The Neglect of Jackie Opel: The Unsung Musical Innovator of the Caribbean

By David Comissiong

The Barbados-born Jackie Opel – one of the most important architects of Jamaica’s Ska beat; creator of Barbados’ Spouge beat; and arguably the Caribbean’s greatest musical innovator – died on the 9th of March 1970, some 53 years ago. And over those 53 years, the powers that be in both Jamaica and Barbados have generally failed to properly acknowledge Opel’s seminal contributions and to confer upon him the honour, acclaim and respect that he so richly deserves! Although Barbados, it must be admitted, has recently made commendable efforts to rectify that deficiency.

A typical example of this neglect can be seen in ex-Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga’s publication on the history of Jamaican music – Reggae’s Golden Jubilee: The Origins of Jamaican Popular Music. Mr. Seaga’s essay was published in 2012 to coincide with the celebration of Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of Independence and constitutes the core historical text that accompanies a four compact disc aural retrospective of fifty years of musical development in Jamaica.

One will search Mr Seaga’s 50-page text from top to bottom and not find a single reference to the great Jackie Opel – the Barbadian multi-dimensional singer, dancer, composer, musician, arranger and musical inventor who was brought to Jamaica by the late Byron Lee at the beginning of the 1960s! And what makes Mr Seaga’s omission all the more glaring and inexcusable is that Seaga – as owner of the WIRL recording company in 1960s Jamaica – was one of a handful of record producers who recorded the late Jackie Opel back in the 1960s. (The others were Leslie Kong, Coxsone Dodd and Justin Yap.)

But Jackie Opel – christened Dalton Bishop upon his birth at Chapman Lane in Bridgetown, Barbados on the 27th of August 1937 – had, for a long time, not been treated any better in his own homeland!

Back in December 2013, I took it upon myself to write to the General Manager of the Government of Barbados’ radio and television company – the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) – pointing out Barbados’ shameful neglect of Jackie Opel, and requesting that CBC make a special effort during the month of March 2014 (the month of Jackie Opel’s tragic death in a car accident) to share Jackie’s story and his awesome musical legacy with the people of Barbados. Needless to say, I did not even receive a letter of acknowledgement, much less a positive response.

And of course, it is not only me who has publicly complained about Barbados’ neglect of their greatest musical son! Such doyens of the Barbadian entertainment industry as Richard Stoute, Mark Williams, Al Gilkes and our national Cultural Ambassador, The Most Honourable Anthony Mighty Gabby Carter have long denounced the shabby treatment of the ‘poor boy’ from the inner city “ghetto” of Chapman Lane who bestowed upon Barbados the inestimable gift of a national musical genre known as “Spouge”.

Barbados’s Cultural Ambassador, The Most Honourable Anthony Mighty Gabby Carter, has given us a glimpse of Jackie’s working-class origins and precocious greatness with the following testimony:

“I had the great honour and privilege to hear Jackie Opel as a boy for free on many occasions. He belonged to a singing group that had no name, and that my mother nicknamed The Happy Jacks. That group sang the sweetest harmonies I have ever heard live – and without a microphone!

The others in the group were Pifila, Lord Jesus and Jackie Crow. They used to sing any genre, but Jackie took the lead vocals in all genres except the calypso. (Jackie Crow sang lead on the calypsos, with a voice that Baron – the current day Trinidadian calypsonian- would be jealous of, and with phrasing out of this world.)

Jackie and his sister, Anita (whom we called Nita), lived in what we called “De Back Lane”, at his mother – Ms Bishop.

I stood many times in utter awe and admired The Singing Everton Weekes – as the Trinidadians used to call Jackie. His voice used to feel like it was penetrating your skin. We have never had such greatness before or since as a vocalist.

I am so proud to say we are both from the Chapman’s Lane /Emmerton area and that he lived a very short walk from where I was born and bred.”

In my letter to the General manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, I tried to explain Jackie Opel’s historical significance to him as follows:

“I recently met Bunny Wailer – the last surviving member of the Bob Marley / Peter Tosh / Bunny Wailer trio – and I asked him about Jackie Opel. His response was to gush that Jackie Opel was the greatest of them all; that the Wailers provided backing vocals for many of Jackie’s recordings; and that the only act that dared to take the stage after a Jackie Opel performance in Jamaica was the Wailers. The legendary Bunny Wailer was paying respect to an artist that he considered to be greater than himself, and yet, in Jackie’s own homeland, he is relatively unknown and under-appreciated.

Jackie’s significance and genius can be seen from the following:

– He was the lead singer of the legendary Jamaican band known as The Skatalites – the band that was primarily responsible for developing the Ska beat- the music that went on to spawn reggae.

– Jackie was the composer of many of the songs of the Skatalites. And, along with Roland Alphonso, was the band’s musical arranger.

– Jackie is reputed to have composed more than 700 songs in the genres of Ska, Rhythm and blues, Soul, Gospel, Calypso and Spouge, in spite of his early death at the age of 32 years.

– He was voted “Entertainer of the Year” in Jamaica on several occasions.

– Jackie was one of the few persons in history to develop a new genre of music – Spouge.

Jackie Opel died on the 8th of March 1970 and has never been given his rightful place in the annals of Barbadian history.”

Perhaps the reason I did not get a response to my letter is that what I was saying sounded so fantastical that CBC’s General Manager didn’t quite believe me! But trust me- it is not only me (or Bunny Wailer) who testify to Jackie Opel’s greatness! Listen, for example, to the testimony of legendary Jamaican artist, Desmond Dekker, as recorded in The Encyclopedia of Reggae:

“According to vocalist Desmond Dekker, Opel “just come and dominate the scene”…Dekker also commented that this occurred to such an extent that other singers on Kong’s Beverly’s Record label, including Bob Marley, sought different producers …”

The international music Journalist, Greg Burgess, also tries to convey a sense of Jackie Opel’s unique multi-faceted brilliance in his essay The Jackie Opel Story as follows:

“Alton Ellis says to see Jackie Opel was a life-affirming event – he was a performer in the style of young Jackie Wilson…Opel would spin and fall to the ground in a crescendo of legs drooping and flailing arms, a small man in stature but a big man in heart and personality…his talent was such that he could turn up at a studio and write songs on demand, seemingly with little preparation…he could also sing anything, in any key and with perfect timing”

But the best way to get a sense of the genius of Jackie Opel is to actually listen to his classic compositions and performances across a range of no less than seven different genres of music – Calypso, Gospel, Rhythm and blues, Ska, Rock Steady, Soul and Spouge. Listen, for example, to such classic Ska recordings as Old Rocking Chair, My Sweet Lover and Say Say Business. Listen to Jackie’s searing soul renditions of Cry Me A River, Shelter The Storm, Wipe These Tears and Forever And Ever, and to such magnificent Rhythm and Blues compositions as Eternal Love, Don’t Let Me Die, Every Word I Say Is True, and One More Chance.

And then of course there is Spouge – the totally new beat that Jackie invented and launched just prior to his untimely death in 1970. Jackie’s Spouge runs the gamut from the slow and groovy Welcome You Back Home to the hard-driving You’re No Good and You Got to Pay. It is just such a pity that Jackie was not around to nurture and guide the development of the new Barbadian beat in the years after its launch at the commencement of the 1970s.

No objective analyst can doubt the genius and historical significance of Jackie Opel! And so, the question must arise – “Why has he been written out of the history of Jamaican music”? Greg Burgess thinks he has found an answer to the question, and expresses it as follows:-

“The subsequent years have not been kind to the memory of this great, great singer…he is only a footnote in the history of Jamaican music. Maybe his Barbadian origins are held against him…”

If Mr Burgess is correct, this is indeed a great shame, for Jackie Opel is a member of an historic trio of great Barbadians who lived in and served Jamaica, and who identified with Jamaica as much as they identified with their own Barbadian homeland. The other two are the great cricketer, Sir Frank Worrell, and the great poet/historian/educator/culture scholar, Kamau Brathwaite.

It would be remiss of me to end this essay without acknowledging and commending the efforts made in recent years by the Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados (the Division of Culture), the Barbados National Library Service, and the entertainment fraternity of Barbados to lift up the name of Jackie Opel, inclusive of designating Jackie’s birthday – August 27th – as Jackie Opel Day.

However, it must be understood that Jackie Opel is not only a Barbadian icon. Indeed, he made a contribution to the musical landscape of the entire Caribbean and should be recognised as a Caribbean hero.

Surely, there could be no better time than this 50th anniversary year of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to elevate the great Caribbean musical icon that Jackie Opel was and is, and to posthumously bestow upon him the honour and acclaim that he so richly deserves.