Tony Tribe

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Tony Tribe
Birth nameAnthony Mossop
BornJamaica
Occupation(s)Musician
LabelsDecca, Trojan, Marathon

Anthony Mossop (died 1970s), known professionally as Tony Tribe and Tony Kingston, was a Jamaican vocalist. He charted at No. 46 on the UK Singles Chart with a reggae version of Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine", becoming Trojan Records's first UK chart entry, and inspired UB40's version, which charted at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100. He also performed at the 1969 Caribbean Reggae Festival. He then moved to Canada and released several singles there including "I Am the Preacher", which charted at No. 65 on the RPM charts, and then an album.

Life and career[edit]

Tribe was born Anthony Mossop[1] in Kingston, Jamaica; his first performances were at that city's Ward Theatre aged nine.[2] He moved to Great Britain in 1956,[3] taking a full time job in the post room of the High Commission of Jamaica, London. In the mid-1960s, he joined the gospel outfit The Soul Seekers, from Calvary Apostolic Church in Camberwell; Steve Alexander Smith used his 2009 book British Black Gospel to note that "Mossop was a charismatic figure admired by hordes of female fans", and that a 1966 Gravesend show had "resulted in the group being mobbed by teenage girls, some of whom took their blouses off in order to throw them at Mossop". He left in August 1966, and released a number of singles under the names Tony Kingston and Tony Tribe.[1] In April 1967, he released "Mama Come On Home" on Decca Records, which became popular on the Northern soul circuit.[4]

In 1969, using the stage name Tony Tribe, Mossop released a reggae version of Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine",[5] a song that had previously been a hit for Jimmy James and the Vagabonds.[6] Produced by Dandy Livingstone[7] and backed with the Rudies' "Blues",[8] Mossop's version charted at No. 46 on the UK Singles Chart,[6] becoming the then-fledgling Trojan Records' first UK chart hit,[9] in spite of them managing to misspell his stage name as "Tony Tripe".[10] The song's success can be attributed to its popularity among British skinheads;[11] additionally, in 2017, Ian McCann of the Financial Times suggested that it had made the charts in spite of its "jerky ska rhythm" being "anachronistic even then".[10] Mossop later performed on Top of the Pops,[12] before releasing a second single, a cover of "Gonna Give Her All the Love I've Got" under the name "I’m Gonna Give You All The Love I’ve Got".[13]

On 21 September 1969,[14] Mossop, Johnny Nash, Desmond Dekker, Max Romeo, the Rudies, Derrick Morgan, Jackie Edwards, Jimmy Cliff, Jimmy James, the Skatalites, the Mohawks, Root and Jenny Jackson, and Black Velvet performed at Wembley Arena[11] for the first Caribbean Music Festival,[14] the first major reggae event to be held in Britain.[15] For this performance, he dressed in braces as a nod to the support he had received from skinheads. Charlie Gillett of Record Mirror wrote that Tribe's set had been "spoiled because of trouble with his group's amplification system", but that this did not "hide his beautiful soaring voice on "Speak Her Name" and his hit "Red Red Wine""; he also noted that the "thudding reggae beat which pounds through most discotheques and clubs was wisely restricted" during the festival, and this had enabled Mossop, Romeo, and Dekker "to prove themselves to be much better singers than their records suggest".[11] Mossop later filmed for a Horace Ové documentary Reggae,[1] which was released in 1971.[16]

Multiple sources, including McCann (2017)[10] and Tom Breihan of Stereogum (2021), claim that Mossop died in a car crash around this time,[5] with Smith (2009) further suggesting that it had happened in Canada in 1970 and had also killed members of Mossop's family;[1] however, a Tony Kingston, who according to a 2019 Louder Than War article by Ian Canty "seemed to match Tribe in voice and looks" and according to a June 1974 edition of Billboard had "recently" worked with producer Harry Hinde,[17] released several singles in Canada,[18] including "I Am the Preacher", a cover of Deep Purple's "Hallelujah",[19] which charted at No. 65 on the RPM charts in March 1972[20] and No. 15 on the CHUM Chart. Additionally, Kingston released an album in 1973, Tongue Tied,[4] the blurb for which claims that he had moved to Canada "a little more than a year ago" from England, that he had travelled there from Jamaica to further his education, and that he had shared a stage with Nash, Cliff, and Dekker.[21] In September 2018, Howard Campbell of the Jamaica Observer wrote that Mossop had died in a car accident in Canada in the 1970s.[22]

Legacy[edit]

In 1983, UB40 covered Mossop's version of "Red Red Wine", under the impression that the "N Diamond" who wrote the track was a Jamaican artist called Negus Diamond, and having never heard Neil's version;[10] Breihan (2021) described their take as "somewhere between the Tony Tribe version that the band members knew and the Neil Diamond original".[5] The song later topped the UK Singles Chart, and appeared on Labour of Love, an album of cover versions;[10] writing in their 2006 autobiography Blood and Fire, Ali and Robin Campbell noted that they had known "all of those tracks as smash hits in [Balsall Heath]" and were taken aback to discover that reggae was not as popular in their subsequent neighbourhood Kings Heath. They also noted that they had only found out that Neil Diamond owned the song's publishing rights when they cleared them for their version, and alleged that Mossop's version was "obviously a cover of the version by Jimmy James & the Vagabonds".[23] UB40's version would top the Billboard Hot 100 five years later[5] after J.J. Morgan played it on KKFR.[24] Additionally, Elan Atias would cover the song in 2001.[10]

Discography[edit]

Studio albums[edit]

  • Tongue Tied (1973)

Singles[edit]

  • "Mama Come On Home"/"Agony And Ecstasy" (1967, as Tony Kingston)[4]
  • "Red Red Wine" (1969, as Tony Tribe, backed with the Rudies' "Blues")
  • "I’m Gonna Give You All The Love I’ve Got" (1969, as Tony Tribe, backed with Herbie Grey's "Why Wait")[25]
  • "What We Need"/"Faith, Hope and Charity" (1972, as Tony Kingston)[4]
  • "I Am the Preacher"/"What We Need" (1972, as Tony Kingston)[4]
  • "Faith, Hope, and Charity"/"What We Need" (1972, as Tony Kingston)[4]
  • "What D'You Say"/"What D'You Say (instrumental)" (1973, as Tony Kingston)[26]
  • "Who’s Gonna Sing My Rock and Roll Song"/"Mysterious People" (1973, as Tony Kingston)[4]
  • "Too Heavy To Carry"/"Worst That Could Happen" (1974, as Tony Kingston)[4]
  • "Sweet Music" (1978, as Tony Kingston)[26]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Smith, Steve Alexander (2009). British Black Gospel: The Foundations of this Vibrant UK Sound. Monarch Books. ISBN 978-1-85424-896-1.
  2. ^ "RPM-1972-04-08.pdf" (PDF). Worldradiohistory.com. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  3. ^ "Tony Mossop With The Soulseekers". Discogs. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h "K". The Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d "The Number Ones: UB40's "Red Red Wine"". Stereogum. 31 May 2021. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  6. ^ a b "Red Red Wine". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  7. ^ writer, Howard Campbell Observer senior (14 October 2019). "50 and still sounding good". Jamaica Observer. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  8. ^ Koningh, Michael de; Cane-Honeysett, Laurence (19 July 2018). Young, Gifted & Black: The Story of Trojan Records. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-78759-104-2.
  9. ^ Meschino, Patricia (13 September 2018). "How Pioneering U.K. Label Trojan Records Pushed Reggae Into the Mainstream". Billboard. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  10. ^ a b c d e f "UB40's Red Red Wine — band squeezed every last drop from the song". www.ft.com. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  11. ^ a b c "Record-Mirror-1969-10-04.pdf" (PDF). Worldradiohistory.com. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  12. ^ Koningh, Michael de; Cane-Honeysett, Laurence (19 July 2018). Young, Gifted & Black: The Story of Trojan Records. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-78759-104-2.
  13. ^ "1969-0927.pdf" (PDF). Worldradiohistory.com. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  14. ^ a b Rees, Dafydd; Crampton, Luke (1999). Rock Stars Encyclopedia. DK Pub. ISBN 978-0-7894-4613-8.
  15. ^ Mason, Peter (23 August 2018). "Count Prince Miller obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
  16. ^ Badshah, Nadeem (16 September 2023). "Horace Ové, pioneering black British film-maker, dies aged 86". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  17. ^ Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 15 June 1974.
  18. ^ Canty, Ian (3 February 2019). "Various Artists – The Down Town Albums Collection – Album Review". Louder Than War. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  19. ^ "Roger Cook – hitparade.ch". hitparade.ch. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  20. ^ "RPM-1972-03-04.pdf" (PDF). Worldradiohistory.com. Retrieved 28 November 2023.
  21. ^ "Kingston, Tony – Tongue Tied". citizenfreak.com. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
  22. ^ Campbell, Howard (12 September 2018). "Cheers to 35 years of Red Red Wine". Jamaica Observer. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
  23. ^ Campbell, Ali; Campbell, Robin (2006). Blood and Fire: The Autobiography of the UB40 Brothers. Arrow. ISBN 978-0-09-947654-2.
  24. ^ Cocks, Jay (31 October 1988). "Music: Reggae's Bulgarian Acrobats UB40 eases onto the chart tops with an old hit". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  25. ^ Koningh, Michael de; Cane-Honeysett, Laurence (19 July 2018). Young, Gifted & Black: The Story of Trojan Records. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-78759-104-2.
  26. ^ a b "Kingston, Tony". citizenfreak.com. Retrieved 29 November 2023.
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