1. Idea
The first edition of Unsung Heroes is about Trinidadian guitarist, Lynn Taitt. While some have said, "is he an unsung hero?" I felt that for a few reasons he was perfect. Firstly, majority of Rootfire's audience aren't deep digger record collectors. They also gravitate mostly towards modern reggae. I also find that most listeners may not even realize that session bands made up of paid musicians recorded most of the music in that time period. With all of these thoughts, I felt Lynn Taitt was perfect. Also, I had conducted my own research over the years with various sources, so I already had the information ready and available.
2. Research
Firstly, I had conducted interviews privately for my own knowledge with Hux Brown a few years before he died. My friend Peter Seale of True Persuaders was friends with him and he would call him every now and then, this is how I was able to get into contact with him. I just asked him random questions like, what guitar did you and him use? Were there names to those sounds he created on the guitar? Stuff like that. While he didn't remember exactly what guitar models, he knew they were Hofners with a lot of switches and humbuckers. I was able to figure out the exact models. Hux played a similar model, called the Galaxie.
My friend Peter was also a fan of Lynn and he would show me a lot of songs that I never knew about. We spent hours dissecting these songs and I learned his tone exactly, and how to always know what songs he played on based on this.
3. Overdubbing? That early in history?
Around 2022, I did a limited podcast series called Cool People. One of the episodes was with Andy Bassford and we talked extensively about his time he spent with Lynn Taitt. He has also told me some things privately about Lynn, such as his use of overdubbing. They did that back then? you may ask yourself. And yes, it was done quite often, as much as American and British studios did. Even though they only have 2 tracks to work with, they'd bounce to other machines. While I knew of several guitar players Lynn worked with, he always used 1 other rhythm guitarist and that was mostly Hux Brown. On several songs, I have noticed two lead parts and always wondered if they hired one of these other names as a third player. They did not! These were overdubs and these are confirmed by multiple sources I have talked to over the years. This information all comes from Lynn or Hux or other musicians or engineers that worked on the songs.
Most notable songs that use this overdub technique of a double lead
Lee Perry - The Upsetter
The Overtakers - Girl You Ruff
Lynn Taitt & The Jets - To Sir With Love
4. Other sources
I mentioned Brian Keyo and Kenneth Bilby at the end of the article. Ken Bilby has done a lifetimes worth of research on Jamaican music and the country as a whole. A lot of his research ends up in a lot of our projects. Brian Keyo has his own website and he has an extensive page on Lynn Taitt. Most of his early years that I wrote about come from this research. The rest was made up of talking to various sources that I mentioned above. I believe the names for the sound techniques that Lynn used may have come from Brian as well. I am not sure. Hux did refer me to a book that named these techniques, which now the name of said book escapes me! Andy also named some of these techniques.
5. Is he most associated with Ska, Rock Steady or Reggae?
Well, Lynn started when Ska was popular and he did play on a lot of Ska songs, but he is mostly associated with Rock Steady, because he pretty much set the standard for how it was played and most other studios and musicians copied what he did. The Jamaican lead guitar, pick or pluck, following the bassline directly comes from Lynn and every guitarist still does it to this day. So, he is mostly a Rock Steady player. But, it should be noted that, Rock Steady has three phases and he was there for all 3 of them. The early reggae, the transitional period, Lynn was also there for too but he left in 1969 before it really was changing. Lynn is a Rock Steady guitarist in my opinion.
6. Discography
While it would be a million pages to list every song that Lynn Taitt played on (and trust me, I probably would spend the time to do it) I should say that, if you listen to the Spotify companion playlist, you should have a good understanding on his sound and technique. A good note is, if it was recorded at WIRL, Federal or Treasure Isle from 66 to 68, it's more than likely Lynn. Here is a short list of groups or solo singers that he recorded for using the years listed previously.
The Paragons
Desmond Dekker
Derrick Morgan
Derrick Harriot
Stranger Cole
Alton Ellis
Phyllis Dillon (It was Lynn who met her and passed her name to Duke Reid, owner of Treasure Isle)
The Uniques
The Techniques
Johnny Nash (all of Johnny's Jamaican recordings feature Lynn)
The Overtakers
The Mellotones
The Gaylads
The Gaylettes
The Ethiopians
Prince Buster
7. Later Years
Lynn never stopped performing nor recording when he moved to Toronto. In all honesty, he probably did more of it! I don't go into much detail on it, mostly because I try to tailor my content to foundational music and what was recorded in Jamaica. But, you can find a lot of what he did in later years just by searching the net. It is true about the ending part, how there was a push to get funding from the Canadian government to finish his last record. While I don't remember the specifics of this and if it ever got resubmitted or approved, I can tell you that the project was led by Moss Raxlan who is a prominent Canadian recording engineer, who also started Kingston All-Stars, which was a recording and touring project made up of foundation artists such as Sly & Robbie and many more. How I got involved was because Moss and I briefly were talking about some unrelated subject and I mentioned being a fan of Lynn. He asked me to write a letter to include in his petition as well as ask others to write a letter. Again, details and memory is hazy on the specifics. All I remember is that the government rejected it.
This concludes this post for now!
Thanks for reading - Jim