Ken Boothe at Club Quattro, August 13th 2018

Reggae singing and crooning seem to be worlds apart. Crooning is associated with vibrato, slight variations of pitch used to accentuate phrases. While reggae relies more on tremolo, volume alterations. Putting technical aspects aside, the lone man backed by a full orchestra and the one with a roots four piece behind him don’t seem to have many things in common. But music is not an exact science. If Sid Vicious covered Sinatra and Johnny Cash covered Marley with excellent results (especially Cash), anything is game.

I always thought that Ken Boothe embodied both worlds. I’ve seen pictures of him performing wearing a tuxedo and, as far as I know, the man never sported dreads. His songs, for the most part are about falling in and out of love. His biggest hit is a cover of the soft rock band Bread and he sings with a bravado not quite common in reggae  But make no mistake, Boothe is no softie, he’s a roots man to the core and once again proved it at the Tokyo stop of his tour.

Like the crooner traveling solo, Boothe was backed on this tour by the Japanese ska band Cool Wise Man. The seven piece group, that included a full horn section, did an awesome job arranging Boothe’s major hits from all of his eras. From the earliest rocksteady staples to the most recent Journey, from his eponymous 2013 album.

After a selector opening set by Pirate’s Choice and Mighty Crown’s Codie that included really cool nuggets such as Prince Buster’s Message to the Black Man, Boothe kicked off the show with a blistering This is Rock Steady. A relentless display of energy followed, with a full house in awe with this man, already in his seventies, commanding the stage like a champ. Tunes from the rocksteady transition that went on between ska and roots reggae, like Moving Away, Train is Coming, Puppet on a String and Artibella were included in the setlist along with the more militants Black, Gold and Green and Is It Because I’m Black?

When it comes to crooning mood, it doesn’t get better than Nino Rota’s Godfather theme. Titled Speak Softly Love in Ken Boothe’s version, the song is a guaranteed showstopper and it was performed as such at this Tokyo show. It’s difficult to be cynical about tunes like Everything I Own, there are not many like them. With the same ambiguity of Prince’s I Would Die 4 U, that’s both a love and a religious song, Everything I Own is either dedicated to a lover or a parent. It was the perfect closer to a set that was an array of hits after hits. 

He came back for an encore to perform Freedom Street. “We gonna walk, walk, walk, walk down freedom street” chanted along most of the audience at the venue, putting a close to a show that was a family affair. At one point Mr. Boothe introduced his wife that joined him on stage for a bow. Family members were on the wings grooving to the music and capturing the show with their phones, embodying the sentiment of Everything I Own, ratifying that crooning can belong in reggae and reggae can belong in crooning.

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