Matumbi -

Matumbi was an English reggae/lovers-rock band from London that cut seven 1973–77 singles and the 1978–81 EMI/Harvest albums Seven Seals, Point of View, and Matumbi. Their final album, Testify, appeared in 1982 on Solid Groove Records.

Members: Tex Dixon (vocals), Euton “Fergus” Jones (drums, percussion), Errol Pottinger (guitar, vocals), Eaton “Jah” Blake (bass), Lannie “Bevin” Fagan [aka Bagga] (vocals, bass), Nicholas Bailey (vocals), Dennis Bovell [aka Blackbeard] (guitar, vocals), Webster Johnson [aka Taz] (keyboards), Glaister Fagan [aka More Ears] (vocals, guitar), Lloyd “Jah Bunny” Donaldson (drums)

Background

Matumbi formed in South London in 1971 around guitarist Dennis Bovell and guitarist-singer Errol Pottinger, members of school-based psychedelic-rock group Stonehenge. Matumbi included singer Tex Dixon, drummer Euton “Fergus” Jones, bassist Eaton “Jah” Blake, and singers Lannie “Bevin” Fagan and Nicholas Bailey in the early lineup. Bovell took the name Matumbi from a character in Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson, a novel assigned in his O-level English class.

Bovell was born May 22, 1953, in Saint Peter, Barbados, and learned guitar from a musician uncle. He moved at age twelve to South London and attended Spencer Park Secondary School in Wandsworth, where he met Fagan and played with Pottinger and Bailey in Stonehenge. Fagan moved at age seven from near Kingston, Jamaica, to Battersea and learned to sing at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, where his father served as minister.

Matumbi played London dates and backed visiting Jamaican artists including Ken Boothe and I-Roy. In 1973, Matumbi opened for the Wailers at an Ethiopian famine-relief concert in Edmonton. Record-company staff rejected Matumbi political originals and requested love songs. Bovell answered with a reggae version of the Hot Chocolate song “Brother Louie,” which he sang and produced for Matumbi. GG’s released the single on June 1, 1973, and the recording secured a Trojan Records contract for Matumbi, who followed in June with the Fagan-led “Wipe Them Out” (b/w “Go Back Home”) on Duke Records.

Bailey left Matumbi in 1974 and moved toward club-band work that eventually led to the Nick Straker Band. Trojan staff steered Matumbi toward cover material, while group members sought greater control over original recordings. Bovell used an engineering job at a London studio to secure free time for Matumbi sessions independent of Trojan Records. In 1976, Pottinger led “After Tonight” and Fagan led a version of Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me,” which became that year’s bestselling British reggae single.

Dixon and Pottinger also left the lineup amid the Trojan dispute. Matumbi brought in keyboardist Webster “Taz” Johnson and guitarist-singer Glaister “More Ears” Fagan. Drummer Lloyd “Jah Bunny” Donaldson replaced Euton Jones in the revised lineup. Matumbi signed with EMI subsidiary Harvest in 1978 for the sessions that produced debut album Seven Seals.

Discography: