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New York Times
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Max Romeo, Leading Voice in the Heyday of Roots Reggae, Dies at 80
Max Romeo, a reggae singer whose earliest hits dripped with sexual innuendo, but who then switched to a soulful, politically engaged message that provided a soundtrack to the class struggles of 1970s Jamaica and made him a mainstay on the international tour circuit, died on April 11 outside Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. He was 80. Errol Michael Henry, a lawyer who represented Mr. Romeo, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was heart complications. Mr. Romeo, whose real surname was Smith, was among the last of a generation of Jamaican musicians who came to prominence in the 1970s, among them Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear. Their sound, known as roots reggae, centered on the lives of ordinary people in Jamaica, blended with a heavy dollop of Black liberation and Rastafarianism. Until then, reggae had been seen, at least beyond Jamaica, as a musical novelty focused on fleeting love and sex. But the 1970s musicians' political message and laid-back sound, combined with their open marijuana use, gave reggae a new and lasting cultural resonance. Mr. Romeo's career tracked that transition. He began as a clean-cut crooner in Jamaica, part of a trio called the Emotions. After setting out on his own, he found success with raunchy songs like 'Wet Dream,' a 1968 track so explicit that many radio stations refused to play it. Nevertheless, it spent 25 weeks on the British singles chart, peaking at No. 10. Similar songs followed, several with titles involving a feline euphemism that can't be printed in a family newspaper. As a result, he came to be known as 'the original rude boy of reggae.' But Mr. Romeo was unhappy. He later told interviewers that he had been forced to record the songs by his producers. 'So after I see the glory of it, I give them a barrage of songs like that,' he told the Jamaican interviewer Teach Dem in 2023. 'But then 1971, you know, I just pulled up and say, 'Wait, I can't have a catalog like this for my grandchildren.'' He embraced Rastafarianism, grew out his hair and began recording songs about the political and class conflicts rocking Jamaica in the early 1970s. Songs like 'Revelation Time' and 'Chase the Devil' became anthems for the left-wing People's National Party and its leader, Michael Manley. Mr. Romeo stumped for Mr. Manley during his successful 1972 run for prime minister. Mr. Romeo hit his stride in the mid-1970s, thanks to a fruitful collaboration with the reggae producer Lee (Scratch) Perry. Together they created what is widely considered Mr. Romeo's best album, 'War Ina Babylon' (1976), which included 'Chase the Devil,' perhaps his best-known song. As Jamaican politics changed through the decade, rifts grew between the Manley government and many of the leading roots musicians, including Mr. Romeo. After recording a string of songs critical of the People's National Party, he feared retribution and moved to New York City. The political storms eventually passed, and he returned to Jamaica in 1989. By then recognized as a paragon of reggae, Mr. Romeo recorded 17 more studio albums over the next 30 years and maintained a heavy tour schedule; on his last tour, in 2023, he performed in 56 cities. His music took hold in other ways as well, with snippets of his lyrics appearing as samples on dance tracks and rap songs — 'Chase the Devil,' for example, shows up prominently in the Prodigy's 'Out of Space' (1992) and Jay-Z's 'Lucifer' (2003). Maxwell Livingston Smith was born on Nov. 22, 1944, in Alexandria, a town in north-central Jamaica. His mother, Emily Morris, moved to Britain when he was 8, after which he and his father, Irvin Smith, a chef, moved to Kingston. Unhappy at home, Max ran away at 14 and spent several years living on the streets. He found work as a runner for a Kingston record label, delivering singles to local radio stations. One day the label's owner heard him singing and offered to record a song he had written, 'I'll Buy You a Rainbow.' It became a hit in Kingston in 1965, and it put his career in motion. Around the same time he adopted the stage name Max Romeo, drawing on his reputation as a charmer (and his insistence that the name Max Smith lacked a certain appeal). He briefly formed the Emotions with the singers Keith Knight and Lloyd Shakespeare, the brother of the bassist Robbie Shakespeare; he also performed with the Hippy Boys, a band that included the bassist Aston Barrett, known as Family Man, later of the Wailers. Despite his lasting popularity in Jamaica and Europe, Mr. Romeo did not find similar success in the United States, even during his decade in New York. It was not without trying. He contributed songs to the 1980 Broadway musical 'Reggae,' produced by Michael Butler, who had also produced 'Hair.' He sang backup on 'Dance,' a track on the Rolling Stones' 1980 album, 'Emotional Rescue'; in return, a year later Keith Richards played on and helped produce his album 'Holding Out My Love to You.' None of it caught on. He continued to turn out albums during the 1980s, but he also worked in a record store to make money. Finally, in 1989, a friend persuaded him to return to Jamaica, and even let him live at his house for a year. Mr. Romeo's survivors include his wife, Charm; 11 children, including his daughter Xana and his son Azizzi, themselves famous singers; three sisters; three brothers; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Like other roots reggae artists, Mr. Romeo remained committed to his Rastafarian beliefs,; they were, he said, his core motivation for making music. 'I made a pledge to Jah that every time I open my mouth, I must be giving praise,' he told Counterpunch magazine in 2019. 'Every time I move my hand, it must be something positive. But it's always about Rastafari. And I cling to that until today. That's my faith.'
The Guardian
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Max Romeo obituary
Max Romeo, who has died aged 80, reached his peak as a roots reggae singer in the mid-1970s with two albums, Revelation Time and War Ina Babylon, that focused on Rastafarianism and its juxtaposition with the fraught politics of post-independence Jamaica – ostensibly parochial topics that nonetheless gained him a worldwide audience. Much of Romeo's best work was done with the producer Lee Scratch Perry in the mystical Black Ark studio, where he wrote a number of reggae classics, including One Step Forward, Stealing in the Name of Jah and the memorably bombastic Chase the Devil, in which he declared: 'I'm going to put on a iron shirt / and chase the devil out of earth.' Romeo had first emerged in the late 60s with music of a more frivolous nature – notably the Rock Steady single Wet Dream (1969), which reached No 10 in the UK despite being banned from radio airplay for its sexual content. Although the popularity of his subsequent work failed to extend much beyond his mid-70s zenith, he continued to tour and record almost up to his death, notching up more than 25 albums and 75 singles. Born Maxwell Smith near the village of St D'Acre in northern Jamaica, he ran away from an unhappy home as a preteen, subsequently enduring bleak periods of homelessness and joblessness in the Jamaican capital, Kingston. He then worked as a record salesman while developing his singing in his spare time. After winning a talent competition at the age of 18, in 1965 he joined a group called the Emotions with Lloyd Shakespeare (brother of the bassist Robbie) and Kenneth Knight. They had a local hit the following year with (Buy You) A Rainbow. In 1968 Romeo went solo, and within a year had hit the big time with Wet Dream. Released first in Jamaica and then in the UK on the Pama label, initially the song received two outings on BBC Radio – until the higher-ups noticed its single entendre content and pulled it from the airwaves. Wet Dream was particularly popular with British skinheads, for whom it became an anthem, and despite official censorship it spent 25 weeks in the charts, in the process establishing Pama as one of the UK's major outlets for reggae. Romeo was subsequently able to tour the UK, and the same year released his debut solo album, A Dream, containing more sexually suggestive songs. But by the time his second album arrived in 1971 he had turned his back on such trifles, and was launching into a new phase based around his growing interest in Rastafari. 'I just pulled up and said: 'Wait, I can't have a catalogue like this for my grandchildren,'' he explained. 'So I changed to cultural songs.' As the mode of Jamaican music began to change from Rock Steady to the slower, more charged form of roots reggae, Romeo became one of its foremost exponents, with many of his songs addressing the struggles between Rastafarianism and the Jamaican establishment. He soon became associated with support for the leftwing People's National party, led by Michael Manley in opposition to the Jamaican Labour party, and his 1971 song Let the Power Fall on I was adopted as the PNP's election campaign tune. He was, however, independent-minded enough to offer some criticism of Manley, including in his 1973 song No Joshua No. The cover of Romeo's Revelation Time album (1975) featured a hammer and sickle. Its title track proved to be an enduring standout, and along with No Peace, Tacko and Blood of the Prophet, finally established him as a wholly serious figure. The following year War Ina Babylon, made in close collaboration with Perry, became one of the cornerstone records of roots reggae with four songs – War Ina Babylon, One Step Forward, Chase the Devil and Stealing in the Name of Jah – that rank among the best of the genre. Soon afterwards Romeo had a severe falling out with Perry, who was known as 'the upsetter' for good reason. His next album, Reconstruction, failed to demonstrate the same fire or originality that he had found with Perry, and in 1978 he decided to make a new start in the US. There he became involved in a Broadway musical flop, Reggae, for which he wrote some tunes, before picking up work as a backing vocalist on the Rolling Stones' album Emotional Rescue (1980). Keith Richards reciprocated by co-producing and playing guitar on Romeo's first US-based album, Holding Out My Love to You (1981), but it failed to generate much acclaim. With his mojo failing and reggae running in an increasingly digital, dancehall direction, Romeo largely disappeared from public view to run a courier service in New York. In 1989 he returned to live in Jamaica, marking his arrival with a new album, Transition. That, too, made few waves, but the recordings kept coming, and he was eventually able to find some material comfort through rereleases of old tunes on compilations. His regular issues of new material featured some interesting experiments, including the album In This Time (1999), with the Italian acoustic band Tribù Acoustica, and Pocomania Songs (2006), a collection inspired by the Afro-Jamaican religious cult. Although sales of his later recordings were modest, he remained a popular live artist, staging his final tour just two years ago with more than 50 dates across Europe. Two of his children, daughter Xana and son Azizzi, are also recording artists. He is survived by his wife, Charm. Max Romeo (Maxwell Livingston Smith), musician, born 22 November 1944; died 11 April 2025
