Volume 2, which covers the period from the late 1960s through to the end of the 1980s, is packed with exclusive interviews and insight, further expanding Le Gendre’s ‘meticulous, sweeping and vivid history of black British music.' Diana Evans, Financial Times.
Volume 1, Don’t Stop the Carnival, which covers the centuries from John Blanke the Black Tudor trumpeter up to the 1960s, is principally about people who brought existing Black musics to Britain, including spirituals, gospel, blues, calypso and South African jazz, where some at least found a more congenial home for their music than the still colonial, Jim Crow or white minority rule countries they came from.
Volume 2, Children of the Ghetto, covers the period from the late 1960s through to the end of the 1980s, explores the points of transition from the playing of Black musics in Britain that originated elsewhere to the emergence of an indigenously Black British music that responded to the situation of being born, or at least growing up in Britain, of the experience of the virulent racism in schools and in the wider society when, after Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech, dockers marches and the regrouping of racist and fascist organisations, both white xenophobes and Black settlers realised the latter were here to stay.
Le Gendre sees the emergence of the ‘homegrown’ in the blending of Caribbean rhythms, R&B and pop in the songs of The Equals (and the solo work of Eddy Grant), the jazz-blues-rock concoctions of C.C.S and the unique ‘Zion funk’ of Cymande. Also exciting is the British take on West African music offered by Osibisa, as well as the wide range of British reggae covered by Dennis Bovell, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Steel Pulse, Misty In Roots, Aswad and the great Lovers Rock queens, Louisa Marks ad Janet Kay. Then there is the experimental music of racially mixed groups such as Rip, Rig & Panic and I-Level. As for Joan Armatrading and Linda Lewis they made their mark by blending soul, folk and pop, while in jazz South Africans such as Julian Bahula and the Londoner of Jamaican descent, Courtney Pine also ushered in change.
Furthermore, the book considers the impact of gatekeepers such as the BBC on Black musics as well as the opportunities and limitations offered by clubs and other venues. Above all, there is a detailed examination of why the songs of the aforementioned artists still resonate today, and an insight into the strong political statements of African and Caribbean lyric writers who spoke for their peers up and down the country, letting the world know that the children of the ghetto were coming of age.
