ARTIST: Joseph Israel
TITLE: Mankind
LABEL: NewDoor Records
GENRE: Reggae
BITRATE: 186kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 16m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-00-00
RIP DATE: 2007-01-29
Track List
----------
1. Mankind 4:01
2. Jah Souljahs 4:35
3. Ruff Times (Feat. Luciano) 3:59
(Album Version)
4. Ruff Times (Feat. Luciano) (Dub 3:57
Vocal Mix)
Release Notes:
This includes a 'dub vocal mix' that's previously unreleased
Through its simple, sweet reflections of love, its headline-torn news reports,
its tales of spiritual awakening and calls for unity, there is a thread running
through the songs on Joseph Israel?s debut disc, Gone are the Days. Combined,
they quite simply point to a better way to live, to a better world.
Conscious and idealistic, they are songs that compose an album whose release
marks the impressive and thoroughly independent rise of the white,
Christian-born American, whose utter devotion to the music and culture of
Jamaica and the messages of roots reggae can be felt throughout. If the album
marks the 28-year-old, self-made musician?s coming of age as an artist, it does
so through songs that, among other things, mark his coming of age as a man.
In the album?s title-track, Israel preaches the need to question authority and
what?s been served up to us on the evening news or in the history books of our
youth. It?s a song in which he recalls his own awakening, intellectually and
spiritually: ?So many paths, only one to choose/If you live for yourself, you
will lose/In your heart, let true love rule.?
Laced with Biblical imagery and featuring everything from a tender dedication to
his wife (?Perfect Love?) to an angry, rage-riddled lambasting of third-world
oppression (?Hotta Fiyah?), the disc?s 13 tracks represent the realization of a
life-long dream for the Arkansas?based Israel. And they also mark him as a bona
fide member of the roots reggae community, despite his skin color or country of
origin.
Recorded over several months in Kingston, Jamaica?at the fabled Tuff Gong studio
(Bob Marley and the Marley family?s studio), Shaggy?s Big Yard studio, and
others?Gone are the Days carries the endorsement of a cast of reggae vets. It
finds Israel backed by a litany of such players, including saxophonist Dean
Fraser, bassist Chris Meredith, lead guitarist Earl ?Chinna? Smith, rhythm
guitarist Ian ?Beezy? Coleman, drummer Wilburn ?Squidley? Cole, keyboardist Paul
?Scooby? Smith, pianists Franklyn ?Bubbler? Waul and Paul ?Wrong Move?
Crossdale, and percussionist Uzziah ?Sticky? Thompson.
Israel duets with second-generation roots reggae star Luciano on ?Ruff Times?
and Luciano?s fellow VP Records artist Mikey General on ?Universal Love,? while
Erica Newell and Rochelle Bradshaw?backing vocalists for Ziggy Marley and
Luciano, respectively?add backing vocals throughout. A devoted family man,
Israel also features his wife, Kristy, on backing vocals, and their daughters,
Rebekah and Chavah (they also have a boy, Cypress), add a sweet touch to the end
of ?Mankind,? urging listeners to ?Stop fighting/Love one another/Feed the
mommies of little children.?
?To have been able to make this record, it?s very humbling to me,? says Israel.
?I just feel so blessed. To have been in a room with all these guys, I felt like
there was angels in the room. The vibe was so high that I would just teach them
the song and?boom!?in one take they had ?em.?
Israel self-financed Gone are the Days, recording and independently releasing
the disc in 2005. Just as Israel?s songs caught the attention of everyone from
Luciano to Mikey General, the disc in the months after its release caught the
attention of Universal Music Enterprises, who is releasing the disc nationwide
through their label New Door Records.
It?s the next step in a career that has been building since Israel?born Joseph
Montgomery Fennel in Tulsa, Oklahoma?was just two years old. It was then, while
still a toddler, that he became smitten with Bob Marley and the Wailers? Babylon
by Bus album, especially the track ?Positive Vibration,? his favorite song as a
young child.
With his father both a reggae fan and the owner of a Fayetteville, Arkansas,
club and restaurant called Jose?s, and his uncle a big roots fan also favoring
the likes of Burning Spear, young Joseph was surrounded by reggae. As a teen, he
started delving deep into the music himself (the Marley cannon, Spear?s classic
Marcus Garvey, Bunny Wailer?s Blackheart Man, Peter Tosh?s Legalize It), and the
inspirations behind it, from thinker-activist Garvey to Malcom X. At 14, his
parents took him on the first of what would become regular trips to Jamaica. At
the same time, he was getting into the likes of younger roots artists like
Luciano, as well as genre-blending American artist Ben Harper.
As a teen, his interest in the Rastafarian religion?whose followers abstain from
eating meat, put little value in material goods and view marijuana as a
sacrament?began to grow. A member of the varsity basketball team in high school,
he quit sports, and during trips to Jamaica, began studying with Rasta elders
such as Ras Bee-Bow of Negril and Bongo Hu-I, the great teacher and herbalist of
Montego Bay. As the Rasta culture took root in Joseph, so did long dreadlocks.
Israel felt a mystical identity to Jamaica, its people and music.
Back home in Arkansas, Israel began writing and performing. In 2000, he formed
the band Kepha (translated as ?the rock? in Hebrew), which released a single,
self-issued disc, and opened for the likes of roots heavy weights Culture and
Burning Spear. The group soon folded and Israel founded the Lions of Israel,
with whom he started blanketed the American west. In summer 2003, he performed a
solo acoustic set before Ziggy Marley on one stop on the latter?s U.S. tour. The
gig proved a pivotal one, as Israel clicked with members of Marley?s backing
band, including bassist Chris Meredith, who co-produced Gone Are the Days with
Israel.
In the fall of 2003, Israel toured with popular roots artist Abijah, cutting the
Lions of Israel?s live CD on the last night of the tour. At the end of the year,
he joined forces with Mikey General, who was being backed by Newell and
Bradshaw. By tour?s end, all four made plans to record a track together, what
would become the closing track on Gone Are the Days, ?Universal Love.?
Co-written by and featuring General, Newel and Bradshaw, ?Universal Love? was
the first song recorded for Gone are the Days. It captures one of the main
themes of the record: unity and kindness. Another is the need to live well, to
do the right thing, to act righteously. Still another is overcoming adversity.
?We?re living in, the most intense time ever, as far as I can see,? says Israel.
?But I think that one day very soon, the strongholds that are holding the people
today that are keeping the people down, are going to be top