Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

Johnny Clarke

When Johnny Clarke wrote the lyrics to the 1976 hit Move Out of Babylon, he was looking to move from the spot where he was.

"I was at a bus stop waiting on a bus to go downtown," Clarke told The Sunday Gleaner. He was waiting on a No.15; he wrote a song that went to number one in Jamaica and New York, number four in Europe and, Clarke claims, sold 100,000 copies in Jamaica alone.

The bus eventually came and Clarke did not do much more waiting with Move Out of Babylon. "In those days, as we a come as youth, the stamina in the system and from you have a ting, you lick it right away," he said.

Rastafarian

So he headed to Harry J studios on Roosevelt Avenue in St Andrew, where the melodious urging to the Rastafarian comm-unity to move physically out of the unrighteous place was recorded with a crack team of musicians called The Agggravators. Chinna Smith played guitar, Robbie Shakespeare was on bass, Santa Davis handled the drums, and Family Man (more popular as bassist with the Wailers) took care of the piano.

Hit Machine

Bunny 'Striker' Lee was the producer and, as Clarke said "until this time ya that tune is the big tune".

Not that the man who became known as the 'Hit Machine' had not had strong songs before. Clarke had made an impact with None Shall Escape the Judgement for Duke Reid on the Treasure Isle label, as well as Jah Jah In Deh for Dynamic. It had introduced a sizzling 'flying cymbal' sound on the drum set and it helped to give him an edge.

"Those time, the quality was so high, you have to be different. As a young youth come on the market, it wasn't easy like now," Clarke said, naming Slim Smith and John Holt among the big guns he was going up against.

Move Out of Babylon was written as a direct effort at promoting Rastafarianism through music. "In dem days, Rastafari did a tek it time a emerge out deh. We find it necessary and important to establish Rastafari through the music," Clarke said.

Interestingly enough, the young Johnny Clarke did not have locks at the time, although "we Rasta heartically. I never dreadlocks, but I was Rasta".

sound system

Move Out of Babylon did the sound system rounds before it was released commercially. The first time he performed it was at the Carib Theatre in Cross Roads when the song was already well established. Predictably, that Christmas performance took the house down. And Earl Chin brought him to Columbia University for a December performance, based largely on the strength of that song and the album it led to.

And that album came out under three names - None Shall Escape the Judgement in Jamaica, Johnny Clarke in Fine Style in the United States and Enter Into His Gates with Praise in England.

No matter the name given to the full-length set, though, there is no doubting the name of the monster hit which moves crowds to this day, as Clarke showed at the pre-Emancipation 2008 Stars R Us concert, held at Mas Camp in New Kingston.

For, as Clarke said, back then, "it was about how well we could arrange the thing, what's new, what's different from everyone else".

Johnny Clarke in 1974. - File photos