For nearly sixty years, the Jolly Boys have been integral to the fabric of Port Antonio’s musical landscape and cultural heritage. Masters of mento, one of Jamaica’s original musics, this band has rocked innumerable private soirées, charmed the traveling elite and toured the world, leaving an indelible mark on everyone who has heard them. Their new album, Great Expectation, introduces a new sound and direction, making them more unforgettable than they have ever been.
The Jolly Boys quickly rose to local prominence in the 1950s as the house band for the Rat Pack’s Jamaica chapter, chaired by the swashbuckling enfant terrible, Errol Flynn. Singing songs of double entendre and ribaldry to those in search of escape and excess, the group served as Port Antonio’s go-to band for thirty years. Being “discovered” by a new generation of world music aficionados in the late 1980s meant that the Jolly Boys could take their musical party on the road. Several album, dozens of countries and thirty years since, the Jolly Boys have become the most recognizable mento band in the world.
Now, the Jolly Boys are back, reinvigorated with a revolutionary new sound. In early 2009, Jon Baker, founder of Gee Street Records and one-time leader of the A&R team at Island Records in NYC, held a recording session at Geejam studios to capture some of the Jolly Boys vintage material. He was looking for the rebel mento–the punk rock of its day–where singers sang frankly about sex and wrote biting commentary about relevant social issues. The Jolly Boys delivered, but it led to a fresh creative idea: why not dip into the rock repertory, take the songs that resonate with mento’s raucous history and give them a different vibe? Baker, together with his long term friend and creative partner Mark Jones from Wall of Sound, worked together and chose tracks from artists like the Clash, the Stooges, the Stranglers and Amy Winehouse. They fit the mento vibe so naturally that work on the new project began immediately. (read more)
The Jolly Boys quickly rose to local prominence in the 1950s as the house band for the Rat Pack’s Jamaica chapter, chaired by the swashbuckling enfant terrible, Errol Flynn. Singing songs of double entendre and ribaldry to those in search of escape and excess, the group served as Port Antonio’s go-to band for thirty years. Being “discovered” by a new generation of world music aficionados in the late 1980s meant that the Jolly Boys could take their musical party on the road. Several album, dozens of countries and thirty years since, the Jolly Boys have become the most recognizable mento band in the world.
Now, the Jolly Boys are back, reinvigorated with a revolutionary new sound. In early 2009, Jon Baker, founder of Gee Street Records and one-time leader of the A&R team at Island Records in NYC, held a recording session at Geejam studios to capture some of the Jolly Boys vintage material. He was looking for the rebel mento–the punk rock of its day–where singers sang frankly about sex and wrote biting commentary about relevant social issues. The Jolly Boys delivered, but it led to a fresh creative idea: why not dip into the rock repertory, take the songs that resonate with mento’s raucous history and give them a different vibe? Baker, together with his long term friend and creative partner Mark Jones from Wall of Sound, worked together and chose tracks from artists like the Clash, the Stooges, the Stranglers and Amy Winehouse. They fit the mento vibe so naturally that work on the new project began immediately. (read more)
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