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Reggae Founder Rediscovered: After 25-Year Silence, Kingman Is Back

Jamaican hitmaker Claudius Linton launches his new band Kingman & Jonah. The first CD-EP, featuing "In The Street" and "Baghdad," debuts on July 30.

Baltimore, MD (Billboard Publicity Wire) July 5, 2007 -- Claudius "Kingman" Linton, considered "one of the greatest reggae singers of all time," has returned to the music scene after a 25-year absence, with his new group Kingman & Jonah. Long-time fans are hailing Linton, creator of the roots reggae vocal style popularized by Culture and Burning Spear, as the "true undiscovered hero of reggae music." The first Kingman & Jonah single, "In The Street," debuts July 30 on Sun King Records (www.sunkingrecords.com).

The soulful singer of Jamaican Number One "Crying Time," "Kingman Is Back" and others, Linton walked with the giants of reggae, from the invention of roots reggae in Jamaica's Trenchtown ghetto to reggae's 1970's heyday. Linton is the living history of reggae, from singing lessons with "father of reggae" Joe Higgs (along with fellow students Bob Marley and Peter Tosh) to the Rolling Stones' "Goat's Head Soup" recording sessions. During the 1970s, Linton produced a dozen singles, both with his group the Hoffner Brothers and solo hits like "Backra Massa" and "Crying Time," which today trades hands for hundreds of dollars. But after recording "Reduce The Arms Race" with famed reggae producer Jack Ruby in 1984, Linton disappeared from the scene.

We were telling people of what Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King said; but they wouldn't listen... Today it's Baghdad, today it's Iraq. But it's the same oppression, it's the same urgent message coming through on the new CD.

Today, Kingman is back. A chance meeting on the beach in Negril, Jamaica, brought Linton together with American musician/producer Ian Jones. "Can you tune this thing, sire?" Linton called out to the passing tourist. Jones tuned up Linton's battered Washburn acoustic, and within minutes the two musicians were harmonizing and jamming like old friends. The next day Linton and Jones, christened Kingman & Jonah, were cramped into a tin-roof recording studio to track the first songs for Linton's comeback: the mellow "In The Street," the elegiac "Baghdad" and the pure roots "Babylon Parro."

Together, Kingman & Jonah have produced new songs with the same irresistible melodies and powerful lyrics of consciousness familiar to fans of Linton's earlier work. But these songs speak directly to today's trouble times: "In The Street" pleads for an end to corruption and ignorance, "Baghdad" is a heartbreaking lament for the senseless violence that fills our daily news. Of his 1970s hits, Linton says, "We were telling people of what Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King said; but they wouldn't listen... Today it's Baghdad, today it's Iraq. But it's the same oppression, it's the same urgent message coming through on the new CD."

As Kingman & Jonah sing on the new single: "Ain't no border troops can't stop the truth."

On July 30, Sun King Records will launch the first Kingman & Jonah offering. The deluxe six-song CD-EP features "In The Street," "Baghdad" and other new tracks, plus a taste of Linton's classic style with a reissue of his 1975 single "Reach Out." In the coming months, Kingman & Jonah will issue new songs recorded in 2007 at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studios with an all-star band of reggae legends dubbed "the Buena Vista Social Club of reggae." The players included Ansel Collins, keys, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, drums, Dwight Pinkney, guitar, Keith Francis, bass, Bongo Herman, percussion, Dean Fraser, horns. A New York documentary crew was on hand to capture this musical reunion for a forthcoming film. A preview is available on the Sun King Records website.

Also in the works: A compilation of Linton's classic '70s singles, never before reissued, sourced from fans worldwide and from restored master tapes.

"A master musician," says Jones, "is back and better than ever."

Watch the "making of" video and hear audio samples at www.sunkingrecords.com. To request interviews and review CDs, use the phone number and email provided here.

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reggae music linton kingman jonah baghdad jones sun king records roots jamaica

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