Joseph Cotton

Born as Silbert Walton in 1957 in St. Ann, Jamaica, West Indies, he served a year in the Jamaican Police Force ahead of his music career, cutting his first sides as Jah Walton for Joe Gibbs in 1976. By the following year he laid down several tracks at Harry Mudie’s studio, among them the popular combination hit with Prince Heron titled ‘Stay A Yard And Praise God’, plus ‘Touch Her Where She Want It Most’ and the hilarious ‘Married To A Bank Cashier’. Sonia Pottinger enlisted him to voice a rehashed version of the Techniques’ ‘It’s Raining’, issued in disco-mix format. In 1982 he delivered the dancehall stepper ‘All Kinda People Come To The Dance’ and the Nicodemus-influenced ‘Senator Dee’, moves that boosted his standing and secured a Channel One session for the equally popular ‘River To The Bank’.

Mid-decade he adopted the name Joseph Cotton, a switch that brought commercial breakthrough when Fashion Records released the chart-topping ‘No Touch The Style’ in the UK, featuring uncredited vocals by Janet Lee Davis; its B-side was the celebratory instrumental ‘Cotton Comes To Harlesdon’, a playful nod to the 1970 blaxploitation film starring Godfrey Cambridge. That single earned him a rare UK television slot in 1987 on Channel 4’s Club Mix, where he performed live before an exuberant audience, and it opened the door to further successes such as ‘Things Running Slow’, ‘Pat Ha Fe Cook’, ‘Tutoring’, ‘Judge Cotton’ and the Janet Lee Davis collaboration (credited to her alter ego Shako Lee) ‘What Is This’.

Late in the decade Cotton partnered with veteran producer Glen Brown, whose own revival had arrived via the instrumental set Glen Brown Plays Music From The East. Entering the early nineties he teamed with fellow expatriate Errol Dunkley for their reading of Ken Boothe’s ‘The Train Is Coming’, retitled ‘Bad Boy Train’. A surprise guest spot at Dunkley’s concert at London’s Vauxhall venue The Podium produced several false starts, an onstage practice borrowed from the dancehall cry “haul and pull” that signals audience approval. In 1995 he issued ‘Smile Orange’, titled after the classic Jamaican film, and followed it in 1996 with the equally popular ‘You Sexy Thing’. He also cut the hit combination ‘Warm And Tender Love’/‘Rastaman’ with Sylvia Tella. Returning to the Jah Walton moniker, he joined Dennis Alcapone at the 1997 Essential Festival Weekender, reviving the raw energy of classic dancehall.