LONDON TOUR UPDATE: Albert, lead singer for the JollyBoys about to go in for a BBC interview – The Bob Elms show.

We kicked off our European tour at the Secret garden Party last Saturday. We rocked the crowd, got encores, frolicked with our new fans. Watch this fun clip.

ALBERT’S FIRST LONDON PERFORMANCE: Enjoy Albert’s first London performance and screening of OJGB commercial. This is the third and final video in the 3 part mini webisode series of Albert goes to London which chronicles, Albert’s first plane ride in nearly 30 years, and his virgin visit to London a couple of months ago.

Named by Errol Flynn in the 1950s, the Jolly Boys were once the toast of Jamaica. Now, after nearly five decades playing second fiddle to reggae, the band are enjoying a remarkable revival. Will the Jolly Boys finally have the last laugh?

A barbarously sticky afternoon in Jamaica and I’m in Kingston inside a windowless room with a low ceiling and brown carpet on the walls watching five old men. They are all in their 70s – except the ones in their 80s. And they are all wearing hats. The 84-year-old Egbert Watson hunches over a banjo; Joseph “Powda” Bennett, 73, clasps a pair of maracas; Derrick “Johnny” Henry, 71, rests on a rumba box; while Allan Swymmer, 82, hits the bongo. They all watch the last man, 72-year-old Albert Minott, who is seated in front of them, dressed in pale slacks, a bright orange shirt and a tweed fedora and cradling an acoustic guitar. He has a thin face and when he sings we hear a dark, gravelly rumble of a voice and see more gaps than teeth – a reminder of his years as a fire-eater. More

The Jolly Boys European Tour has Officially Begun:This is us minutes before hitting the stage awhile ago at the Secret Garden Party / East Anglia -UKJolly Boys Minutes Before hitting the Stage at the Secret Garden Party – London

Calypso-style ‘mento’ music, which pre-dates reggae by decades, is enjoying a revival. Pioneering practitioners the Jolly Boys are coming to the UK.
‘Everybody knows Albert,” says Albert Minott proudly as he walks through the streets of Port Antonio, Jamaica, recognised by many of the passers-by. “This is my town. I was born here, and I’ll die here. All my life, singing and dancing. It’s like a fire inside.”

Tall and lean, the 71-year-old Minott cuts a dapper figure in a matching ensemble of crisp shirts and slacks, waistcoats and cravats, set off with nifty colour co-ordinated trilby hats. He would stand out anywhere, let alone amid the faded Caribbean glamour of Jamaica’s north coast resort, where painted wooden shacks lean up against collapsing colonial buildings, and the locals favour bright T-shirts and shorts. (more…)

The Jolly Boys, who came out for the second set to cheers from the very full house at Redbones Blues Café, 1 Argyle Road, New Kingston, on Saturday night looked strikingly different from The Jolly Boys who had taken a break after a take on Marley’s Three Little Birds.

It wasn’t only that the band was bigger, lead singer Albert Minott, Joseph Bennett on maracas and Derrick Henry on rhumba box augmented by Donald Waugh (banjo), Dale Virgo (drums) and Lenford Richards (guitar) to make up the new Jolly Boys, the touring outfit for a month-long UK stint. They looked different. Gone was the rural look that accompanied Kisilo and Talking Parrot; this was a slick-dressing (Bennett’s fedora literally stood out) bunch. More,

What’s more believable than Amy Winehouse singing the line There’s nothing you can teach me/ that I can’t learn from Mr. Hathaway? Maybe some dudes who’ve been playing songs about sex and politics for 60 years, have even less teeth than she does and wear AMAZING HATS? Add The Jolly Boys to Winehouse’s list of people she could learn a little something from—they’re masters of mento, a subversive style of Jamaican folk music, and cut their teeth in the 1950s soundtracking the antics of the Jamaican Rat Pack. This track is from their forthcoming album Great Expectations, on which they cover songs that “resonate with mento’s raucous past.” Singer Albert Minott is also an avid Tweeter. (via Dancehall.Mobi)

Even closer to home are the Jolly Boys.  This mento band from the richly green parish of Portland in Jamaica is actually over fifty years old, but its composition has changed over the years.  Headed by the charismatic Albert Minott, he of the rasping voice and piercing eyes, the Jolly Boys have just taken a sharp bend in the road in their stride, and as the road straightens out they have found themselves the unabashed purveyors of “modern mento.”  For the uninitiated, mento is the rhythmic forerunner of ska and reggae.  And what a joy it is in this, its latest incarnation. In the nurturing atmosphere of the uptown watering-hole that is the Red Bones Blues Cafe in Kingston, Jamaica, the Jolly Boys flourished, expanded, relaxed, danced, shook their maraccas like crazy and bonded with the mostly young, middle-class audience.  The masterful Albert strode out proudly after the intermission in a rose-pink shirt, suspenders and white loafer shoes - to which the Petchary’s attention was often drawn as Albert “stepped out” to the beat with increasing frequency.  Also up front, the maraccas player switched from a nice print Hawaiian shirt to a delightful ensemble – a leaf green shirt, black vest and a gorgeous top hat at a rakish angle (reminiscent of a New Orleans funeral musician) – and addressed the job in hand with new verve. More

Annie Paul | JollyBoys REHAB Ticket Giveaway Winner

WINNER: Annie Paul of Mona, Kingston Just popped by the Geejam Media offices today in New Kingston to pick up her ticket.  She’s going to see The Jolly Boys Live in Concert this Saturday July 3rd @ RedBones The Blues Cafe in Kingston, Jamaica.

She poses with a poster of Albert Minott the Lead Singer.

We’re giving away 4 more tickets starting at 1pm tomorrow on The Jolly Boys Facebook Fan Page.