Earl Sixteen - Phoenix Of Peace (Special Edition)

Here's a strange one released in 1993 on the 'Seven Leaves' label that has quite the story behind it. This 'special' edition expands on the original release with extra songs and dub versions.

Earl Sixteen was born Earl John Daley in Kingston Jamaica, 1958 and grew up in the Waltham Park district where he would hang around on the streets, meeting a wide variety of characters.

When he reached his early teens, Earl decided, like many of Kingston's youth, that he would try and make a living in the growing music industry and he started entering the many talent contests in the city.

After winning one particular talent contest he met up with some other youngsters and formed the short lived group The Flaming Phonics.

Earl also did some early recording sessions with the legendary producer Duke Reid and also with Herman Chin-Loy and one of his very first singles appeared entitled "Hey Baby".

After working with another producer legend, Joe Gibbs, in the mid-seventies Earl found his way into the Boris Gardiner session group The Happening. It was in this group that the name Earl Sixteen came into being when he was simply asked by a fellow group member "why you go around like a big man? how old are you?", Earl replied "Sixteen" and thus Earl Sixteen became his moniker!

The Happening were working the tourism scene at local Kingston hotels and clubs but due to his dreadlocks appearance and reluctance to change, Earl was released from the group but Boris Gardiner did point the young singer in the direction of yet another big name producer, Lee Perry.

Earl arrived at Lee Perry's studio, The Black Ark, sometime in the mid to late seventies and began hanging around waiting, hoping, for a chance to record some material of his own.

Lee Perry often used the youngster as a backing singer, apparently his vocals appear on the Bunny "Scott" Clarke album "To Love Somebody" and other works of the time.

The first recording Perry offered to Earl was the song "White Belly Rat", a song that has been suggested was written as an attack on Bob Marley who Perry would often fall out and make up with again over the years.

The song was initially given to Max Romeo but he had refused to record it and so Perry offered it to the young Earl Sixteen but Perry was unhappy with the final vocal and eventually sang the song himself.

Earl continued to hang around the studio however hoping for other opportunities, which came his way including an appearance on Yabby You's cut "Chant Down Babylon Kingdom" and the Debra Keese classic "Travelling".

His first major recordings at the studio surfaced around late 1977 this included the mighty "Freedom" aka "Give Black People Freedom" and a beautiful single entitled "Cheating" which appeared with two different mixes on two different labels.

Earl has said in interviews that he was at the studio during the period when all sorts of shady characters were starting to hang around the place and some were even extorting money from Perry.
He recalls Bob Marley recording "Blackman Redemption" at the studio in 1978 and after it's release more and more gangster types were arriving at the studio asking for money or master tapes!

This is of course at the time when Lee Perry had his major breakdown and had begun the process of removing the Rasta's from his yard and this included Earl Sixteen who left to seek other opportunities.

Throughout the 80's Earl recorded for many producers including Linval Thompson, Augustus Pablo, Yabby You and Sugar Minott. He was also closely associated with the late Hugh Mundell.

In 1985 Earl relocated to the UK where he worked with Ariwa records founder and popular producer of the time Mad Professor.

By the 1990's Earl, still in the UK, met up with an old acquaintance of Lee Perry's named Tony Owens who ran the Seven Leaves label.

Back in the late 70's Owens had initiated a project at the Black Ark with Perry and the Jolly Brothers called "Conscious Man" that was shelved at the time due to a disagreement between Perry and the label but in 1993 Owens sold rights to the material to the UK based Roots label who would finally release the long awaited album along with some other Black Ark material.

One of the albums that appeared on the Seven Leaves imprint in 1993 was this very album, Earl Sixteen - Phoenix Of Peace, which at first was thought to be another long lost Black Ark album due to the sleeve notes crediting the studio and producer Lee "Scratch" Perry.


                                                      

However what the release failed to mention was that although all the rhythm tracks are indeed Black Ark recorded - Perry produced material, the vocals were recorded in the early 90's at a UK studio.

It's not clear whether Earl Sixteen and Tony Owens conspired to mis-lead the Reggae community by releasing it as a fake but were caught out or whether it was a genuine mis-print and that Earl wanted to release an album of new songs over old Black Ark rhythms, either way the release was issued in small quantities in 1993.

In my opinion it probably was meant to be a scam, Tony Owens had a big falling out with Lee Perry at the time of the failed Jolly Brothers project in 1978 and had sat on the material for over 10 years before finally selling it over to the Roots label, most likely with this Earl Sixteen project and tried to pass it off as another long lost album.

The album itself is quite good however as Earl sings his rootsy lyrics over some of Perry's most well known rhythms, most of which appeared on the albums "Megaton Dub" which were also issued on the Seven Leaves label.

It's an album worth checking out and is often cited as Earl's best but remember that it is more or less a hoax, albeit a pretty good one.

Enjoy!  : )

Tracklisting:
  
 Disc One:
    
1) Cheating (Disco Mix)
2) Apartheid Struggle
3) Things In Life
4) Soldiers Of Jah Army
5) Set The Captives Free
6) Leaving For Zion
7) Stepping On
8) Freedom
9) Hold On
10) How You Been Doing?
11) Pot Of Gold
12) Give Jah The Praises (Discomix)
13) Concrete Castle King (12'' Single Mix)
14) Cheating (Upsetter 7'' Mix)
15) Cheating (Black Art 7'' Mix)
16) We Want Freedom {Earl Sixteen And U-Brown}

Disc Two:
  
1) Cheating (Dub)
2) Apartheid Struggle (Dub)
3) Things In Life (Dub)
4) Soldiers Of Jah Army (Dub)
5) Set The Captives Free (Dub)
6) Leaving For Zion (Dub)
7) Freedom (Dub)
8) How You Been Doing? (Dub)
9) Give Jah The Praises (Dub)
10) Concrete Castle King (Dub)

All rhythm tracks recorded at the Black Ark studio, produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry.
Tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13  Voiced in the UK in 1993.
Tracks 1, 8, 14, 15, 16  Voiced at the Black Ark studio 1977 / 1978
Tracks 1, 8, 14, 15, 16  Produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry at the Black Ark studio.

Earl Sixteen - Phoenix Of Peace (Special Edition)  - 

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