Thursday 1 January 2004
Biography Lone Ranger
By Djouls, Thursday 1 January 2004 :: Biography
The Lone Ranger - Biography
From "Reggae - The Rough Guide - The Definitive Guide To Jamaican Music, From Ska Through Roots To Ragga" (Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton)
"Before Yellowman rose to dominate the early 1980s, the way was paved by the arguably more talented Lone Ranger (b. Anthony Waldron), who - along with Welton Irie, Ranking Joe, Nigger Kojak, Mikey Dread, Clint Eastwood and Ranking Toyan - negotiated the shift from the 'cultural' chants of the mid-1970s, as exemplified by Big Youth, to pure 1980s dancehall chat.
There were lines of continuity linking the new breed of deejays with the music's immediate past. Lone Ranger's first records, for instance, appeared on historically the most important of all jamaican labels, Studio One. His version of Slim Smith's rocksteady classic "Never Let Go" was "The Answer", which subsequently became the much-recorded rhythm's favoured title (as confirmed by a popular Channel One cut from U-Roy apostle, Ranking Trevor, called "Answer Me Question"). Other moderate successes came in the form of "Screw Gone A North Coast" (over Horace Andy's "Skylarking"), "Three Mile Skank" (the Sound Dimension's "Full Up") and, in the company of Welton Irie, "Chase Them Crazy" (Horace Andy's "Mr Bassie"). These Studio One 45s established him as a deejay of interest, but the real breaktrough came in 1980. Not only did Virgo Hi Fi, with which he was associated, win an award as the best sound system of the year in Jamaica, but he moved on to another producer, Alvin Ranglin, who gave the masked stranger his biggest hit to date, "Barnabas Collins" (GG). The lyrics were inspired by a vampire character from an american TV series called The Dark Shadows, but no character in the show ever had lines like:
Gal, out the candle, lock your door tight
Turn ya neck pon your right angle
Hedem the best in the business
Chew ya neck like a Wrigley's.
The disc reached #1 in both the Jamaican chart and the UK reggae one. This was soon followed by a return to Studio One, and hits which involved more humour, and were built around the various abstract "oinks", "bims" and "ribbits" that were to be associated with the men - and women - at the mike for the next couple of years.
The success of the new hits from Brentford Road - "Love Bump" (over Slim Smith's "Tougher Yet"), "Natty Chalwa" (the Gladiators' "Roots Natty Roots"), and "Tribute To Marley" (the Studio One cut of Derrick Harriott's "Solomon") - owed something to the new style of mixing that gave a brighter feel to the studio's seminal music, whether in the form of new 'versions' or re-releases of the originals that practically every other label was 'doing-over'. The Lone Ranger's other important hits included "Fort X" (also for Ranglin), with its approriate Western theme, and "Rose Marie" (for Winston Riley's Techniques label), "M16" and "Fist To Fist Days Done" (for Channel One), "Trod On" (for Ossie Thomas's Black Solidarity), and "Tribute To All Mothers" (for the US Absissa label, though over the Sly & Robbie rhythm used on Dennis Brown's "Hold On To What You've Got" hit). No performer was more responsible for ushering in the new era than the Lone Ranger, and his influence on a whole generation of deejays (particularly in the UK) was incalculable."
Lone Ranger would especially like to thanks the T.I.M.E.C. crew for their innovative work in spreading his music and tunes
