Mykal Rose
In between world tours with The Who, Zak Starkey revisits the reggae sounds he learned to love as a child with a new label and series of releases.
Most people know two things about Zak Starkey—he’s the son of Ringo Starr and he’s the drummer for The Who. Now, they can add a third thing to that list: He, along with his SSHH bandmate Sharna “Sshh” Liguz, founded a new reggae record label, Trojan Jamaica, borrowing half of its name, and much of its inspiration, from Trojan Records. (The label was founded in 1968, and its early roster included such titans of the genre as Desmond Dekker, Toots and The Maytals, Jimmy Cliff and Lee “Scratch” Perry.)
The company’s maiden effort, the 13-track compilation Red, Gold, Green & Blue, was released on July 12 and boasts newly recorded roots-reggae covers of classic blues and R&B tunes. The album features such reggae legends as Freddie McGregor (covering Robert Johnson’s “Come on in My Kitchen”), Black Uhuru’s Mykal Rose (doing “I Put a Spell on You,” recorded by everyone from Nina Simone to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to Creedence Clearwater Revival) and, Starkey’s personal favorite, Toots and the Maytals’ take on “Man of the World,” the Peter Green-written tune that Starkey originally heard on a live Fleetwood Mac LP from 1968. Red, Gold, Green & Blue also features Jamaican bass giant Robbie Shakespeare in a duet on “Wang Dang Doodle/ Oh Well” with Liguz.
Starkey, 53, who has been drumming for The Who since 1996 (that’s longer than Keith Moon did) and has also beat the skins for Oasis, Johnny Marr and others, stayed away from his drum stool during the making of the album. As he does in SSHH, he played guitar only, returning to theinstrument he calls his firstlove. “I started on the guitarbecause of Marc Bolan,” hesays. “I saw T. Rex live and saidto my dad, ‘I want to do that,’and I got a guitar that week.That’s when I was about seven.And then I heard The Whowhen I was 10, and I switchedto drums.”
But it was his mother, thelate Maureen Starkey, whointroduced the drummer toreggae music. The first reggaetune he remembers hearingwas Toots and the Maytals’“Funky Kingston,” and, fromthere, he jumped into BobMarley and the Wailers’ Livealbum. Soon his turntable wasspinning the likes of Dillinger,Burning Spear and the Britishreggae band Aswad, as well asThe Clash’s reggae-influencedtracks. At the time, Starkeynever imagined that he wouldsomeday spearhead a recordingfeaturing many of his favorites.The idea for Trojan Jamaicacame about after Liguz andStarkey recorded a rockingcover of “Get Up, Stand Up,”the reggae staple co-writtenby Marley and Peter Tosh.When SSHH were invited toperform it at the 2016 openingof the Peter Tosh Museum inKingston, Jamaica, they weremore than surprised to findout that some of their ownreggae heroes adored theirinterpretation.
“They did our version and itwas really cool,” Starkey says.“Then we got invited back thenext year to do it again.”
The concept for the albumgrew from there. Starkey,Liguz and their partners in theenterprise secured the usageof the name Trojan and setabout contacting their wish listof collaborators. Youth (U2,Paul McCartney) producedthe tracks at Trojan JamaicaStudios in Ocho Rios. Andrew Tosh (Peter’s son) signed on for a tune, and Big Youth, one of the artists who’d recorded for the original Trojan Records, cut two. Another person who got the call was Rose. “I didn’t know Zak. All I had heard about Zak was that his dad is Ringo Starr,” he says with alaugh. “I was on tour and theysaid they wanted me downthere in Jamaica.”
Once he arrived, Rose fell right into the groove. “It was like back in the day when we recorded ‘Shine Eye Gal,’” he says, referring to the 1979 Black Uhuru classic. “Everyone was in the studio playing live, including Sly and Robbie. I knew the song from Nina Simone but we did it with more of today’s energy. It was irie energy.” Rose’s “I Put a Spell on You” also benefits from a solo by Jamaican guitar great Ernest Ranglin.
Starkey says he chose a total of 140 songs for potential inclusion, based largely on their lyrical content, then pared it down. The final song list compiles tunes originally recorded by Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, and Johnny and Shuggie Otis. In addition to the Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare rhythm section, the participating musicians include Tony Chin (guitar), Cyril Neville (percussion), Michael Rendall (keyboards, organ), Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace (drums, organ) and, of course, Liguz and Starkey.
“Everybody totally got on the idea that these lyrics are fabulous,” Starkey says. “Then we just started from the ground up with making the music new.” The finished album’s title represents the colors of the Ethiopian flag—Ethiopia being the birthplace of the late Haile Selassie, worshipped by Rastafarians as a deity—and the blues.
Future plans for Trojan Jamaica include a new album devoted to the Jamaica- born singer and toaster U-Roy—for which Starkey and Liguz called on several high-profile guests, including Ziggy Marley, Santigold and the British singer/musician David Hinds of the band Steel Pulse—and a follow-up to Red, Gold, Green & Blue, culled from the same sessions that birthed the debut. That was a no-brainer, Starkey admits. Some of the assembled artists cut two or three songs in the Jamaica studio and they ended up laying down more than 25 tracks.
When asked what common line connects the blues and reggae, Starkey pauses for a few seconds, then utters a single word: “suffering.”
But, he adds, there was none of that going on during the making of Trojan Jamaica’s first release. “It was cool,” he says. “It was probably the easiest recording session I’ve ever been involved in.”
This article originally appears in the July/August 2019 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.
