their early 20s or below,” says Panton. 

Panton and Harrison reminisced about signing a guy’s belly when he asked for an autograph but didn’t have anything to write on. He lifted his shirt and offered his belly for them to sign, so they did. Another man wanted to marry Harrison and kept appearing everywhere she went. 

Harrison and Panton also flew to Chicago by invitation from Chuck Wren’s, WLUW DJ and Jump Up Records executive, to celebrate the label’s 20^th anniversary with other special guests like Eric “Monty” Morris who sang classics like Oil in My Lamp and Sammy Dead–O.

Their romantic coupling led the way to performing together, touring and in 2013 the music duo went into the studio to record for the first time in 50 years. The resulting record: “Roy Patton & Yvonne Harrison with friends Millie Small, Eric Monty, Glen Adams … and more,” and Believe in Yourself captured seminal years in music culture in Jamaica and from Jamaicans who contributed to culture abroad in the most unlikely places like Mexico, the United States, England and Canada.

In the second part, artist Nana McLean challenges outdated stereotypes and cements her reputation as the “Queen of Reggae” in Canada in this production. “Dancehall Godfather” Johnny Osbourne helped to transform Toronto into one of the most vibrant reggae communities in the world. At the height of his career Leroy Sibbles, “the undisputed king of the reggae bassline” left Trench Town to create a new legacy in Canada. In the final part, Jerry Brown, the documentary examines the life of the entrepreneur behind Summer Records, one of the first recording studios to give Canadian reggae artists a voice. In the five 15-minute segments we hear each artist’s story, inspiration and motivation, and learn how their music legacy is woven into the rich tapestry of Canadian culture. 

by Cherryl Bird – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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