Aiding Poor and Disadvantaged Children

Alpha Boys Association for PDC

Yorkie (3rd left) and ABS guys playing at Brixton Town Hall fundraising event in Oct 03

 

 

About the Music

children were at play at The Alpha Boys School, we used to imitate these sounds with our voices, and that's how Ska music came to be.

 

However the experience that inspired this piece of music started long ago. Like children, when playing cricket or football, some of us wanted to be like Stanley Matthews or Freddie Truman, Frank Worrell, Dicky Bird, Marilyn Monroe or the role model of that time. For me, yes I loved cricket and football but music was my first love. I used to listen the likes of Rico Rodriguez, Carl Masters and Don Drummond. The music they played was new and it was lively with catchy phrase lines. When improvising in many cases their solos were more important than the lyrics and so if we were dancing we use to stop first to listen to the solos. They were always local “boys” wanting to play the “’bone” just as they did.

 

Yet for me, it was the words of Lennie Hibbert that kept ringing in my ears: not the ones that there are three genders, male, female and musicians. It’s these: “If you want to survive with respect, learn to play any music with anyone!” Lennie was one of the most talented percussionists I have ever met and he certainly earned his respect.