The focus of this week’s song share is Marica Griffiths. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica which is known as the home of Reggae. Marica Griffiths is revered as the Empress of Reggae. Griffiths was raised in a very poor family where they struggled to have a place to sleep sometimes. However, even though Griffiths’ family struggled to support her and her siblings, she refers to those days as the glory days. This is because even though they didn’t have many material things, they had all the love in the world. Her career really began when she sang at her friend’s birthday when she was 15. Philip “Boasie” James, a member of the vocal group the Blues Busters, overheard her singing and arranged for her to sing in talent competition. From there, her singing career took off, singing everything from reggae to rocksteady. One of her most famous songs is the Electric Boogie which would one day be the song paired with the electric slide dance. I chose to highlight Marcia Griffiths because she was one of the first women to enter the reggae scene and on top of that, even in a male dominated industry, she rose above them and to this day her music is still extremely popular.

 The song I chose to highlight is called Dreamland. I chose this song because it has the textbook Reggae sound. For instrumentation there is electric guitar, bass, and drums. The guitar is playing pizzicato and syncopated, which is something that is very common to hear in this kind of music. It also includes vocals, which are Griffiths voice as the main singer and backup singers harmonizing with her. It is very reminicant of  barbershop  quartet singing, which is also very present in Reggae music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGJ_MjIAby8&list=OLAK5uy_l_pqA08qz55sjNrqlCB6EcxJ8ktIFVoiU