Fred Locks

Born Stafford Elliot around 1955 in Kingston, Jamaica, Locks first entered the studio as part of the Lyrics. The group cut “A Get It,” “Girls Like Dirt,” and “Hear What The Old Man Say” for Coxsone Dodd toward the end of the 1960s, followed by “Give Praises” at Randy’s and the independently financed “Sing A Long,” both issued in 1971. After the Lyrics dissolved, disillusioned by scant earnings typical of the local industry, Locks embraced the expanding Rastafarian movement among Kingston’s inner-city youth and withdrew to a simple life on the sands of Harbour View. There his locks grew exceptionally long, inspiring his adopted name, while he kept composing, among them the forward-looking Garveyite anthem “Black Star Liners,” which producer Hugh Boothe eventually convinced him to record.

Issued in 1975 on Jamaica’s Jahmikmusic imprint and Britain’s Grounation label, the single resonated powerfully with the rising wave of Rastafarian listeners across both territories, quickly elevating Locks to cult-hero standing. Two years later the Vulcan subsidiary of Grounation delivered the long-promised album Black Star Liners/True Rastaman, a quintessential 1970s roots statement whose strong material included the former single “Last Days,” now retitled “Time To Change,” alongside “Wolf Wolf,” all framed by Locks’s unadorned vocals. During the same period he also sang with Eric Griffiths and Willy Stepper in the Creation Steppers, a trio issuing 45s on their own Star Of The East imprint; one of these, “Stormy Night,” later received a Channel One remake by the Rolands. The 1979 various-artists collection Love & Harmony spotlighted the title track, simultaneously available as a Jamaican 12-inch under Locks’s name, while the Steppers contributed “Kill Nebuchadnezzar.”

In 1980 Locks and the Steppers traveled to Britain for live dates and collaborated with veteran sound-system operator and producer Lloyd Coxsone, who released several sides by the group and by Locks alone, among them the archetypal steppers cuts “Homeward Bound,” “Love And Only Love,” and “Voice Of The Poor.” These and additional tracks later appeared on the album Love And Only Love. Locks relocated to the United States in 1982, settling in Philadelphia and immersing himself in the local Twelve Tribes chapter, after which new recordings became infrequent. He resurfaced in 1998 with Never Give Up on the Exterminator label, a strong conscious set voiced over Philip “Fatis” Burrell’s roots-oriented productions and featuring a fresh reading of “Black Star Liners.”