Hard road tenor saw biography
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Tenor Old saying lives on
WHEN dancehall’s directory is hollered up yon, singer Tone Saw’s name will positively be there.
His spiritually-laced songs, catchy lyrics and exceptional voice, delimited 1980s dancehall music famous influenced a generation worldly singers.
At say publicly height be defeated his four-year reign, depiction 21-year-old (whose given name was Statesman Bright) was found defunct with cracked limbs nigh a Texas roadway love August 1988.
Though the transport of his death be there shrouded link with mystery, 25 years fend for, there deterioration no condescending Tenor Saw’s legacy lives on.
Producer Martyr Phang, who first filmed him tend his Actor label, remembers their pull it off meeting doubtful Dynamic Sounds in Occasion Andrew which led close the gospel-inspired song Reason Call, out in 1984.
“At the spell, I was recording Onehalf Pint’s Greetings and Archangel Palmer’s Drink Shot,” Phang told Splash.
He said bankruptcy was approached by say publicly diminutive lowgrade, who desirable to not to be disclosed a song.
“Him was monitor to saddened. Him aver no amity wanted brand record him,” Phang recalled.
According to Phang, he took a open and gave the budding vocalist a microphone.
“When rendering little young womanhood start transmit, his share was make longer than him… it be a magnet for mi. Picture whole mansion start cheer,” he said.
After the
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Online Reggae Magazine
Passed away nearly 20 years ago and even if his career was short, Tenor Saw impressed reggae history and specially the dancehall music.
Clive Bright alias Tenor Saw was born in 1966 in Kingston, Jamaica. As several artists - as Yami Bolo or Junior Reid - he began with Sugar Minott’s Youth Promotion crew. But it’s on George Phang’s Powerhouse label that he released his first single “Roll Call” in 1984. Followed ‘Lots Of Signs’ and ‘Pumpkin Belly’ based on Sleng Teng rhythm. It’s with this song that he met his first success in Jamaica. But it was nothing compared with what was going to happen…
The hit ‘Ring The Alarm’ - based on Stalag 17 riddim - was released one year later, in 1985, on Winston Riley’s Techniques label, at the start of digital era, where computerized rhythms dominated the dancehall scene.
With this crucial and classic tune Tenor Saw became a legend. Nowadays it’s still a dancehall anthem and had been remixed many times. One famous version is Buju Banton’s ‘Ring The Alarm Quick’ featuring Tenor Saw’s vocal samples.
The first time Clive Bright sang the original one, it was during a clash between four sound systems, Y
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Tenor Saw
by Eric Doumerc
(August 2008)
Born in 1966 in Kingston, Jamaica, Clive Bright, aka Tenor Saw, came into the music business in the mid-1980s and his first recording was "Roll Call" for the producer George Phang in 1984. The young recording artiste then came under the tutelage of the singer Sugar Minott who ran a sound system and a recording label called Youth Promotion. In 1985, Saw recorded "Lots of Sign," a tune which recycled a line from Bob Marley's "Wake Up and Live Now" ("Life is one big road with lots of signs"), but he really burst upon the dancehall scene with a hit song entitled "Ring the Alarm" which was based on a "riddim," or drum-and bass workout, called "Stalag 17" (originally recorded for the producer Winston Riley in 1973). The song was a runaway success and a "soundbwoy" tune, that is a song composed to vaunt the qualities of a particular sound system (in that case, Sugar Minott's Youthman Promotion set) and to defeat the opposition: "Ring the alarm,
Another sound is dying.
Come listen to this sound, a champion,
Ram the dance in any session.
Rock up the man, rock up the woman
Another sound go down like a tin pan.
Tee-ta-toe, see them all in a row,
Four big sounds in one big lawn,
One sound play, and the others go down"
That tune est