Players — Engineers, Producers and Selectors

Jack Scorpio — The Original Stinger
By The AlkhemI

Though the Headley Ave wooden shop has been replaced by another more modern one at 14b Molynes Road, it seems that everywhere he goes Jack Scorpio has a story to tell. One of the forerunners of Jamaica’s sound system era, there is no caution in terming him a living legend.

Born to parents Joseph Johnson and Blanche Barnett, Scorpio opted to grow up with his father downtown, while his mother felt safer within her uptown confines. The ‘60s found Scorpio sitting outside of dance gates at nights listening to the sounds that throbbed from the dancehalls. At barely eight years old, music became a burning obsession. Forbidden as it was, this was one of the few highlights of a rough life in Kingston’s Drewsland ghettos.

With his father, he learnt some serious life skills; skills that would no doubt help to keep him fed while roughing it across the political lines. By the time his father died in the late ‘60s, circumstances forced him to put these skills into play. And so the hustling began.

Wake the town and tell the people….

By about ’68 / ’69 he opened the famed Headley Avenue wooden shop. But perhaps the most decisive move that the 15 year old Scorpio made was the acquisition of a dulcemena. Perched right at his window and only the second music grip in the area, Scorpio’s dulcemena system began with a few of his favourite records. Heptones On Top and Good All Over began his record collection, while fried fish and dumplings, dominoes and liquor quickly made Scorpio’s corner a must for community hot-steppers. By about ’70 he got his first gig as a soundman clashing with Solidarity sound. In true Scorpio style, the man just mash up di place. Special I the then name of his system soon became Black Scorpio. The choice was spawned by the fact that Scorpio felt it was too close to the Jamaica Labour Party slogan of “High Up.”  Black Scorpio felt like a more naturally fitting title as it gave him no association with the then present political disparity.

Before Stone Love and before House of Leo, it was the Black Scorpio sound that ruled Kingston’s Thursday night entertainment scene. In fact so big was Scorpio’s Thursday night gig that it seemed to virtually attract every type to the dance floors; the type that made it necessary for the likes of famed policemen like Trinity and Bigga Ford to regularly search his dance. In fact Scorpio never just buss artistes alone it seems. He attests that it was at his dance that these two figures made their fame as the hardest of the force.

Besides creating cultural history in his dancehalls, Scorpio also ended up creating a rich musical legacy, though it happened only by chance. The refusal of other producers to voice many of the top artistes on Scorpio’s sound forced him into music production. So while he juggled the rigors of the sound system business he would now be crafting some of dancehalls most memorable records. Scorpio was busy, so busy that at one point he found himself on an all island Black Scorpio tour for 21 nights straight. Back then it was sound systems and not necessarily artistes that patrons paid to see. But the climate was changing, and the artistes were getting bigger than the sound systems that pushed them.

While his contemporaries like Stereograph, Jammy’s and Kilimanjaro were making strides, it was clearly Scorpio that was 'running the place'. Others like Metro Media soon followed. Stone Love’s early days saw them renting his studio on Thursdays, Scorpio recalls.

During this time, some of the loudest forces of dancehall saw their beginnings in Scorpio’s studios. Names like Shabba, General Trees and Yellow Man crafted their talents in a Black Scorpio studio time and time again. He recalls his initial encounters with Beenie Man who Scorpio says was so young his voice was even cracking. History recalls too that after Beenie’s famed Sting boo he found himself in Scorpio’s studio by morning. He vowed never to dj again but Scorpio knew better. There are many other laughable moments from Scorpio's rich musical history but even greater still is the fact that some of this history is also the triumph of Jack Scorpio.

Sting them one by one …

He’s seen a few disappointments obviously like the famous 4 system sound clash that Sting was originally noted for. It was Scorpio, Jammy’s, African star and Youthman Promotions. Mighty as Black Scorpio was, he only managed to cop a second place in the competition, though he retorts that his wires were pulled. But ironically, he still made history that night with his own artiste General Trees winning the dj competition. Even to this day Scorpio still questions the fairness of his dj being first and the promoters handing his sound system a second.

But triumphs outnumber the pitfalls. Though Black Scorpio sound system began touring internationally from as early as ‘85 in New York, it’s the late ‘90s tour that he’ll never forget. In the words of the Scorpio, him “lick down King Jammy’s a England.” The tour lasted for a while and every time they clashed Scorpio knocked them from East London to Birmingham.

A man that never runs out of words, Scorpio could perhaps say a mouthful on the current state of controversy that’s circumventing the dancehall business. Still, he simply charges that many of the dancehall’s hottest tickets might very well need to lift their standards. He challenges that “music is life that lives on forever, and you need fi can siddun in yu rocking chair if yu old, if yu live till  yu old to enjoy that work that you do when yu young.”

While this legend of legends is not about to draw for his rocking chair anytime soon, he’s already began to reap the sweets of his youth. It’s the talk of family that seems to bring the tingle in the herbalist’s eyes. A father of 7 children (1 died tragically), Jack Scorpio is proud to say that each of them are holding their heads up. A man who clearly takes life on the easy, Scorpio resides with his second wife, the mother of all his children.