TONY CHIN

Reggae Veteran Musician from Jamaica

With a music career spanning over 40 years, Tony Chin is a true founding father of reggae music. Born in Kingston and raised in Trenchtown and Greenwich Farm, Tony’s career started in the rocksteady era and progressed into reggae in the 1970s as an original member of Soul Syndicate Band, the prime studio and stage band in the Golden Era of reggae. It is hard to imagine a chart-topping song that Tony Chin didn’t perform on or a producer or artist that didn’t have Tony Chin on board for musical creation and support. Tony worked for producers including Bunny Lee, Niney the Observer, Lee Scratch Perry, Joe Gibbs, Duke Reid, JoJo from Channel One, Randy’s Records, Miss Sonia Pottinger, and others creating music for Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, The Wailers, Big Youth, Gregory Issacs, Johnny Clarke, Don Carlos, Ken Boothe, Max Romeo, the Melodians, the Mighty Diamonds, Freddie McGregor, Judy Mowatt, and countless others.

Rooted in Kingston 13, Tony Chin alongside George Fully Fullwood, Earl Chinna Smith, and Carlton Santa Davis, known as the Soul Syndicate Band, has created some of the legendary and classic sounds of reggae music that still gets recycled today. One of the most noted is Stalag 17, written by Ansell Collins, and now more commonly referred to as the Bam Bam riddim due to the crossover success of Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam. Also, many people don’t know that Soul Syndicate is the originator of the Taxi Riddim.

Tony Chin was prominent in creating the sound that defined roots reggae and his legacy includes the fact that it was he who developed the ‘flyers” rhythm guitar style that became such a craze in reggae with classic songs such as Dennis Brown’s Cassandra and West Bound Train and Johnny Clarke’s Move Out of Babylon featuring Tony’s work.

Tony Chin has been blessed to travel the world over the years playing reggae music and backing artists such as U Roy, Jimmy Cliff, Big Youth, the Mighty Diamonds, Michael Rose, Andrew Tosh, Mikey Dread, Peter Rowan, and many others. In 1993, Tony joined the California-based reggae band Big Mountain giving the band the authentic reggae sound that made the band strong for many years to come. While helping with some of the musical arrangements, most notably the Billboard chart-topper Baby I Love Your Way, a Peter Frampton remake, and writing and working on several Big Mountain albums proved successful for Tony. Tony continues to keep busy recording and performing with Fully and Santa on various projects and collaborations with artists such as Sshh and Zak Starkey.

Tony’s love and passion for reggae music have not diminished at all over the years, and Tony continues to write songs and work in his studio on a regular basis.

In the last year, Tony has released 3 albums, “Unstoppable”, “Jamaican Classics Two” and his latest “All About Love”, as well as 3 singles. Obviously, Tony Chin is not slowing down and will be a force to be reckoned with for hopefully many years to come. Continues...on page 10

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Red Ink Magazine had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Jamaica’s Reggae Veteran Tony Chin, this is what this amazing, incredibly talented mucisian had to tell us.

REDINK: Who or what influenced you to get into the music business and when did it all happen?

TC: From the early 60's when I was a youth going to school, we used to listen to the radio a lot and the radio played a lot of foreign music such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Ben E King, The Drifters, Sam Cooke, Motown and nuff more. We were influenced by a lot of those artists, until rocksteady came around and we started listening to the Melodians, The Paragons, Delroy Wilson, Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis, The Heptones, The Gaylads, Slim Smith and nuff more. One of my favorite time periods of music, and shortly after I started to play the guitar and write my own songs and things took off from there. One day my father brought home an old acoustic guitar that only had 2 strings on that he bought from a drunken mon and my best friend Morris Gregory taught me how to play and we sang on the street corner and tings. Nice times!

REDINK: Making music with the great Bob Marley, how was that experience and did it have any impact on you?

TC: The first time we met Bob Marley. my band Soul Syndicate was doing a lot of sessions in the studios around 1970-1971, and Lee Scratch Perry hired us for a session at Randy's Studio. Now we did not know what artist we were to back until we reached there. When we got to the studio, the Wailers were there and we recorded two tracks Mr. Brown and the Sun Is Shining that day which were released on the Upsetters Label. At that time, Bob Marley was not the big international star he became but was big in Jamaica still. Soul Syndicate started to do some shows with the Wailers around Kingston in theatres and clubs and remained in contact over the years with my last time seeing him was in France in 1980 when I was on tour with U Roy and I went and visited him in his hotel room. He was one of my greatest inspirations and influence in songwriting and his songs remain as relevant today as when he wrote them.

REDINK: Being a veteran in the music business, tell us your opinion on music when you started to what it is today.

TC: We (Soul Syndicate) used to do nuff sessions for all these different producers with Bunny Lee being the first producer who carried us into the studio and we enjoyed that golden age of reggae when all the musicians were in the studio at the same time creating the music and magic happened! Sometimes we went into the studio at 10:00 in the morning and recorded all night till the next morning with various artists passing thru. For example, we did a few tracks at Channel One for a producer named Winston Riley and one of the tracks was an instrumental written by Ansel Collins named Stalag and then years down the line the producer put Sister Nancy on the track for her biggest hit Bam Bam. The musicians for this session was Santa on drums, Fully on bass, Ansel on keyboards and Chinna Smith on lead guitar and me on Riddim guitar. Bobby Ellis on trumpet, and Tommy McCook on sax. Those were great times as the musicians created the music altogether, but now things have changed and modern technology has taken away some of that creativity and spontaneity of everyone vibing off each other together in the studio with current trend of everyone working in their individual studios and sharing files although this is convenient and efficient.

REDINK: What advice would you give to someone, entering the music business now.

TC: 4. For reggae music, you must love the music and play from the heart! Learn the history and origins of the music and be respectful of the roots. The business has a lot of ups and downs so don't go into it just for money and always stay humble, practice and learn your craft and the business part as well as there are nuff wolves in sheep's clothing out there!

REDINK: Over the years you have collaborated with many well-known artists, is their someone you would like to work with that you haven't yet?

TC: 5. I have been blessed to work with most of the great veterans in Jamaican reggae as well as some nonJamaicans such as Ringo Starr and his son Zak Starkey as far as future collaborations I and I am always open and admire many of the young reggae artists such as Chronixx and Protoje.

REDINK: Tell us about your new album "Karma".

TC: 6. Karma is my 8th solo album and I am very proud of it. Every track is an original except Track 2Right Track written by Hopeton Lewis.. Most of the tracks focus on the evil-doers all over the world doing wrong such as Track 12 War Games which is about

Putin starting the war in Ukraine and Track 3 Babylon Pressure which focus on police brutality. racism and the Black Lives Matter movement. Track 9 entitled World Crisis about the pandemic the world just went thru and other songs with social justice themes. This is why I entitled the album Karma as the bad things they do will come back and bite them. Track One Ring a Ling is a more upbeat party song about the dance hall sound systems back in the days and Track 6-Lonely Road is a song I started writing when I was 16-17 that is more of a romantic, fantasy song.

REDINK: What can we expect next from you?

TC: I am always writing new songs and will be writing about current events and inspiration I feel. I will continue to back up artists and will be playing on various shows and festivals coming up. Music is my life and music and me will always be! I am proud of my Jamaican culture and music and will love and support it always.

This concludes our interview with Mr. Tony Chin. What an honor to get to know this amazing, super talented musician who’s been in the music business for decades. Much love and respect u