The Blackstones

The Blackstones formed as a UK vocal trio built around Leon Leiffer and his brothers Byron and Neville. They began performing in the mid-70s and issued their first single, ‘We Nah Go Suffer’, on Daddy Kool; the track reached the top of the reggae charts and opened the door to recording sessions with producer Phil Pratt. Those rhythms were laid down at Channel One before the master tapes travelled to Britain, where the singers overdubbed their vocals at Chalk Farm studios ahead of a final Jamaican remix. The material eventually surfaced as the album Insight, which drew widespread praise upon release.

Drawing inspiration from Bob Marley, the group issued ‘Punk Rockers’ in 1978 on Phil Pratt’s Channan Jah imprint, an attempt to fuse reggae with punk that never achieved the impact of the reggae superstar’s own work. They continued to deliver strong sides, among them the well-received ‘Sweet Feeling’. By 1983 the line-up had shifted to Leiffer, Tony Douglas (brother of Keith Douglas) and Ken Kendricks. Under this configuration they topped the reggae album chart with Take Another Look At Love, whose title was taken from their own number-one single.

Throughout the mid-80s the trio maintained a strong presence on the charts with ‘Aint She Looking Fine’, ‘Created By One’, ‘Jealousy’, ‘Revolution Time’, ‘Fighting To The Top’ and Leon’s solo outing ‘Rockers Medley’. That run of success was interrupted in 1985 by the release of the disco-oriented ‘Nothing You Can Do About Love’, a collaboration widely viewed as ill-conceived. Credited as the Blackstones featuring Lance Ellington, the project received major-label support yet still failed to cross over. The group nevertheless sustained a thriving career inside the reggae circuit and remained especially popular in Jamaica.