Burning Spear (left) and drummer Leroy âHorsemouthâ Wallace in a scene from the movie Rockers.
May 26, 2022
This is Rockers!
The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 22nd of its biweekly feature looking at seminal moments that have helped shape Jamaica over the past 60 years.
In terms of acclaim and influence, Rockers will never match The Harder They Come. But 44 years after its release, the low-budget movie about a struggling musician taking on corrupt music producers has earned its stripes.
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Rockers is considered by some film critics and reggae fans as a poor man’s version of The Harder They Come. Yet, like its 1972 counterpart, it retains a cult following throughout Europe, North America and Japan.
Brazil, which has a massive reggae following, is also home to thousands of Rockers’ faithful. In July 2018, many of them flocked outdoor venues in Sao Paulo for two concerts featuring singer Kiddus I, deejay Big Youth, and drummer Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, who were in the movie.
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Kiddus I was overwhelmed at the rapturous reception he and his colleagues received.
“We were surprised we were so well-received, but it shows Rockers has done its work over the years,” he said.
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Wallace was the star of Rockers which was filmed in Ocho Rios and Kingston. His co-stars were a reggae who’s who, several of whom have died. Among them, singers Jacob Miller and Gregory Isaacs, saxophonist Richard “Dirty Harry” Hall and producer Lawrence “Jack Ruby” Lindo.
Some of the songs from the soundtrack including Tenement Yard, Slave Master, Jah No Dead, and Graduation In Zion were performed during the Brazil gigs.
Rockers was directed by Ted Bafaloukos from Greece and produced by American Patrick Hulsey.
Wallace played an exploited musician who takes on the system after years of being fleeced by producers. He and Hall were members of Burning Spear’s band when they first met Hulsey and Bafaloukos in Germany in 1976.
The film-makers went to Jamaica the following year hoping to do a documentary on reggae, but extended their stay and produced a movie.
Rockers was released in 1978 and 1979, respectively, at the San Francisco and Cannes film festivals. It received strong reviews at both events and made a strong impression on Roger Steffens, a California reggae fan who later became an authority on Jamaican culture.
“My wife and I drove 400 miles from LA (Los Angeles) to see it at the Castro Theater in San Francisco in 1980, and it was worth every dollar of gas and mile of travel,” Steffens told the Jamaica Observer in 2013.
Hulsey died in May 2005 from cancer. Bafaloukos died in 2016, also from cancer.
