BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON LINTON KWESI JOHNSON
AND THE DENNIS BOVELL DUB BAND
Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Dennis Bovell Dub Band have been performing together for over 20 years and they have travelled around the world to bring Johnson's reggae poetry and music to a huge variety of audiences. Countries that the Band have been to include the USA and Canada, Brazil, South Africa, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Spain, Iceland, Turkey and Japan.
Linton Kwesi Johnson writes the poems and the bass lines to all the tracks and these arc then arranged by Band leader and reggae producer extraordinaire Dennis Bovell, who also plays bass guitar. Other band members arc; John Kpiaye (lead guitar), Nick Straker (keyboards), Fabio Marchiori (keyboards), Steve Gregory (flute! saxophone), Johnny T (violin), Daniel Spahni (drums) and Lloyd Fuller (sound engineer).
John Kpiaye is also renowned as a lovers' rock and reggae producer
who has worked with a number of famous reggae artists and whose instrumental
jazz-reggae CD Red, Gold and Blues is a huge hit on the UK jazz scene.
Steve Gregory has played with Georgie Fame and Van Morrison,
played the famous sax solo on George Michael's Careless Whisper and has a great
solo CD out entitled Bushfire.
Johnny Taylor was formerly with the Reggae Philharmonie Orchestra.
Daniel Spahni from Neuchatel has visited Lucerne twice with the
group MAD LIGHTERS.
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And Dennis Bovell has worked as a producer/ mixer! musician with artists from the late Fela Kuti and Marvin Gaye to countless reggae stars. He has also released a number of solo albums including the reggae album Taeties and Dub Of Ages. His classic album I Wah Dub has just been released on CD for the first time.
In 1996 Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Dennis Bovell Dub Band played to over 150,000 people at 40 shows in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Norway and the UK. This included taking part in the Reggae Summer Jam Festival in Germany (Europe's largest reggae festival) alongside other greats including Third World, Chaka Demus and Pliers and Toots and the Maytals. The audience at the Festival was near to
20,000.
1997 witnessed gigs in Japan, France, the USA, Italy and Spain, and marked a retum to the studio for Johnson and the band. The result of this was Linton Kwesi Johnson's new album More Time launched in 1998, which celebrated his 20th anniversary as a recording artist. Johnson and the Band then undertook a major series of concerts throughout 1998 in France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Italy. In September they performed to a sell-out crowd at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire. 1999 brought visits to places including France, Sweden, the USA, Canada and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The century finished on a high note with a gig at the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the London Jazz Festival. Always glad to help the black British community in their struggles, Johnson played the show as a benefit gig for the Roger Sylvester Justice Campaign.
For the 21 St century Linton Kwesi Johnson has already played up gigs in the USA, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, as well as numerous solo poetry readings all over the world.