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Focus
‘T he
S U P P L E M E N T
OF
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1 W» T I» Portlaad Observer
F am
iL Y
O f R eggae ’
Morgan
Heritage
Focus
A
R oyal
(Jije J,lortlauö ©bseruer
n a tim e w hen com puter-pro
g ra m m e d m u sic an d o n e-h it
wonders clutter the reggae airwaves,
an act like Morgan H eritage is a
true rarity. Infusing th eir music
with a sense of spirituality handed
down to them by their father, reggae
star Denroy Morgan (author of the
1981 gold-certified U.S. single “I’ll
Do A nything For you”), M organ
Heritage is the leading young roots
reggae group in Jam aica today. In
order to become the musicians we
are now, we had to play other kinds
of music,” says Morgan H eritage’s
25 year old keyboard player and vo­
calist, who is known as ‘G randpa’.
“We played R&B and Rock ‘n Roll
to develop our musical chops. But
we always knew that our base was
reggae, and th a t’s what we always
come back to." In addition to roots
reggae and dancehall, the members
of Morgan H eritage profess to lis­
tening to a wide spectrum of other
musical genres, and cite artists as
d iv e rg e n t as T h e C r a n b e r rie s ,
Stevie Wonder, and Eric Clapton as
contem porary favorites.
Don’t Haffi Dread (the title con-
I
PCC Calls on
Portland
Filmmakers
As part of its 1999 Art Beat
celebration of the arts, Port­
land Community college is
sponsoring its second Art Beat
Independent Film and Video
Festival and is seeking submis­
sions from area film and video
artists. A jury will select films
for the festival. Each filmmaker
whose work is selected will re­
ceive an honorarium of be­
tween $100 and $250. Each
film or video must be limited
to 30 minutes in length.
The film and video festival
will be held on Tuesday, May
11 at 7:30 PM at the PCC-Cas-
cade Campus, Terrell Hall,
Room
122
(705
N.
Killingsworth). Deadline for
entry is May 1. Those inter­
ested in submitting work, or
who want further information,
can call Michael Dembrow,
faculty member at Cascade
Campus and organizer of the
event, 503/978-5213 or e-mail
mdembrow@pcc.edu.
veys the group’s belief that
isn ’t n ecessary to have
d re a d lo c k s to be a
Rastafarian) finds Morgan
Heritage joined in the stu­
dio by p ro d u ce r Bobby
“D ig ita l” D ixon, b est
known as the man behind
dancehall kingpin Shabba
Ranks’ Grammy successes.
The album’s positive lyrics
reflect Morgan Heritage’s
religious beliefs, and ad­
dress a broad range of top­
ics such as equality, fam­
ily unity and the healing
pow ers of m usic. O n
“Reggae Road Block,” the
group laments tight radio
and video playlists that keep music
fans from hearing reggae music: ‘So
many great songs never heard on ra-
dio/So many great songs never seen
by video/ How many singers will
your system defile/ And the players
of instrum ents just last for a while,
in this reggae road block.”
Morgan Heritage’s members Mr.
Mojo (age 21), Lugu (age 23), Peter
(age 24), G randpa (age 25) and Una
(age 26) are actually just 5 of Denroy
M organ’s 27 children. Before mov­
ing back to Jam aica, the M organ
Family was based in Brooklyn, New
York. All of the children were edu­
cated in Springfield, Massachusetts,
where they lived with their grand­
m o th er, an d re tu rn e d hom e on
w ee k en d s to p r a c tic e in th e ir
father’s studio. “By growing up in
America, we were always aware of
American culture,” says lead singer
Peter. “Springfield is close to the
countryside, like Jam aica. At one
point, we even had chickens ru n ­
ning aro u n d our yard in Spring-
field .” V eteran s of b o th Reggae
Sunsplash and Reggae Summerfest
to u rs, M organ H eritag e look to
bring their riveting line show to the
United States in the late Spring for
a series of dates.
A
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