Jackie Opel - I Am What I Am / Jackie Mittoo & The Skatalites - Devil's Bug - Rio Records - 1967

A couple of absolute scorchers from Studio One Studios, both sides of the record hitting the ska sweet spot. The text below courtesy of Greg Burgess. Jackie Opel was born Dalton Sinclair Bishop sometime in 1938. He was in fact a Bajan by birth from the unkempt Martinsdale area of Bridgetown, Barbados. He came from a large family and money was short. Jackie Opel was musical from an early age. He would earn pennies from his singing by swimming out to the liners that docked in Bridgetown Harbour and performing to the passengers. It was the major hotels where Jackie Opel learnt to perform on stage and where the visiting Byron Lee, the band master of the Dragonaires spotted him. Lee realised that Opel’s six octave voice was a rare gift and he had plans for Jackie to front the Dragonaires. Around 1960, Jackie left his home island with Byron Lee and The Dragonaires for Jamaica. The union quickly dissolved and there appears to be no records to suggest they made it together to a recording studio. Jackie had other designs in Jamaica, and would be at the forefront of the changes. As independence in 1962 approached Jamaican music remained the province of R&B and other forms of American music but a musical revolution was nigh in the form of ska, a style of music that quickly gained pre-eminence among Jamaican youth. The multi-talented Jackie Opel was more than ready to take advantage of the changes. Jackie Opel is now chiefly remembered for the early recordings he made with the Skatalites, an acoustic band of trained musicians Jackie Opel travelled with the Skatellites as one of their lead singers, playing the bass on the occasions when the regular bass player Lloyd Brevett was missing. The Skatalites trumpet player ‘Dizzy’ Johnny Moore called Jackie Opel ‘a genius, the best lead singer the Skatalites ever had’. The standard of the Skatalites records is exceptionally high. Jackie Opel and another member the late saxophonist Roland Alphonso were responsible for many of the arrangements. He recorded for Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd's Studio One label. He also recorded for another seminal label Top Deck owned by the late Justin Yap. Opel’s style during this period remained heavily influenced by R&B/Soul and songs such as 'Cry Me A River’, 'Eternal Love’, the epic 'Wipe These Tears', the intense 'One More Chance' and 'Shelter The Storm’ are about as deep as soul can get. The ska scorchers ‘I Am What I Am’ and ‘King Liges’ were recorded at this time and Opel became one of the hottest singers of the day. He was paired with Alton’s sister Hortense Ellis for the Crescent City sounding ‘Stand by Me’ and with Doreen Schaffer for ‘The Vow’. He appears as backing support for Larry Marshall’s successful cover of Paul Martin’s ‘Snake in The Grass’. Opel’s influence during these years was huge with many covering his songs including his protégées The Deacons and the embryonic Wailers who were hanging out with Opel at this time. The sexually charged ‘Mill Man’ from 1964 is one of Opel’s finest vocal performances and features Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer on backing vocals with a sublime musical arrangement featuring the Skatalites. Jackie, now a huge star in Jamaica, left Kingston for Trinidad and eventually home to Barbados. Opel continued to work and record in the West Indies for the next three years. On March 8th 1970 Jackie Opel, was killed in a car accident in Bridgetown. He was thirty-two. Jackie Mittoo & The Skatalites are actually the Soul Brothers, the text below courtesy of Soul Jazz Records. In August 1965, barely a week after the demise of the original Skatalites, The Soul Brothers, featuring ex-Skatalites members Jackie Mittoo, Roland Alphonso, Johnny Moore and Lloyd Brevitt were up and running as the new house band at Studio One. Other members in this group included Wallin Cameron (guitar) and Bunny Williams (drums). This release could just as easily have been called Rolando Alphonso and The Soul Brothers or just The Soul Brothers as the group were essentially a collective, releasing material under their own name or under a nominal leader, usually Jackie Mittoo or Rolando Alphonso. The group line-up changed over time with Bobby Ellis (trumpet), Bryan Atkinson (bass), Dennis Campbell (Sax), Harry Haughton (guitarist) and Joe Isaacs (drummer) replacing various members alongside the ever-present Jackie Mittoo. The Soul Brothers mix of musical styles is described as Ska, Jump-Up and Soul sounds. The main difference between the sound of The Skatalites and The Soul Brothers is the arrival of electric instrumentation such as Jackie¹s organ as well as electric guitar on some tracks. In 1967 Clement Dodd decided to take a group of musicians to England. Alongside the singers Alton Ellis and Ken Boothe, he asked Roland Alphonso, Jackie Mittoo, Johnny Moore, Lloyd Brevett, Bunny Williams and Errol Walters. This group would be named The Soul Vendors and signaled the end of the short-lived Soul Brothers.

Added 2 Apr 2026