I Don't Like Reggae, I Love It: The History of "Johnny Reggae"

In this  episode of I Don’t Like Reggae, I Love It, a special audio series about the historical origins and impact of reggae on popular music, I focus on the 1971 UK one hit wonder “Johnny Reggae” by The Piglets that reached #3 in the charts selling 5 million copies! “Johnny Reggae” was notable as the first hit song with a cod skinhead reggae sound to have been written and recorded by white English singers and musicians. It was an attempt to capture the energy of an early  70s, white, working-class skinhead youth subculture. The Piglets was a studio concoction created by Jonathan King who was for a time a musical chameleon who placed many  songs into the British pop charts. In September 2001, King was convicted of child sexual abuse and sentenced to seven years in prison, for having sexually assaulted five boys, aged 14 and 15, in the 1980s. In November 2001 he was acquitted of 22 similar charges. He was released on parole in March 2005. A further trial for sexual offenses against teenage boys resulted in several not guilty verdicts and the trial being abandoned in June 2018.As it turns out the story of "Johnny Reggae" has a lot of interesting cultural twists and turns. In this case, a cod reggae song cooked up in a studio in England ends up being re-appropriated by Jamaican musicians in a variety of ways.  The Johnny Reggae character sung about in the original version transitions from being a member of a white, youth sub-culture into a Jamaican rude boy (in the Roosevelt Singers cover version) and finally into a Rasta challenging the rule of Babylon (versions by Big Youth, Dr Alimantado and Prince Far-I). It’s a pretty stunning cultural transformation. If you’ve listened and received some value from this episode, then please help support the podcast for as little as $3 per month on Patreon. Supporters get access to exclusive content like special episodes of this series and advanced promo chapters from my forthcoming book Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History. Just go to patreon.com/skaboompodcast for more information.Please note: The music clips included in this podcast fall under the “Fair Use Doctrine” as defined by Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The law allows for use of music clips for purposes of criticism, comment, and news reporting.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices