Johnny Clarke’s Reggae wisdom at Boa Onda Festival

Text: Miguel Arsénio | Photography: Johnny Clarke / Instagram

Although the municipality of Mafra is, at first glance, as permeable to changes in musical trends as any other, there is one certainty that has remained present for roughly twenty-five years: this area of the country has a significant tradition of hosting great reggae concerts. Let us recall, for instance, the historic performance of Toots & the Maytals at Ribeira d’ Ilhas beach or the appearances of renowned names like Horace Andy or Barrington Levy at a festival that, until very recently, took place in Ericeira. Reggae was with us, threatened to stay away but now returns with vitality at the Boa Onda Festival, which brings some big names in the genre to Quinta Vale d’Água, in Azueira, Mafra, from August 2 to 4.

Energies, like music festivals themselves, renew in a succession where some give way to others; however, the essence of reggae is a musical force that, over time, has seen the departure of some of its main figures (just a few years ago, the brilliant father Lee “Scratch” Perry left this world). That’s why we must consider ourselves very lucky to have one of the true representatives of roots reggae, still alive, so close: Johnny Clarke, who appears on August 3 at Boa Onda, accompanied by the Dub Asante Band and the Matic Horns brass section.

Clarke impresses with an extremely natural fluidity in his different albums and songs

Much could be said about Johnny Clarke, but what AZUL proposes is a small journey through the extensive and diverse work of this great man (born in the capital of reggae, Kingston, in 1955), by listening to four of his tracks. Clarke recorded with excellent producers like Bunny Lee, King Tubby, and Prince Jammy, and with their help and more, he smoothly alternated between singles (a very important format for the dissemination of hits in Jamaica) and albums (some of these recorded during a fertile period at Front Line, Virgin’s reggae subsidiary). Clarke often impresses precisely because of this extremely natural fluidity he demonstrates in his various albums and songs. We go down this river with him through four tracks before heading to Boa Onda.

“Repatriation” is one of those tracks that could last forever, reminding us that Dub is one of the most pleasurable ways to distort the notion of time. Johnny Clarke, allied with Mad Professor’s production, on the expansive album “Give Thanks” released by Ariwa, extends the sung words here (in that characteristic roots reggae vibrato) and the result is nothing short of a small miracle of reggae dub.

Allow me to indulge in this 1985 record, which Clarke released on Mad Professor’s Ariwa, as it is in this reggae dub context (which allows all the time in the world for the songs to progress) that I most enjoy listening to the Jamaican performer. “Give Thanks & Praise” places Clarke closer to the ceremonial register of someone who sings his dedication to Jah, yet makes us believe that we can all be a little closer to Rastafarian belief as long as we surrender to another irresistible riddim from the Ariwa laboratory – which also saw the birth of two brilliant albums by Ranking Ann, among so many other releases deserving attention.

“Authorized version”, one of Clarke’s albums on Front Line, is clear proof of how dubby roots reggae has an extraordinary ability to put us in a trance. The album’s flow never suffers jolts (largely because Clarke’s voice is much more gentle than eloquent or theatrical) and the record flows through our ears like a river. Here, and almost always, the river imagery is very present. We can listen to “Cry Tough” to understand all this a little better.

It is useful and enlightening to listen to Johnny Clarke’s version of a track as famous as “No Woman No Cry,” even if only to compare it with the original by Vincent Ford, universally recognized as a Bob Marley song. If in the live version, which we have heard hundreds of times, it almost seems that charisma possesses Bob Marley’s voice, Clarke surprises by interpreting a somewhat dramatic song in his usual restrained and elegant style.