KNOWLEDGE IS POWER THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE IS TO USE IT.
"If your heart is not in it,it is a lie If your head is not in it It is pure Sentiment Your heart and your head must work together" Marcus GarveyBiography Freddie McGregor is without question the most consistently popular Jamaican male vocalist. His recording career began in 1963, and at the age of seven he became the portage of Sir Clement "Coxone" Dodd who he often refers to as his Mentor. At Studio One he was a household celebrity, joining with other rising stars such as the Wailers Delroy Wilson, The Heptones, John Holt and Ken Boothe. Like so many of his compatriots Freddie McGregor was initially attracted to the sound of American soul artistes. From the inspiration of The Stylistics, The Spinners, The O'Jays and others. Freddie McGregor concentrated on vocal stylization and made a name for himself. His first releases were "Why did you do it". "Do good and good will follow you", and "After Laughter". Between 1963 and 1966 he teamed up with Earnest Wilson (Fitzroy Wilson) and recorded a number of hit singles under the name of "Fitze and Freddie". It was the harmony Trio, The Clarendonions (Peter Austin, Ernest Wilson, & Freddie McGregor) that attracted strong following with hits like "Why do you do it", drawn to the deeply spiritual consciousness of rural Jamaica, the Clarendonians set the standard to consummate harmonizing artistry, preserved on such labels as Studio One, Coxone Dodd. Freddie McGregor spent the early seventies as the lead vocalist for popular Jamaican showband Generation Gap penning tracks like "Travelling On". By 1977 an association with legendary guitar player Earl Chinna Smith, led to a tour with the soul syndicate and several hit singles with a strong roots consciousness, including "Sgt!, "Mark of the Beast" and "Natural Collie", also stemming from the same collaboration he released an album entitled Freddie McGregor, expressing an environmental awareness in such tracks as "Zion Chant", "Rastaman Camp" and Walls of Jericho". By 1980, singers-songwriter Freddie McGregor began delving into arrangement and production. For Pablo Moses, he arranged harmonizing vocals on his landmark debut "A song" (Mango 1980). With Judy Mowatt, he co-produced "Black woman" for British label Grove Music, writing and arranging songs besides playing percussion, keyboards and drums. An internationally successful and United Nation ground effort was his 1984 collaboration with lbo Cooper of Third World for Ethiopia Famine relief. The result was the much loaded land of Africa Compilation. Above all else, Freddie McGregor is an internationally renowned reggae recording artist. He draws crowds throughout Europe, North and South America and the Caribbean. His release for Washington based Ras Records, "Come on Over" climbed to the top of the British Charts in 1982. Similar success followed the release of Guantanamera", the Cuban Folk song. At the Cartagena Festival in Columbia, adoring crowds mobbed a soccer stadium for Freddie McGregor's galvanizing set. This cross-cultural sensitivity also led to his pioneering work among the Hopis Indians of Arizona. Freddie McGregor and the Studio One Band providing the first instance, where Jamaican reggae band had performed on an American Indian reservation. Among the deeply devout and spiritual Hopis, Freddie McGregor and his music with a message was well received. A similar sense of planetary stewardship pervades his 1985 release for Ras, Across the Border". It was later that year, Freddie McGregor received major critical acclaim with conferral of the title, "Reggae's most promising international Artist" in Chicago. Grammy Nomination "All in the Same Boat" (Ras, 1986) with its talking heads configuration of such diverse figures as Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi, Yassur Arafat, Ronald Reagan and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, suggested not only global awareness but fascination with the sea, a romance which also led to the stellar, "Big Ship Sailing". Both single and the album of the same name were inspired by the visit of a cargo ship in Kingston Harbor, seen from the vantage point of Linval Thompsons Stony Hill home in Jamaica, the song has since become a best seller for Freddie McGregor and has given birth to an album, label and recording studio of the same name. Big Ship.
created by Vera Nwajiaku,
for Blacknet UK