Burning Spear

Burning Spear has recorded some of the most potent music in the annals of reggae music. Now, the legendary rootsman is moving to protect that legacy with a new promotion deal with a leading distribution company.

Spear reportedly signed a deal with MRI/Ryko Distribution on February 26 to market the 20-set catalogue of his Burning Music company in the United States. The deal becomes active in April when four of the albums in the catalogue will be re-issued; those albums are Rasta Business, People Of The World, Resistance And Living Dub Vol 2.

The singer's latest album, Freeman, will also be re-launched this year. Freeman, which was released in early 2003, was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Reggae Album category in November last year.

Russell Gerlach, a publicist for Spear, said Spear was dissatisfied with the marketing of Freeman by the Red Dog company out of North Carolina and he chose to move to MRI/Ryko which is owned by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, the company that put Spear on the map in the 1970s with classic albums like Marcus Garvey and Man In TheHills.

"He was dissatisfied with the previous distributor... just the overall promotion. It reached the major stores but there was no depth," Gerlach said.

Gerlach told the Sunday Observer that the arrangement with MRI/Ryko will see the Burning Music catalogue heading to the biggest chain shops in the US, as well as the smaller outlets that have traditionally supported reggae in that country.

Though it consistently got strong reviews, Freeman is Burning Spear's most low-keyed effort in some time. Four years ago, the Rastafarian performer won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album with Calling Rastafari, which turned out to be his final album for the Cambridge, Massachusetts independent company, Heartbeat Records.

Burning Spear was born Winston Rodney in 1945 in St Ann's Bay. He started his career at Studio One where he cut his self-titled debut album and the influential Rocking Time, but it was not until he met Ocho Rios producer Jack Ruby that his career reached international heights.

In early 1975, Ruby gathered the cream of reggae's musicians at the Randy's studio in Kingston and recorded Marcus Garvey, which is regarded as one of the great albums of the 1970s. It includes songs such as the title track, Slavery Days, Jordan River and Tradition.

The album was distributed by Island, which had broken through with reggae the previous year with Bob Marley and The Wailers' Natty Dread album.
Burning Spear will mark his 35th year in the music business this year with a worldwide tour, starting in April in Australia. One of the big stops on the tour is the June 11-13 Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee.

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