Lawrence, KS. Anthony "Billy Mystic" Wilmot shuffles
through his tour bag looking for a clean shirt to wear. He's sitting
on a bench in the dressing room of Liberty Hall after a night
onstage with the Mystic Revealers. A fan has just complimented
him on the Revealer's success in the underground roots reggae
scene.
Mystic pauses for a moment, peers up over the top of his dread
sunglasses and then launches into a impassioned reply: "We
don't want to break through the underground. Because once you
come in from the underground, you faced with a whole struggle.
People try to keep you underground. We don't even want to be presented
at that level. This is Mystic Revealers! This is not from Jamaica
or reggae music. We want to be promoted as Mystic Revealers who
have these songs that you hear and love. Because trying to come
up through the underground is like you have the system against
you from the minute you admit you are underground. Jah music!
A lotta sunlight and sky and stars -- it cyan be underground!"
Despite Billy Mystic's preference for mainstream international
success free of the prejudicial attachments he sees associated
with being labeled a 'reggae band,' the small crowd that saw the
group at Liberty Hall was definitely what could be described as
a cult following. It consisted of hardcore roots fans who have
been disenchanted in recent years by the raced-up rhythms and
fast chatting deejays talking about guns and sex, all under the
banner of reggae music.
While the roots consciousness of the 70s is the cornerstone of
the Revealers' work, the band has expanded its sound far beyond
the traditional roots grooves of the same period. The Revealers
music could be arguably be described as 'academic' because of
Wilmot's intelligent lyrics and unusually scientific outlook;
'Rastafarian' because of the spiritual content; and 'pop' because
of a distinct sensitivity to hooks, tight production, and a tendency
for ballad-like songs. "Is a more international flavor of
roots," Wilmot explains. "It blasts away all barriers
and all boundaries and cuts through all chains. A man in India
can hear it, and a man in London can hear it, and a man in Hawaii
can hear it. And when him hear it, is just a music that him love,
and him say, 'This is good, and I like it.' That's where we want
the music fe go.
"If a person (has an) open mind and seeking knowledge, they
must get gratification out of our music. Our music is saying it
plain, straightforward. You can pick up our record sleeve and
read the lyrics of the songs, and when you read it, you don't
even need the music. You can read the lyrics and get something
out of it. And then when you listen to how the music blend around
those lyrics and how those lyrics fit within that musical accompaniment,
then you see a beauty out of that. Is a music lovers' music. We
never wanted to create a time thing. Is a timeless thing. A song
that can play whenever. It wasn't made within the concept of a
specific date -- is in space and time, it universal."
The group's name, Wilmot explains, comes from common Jamaican
concepts. "We all know that music is mystic, in the form
that it call cross all kind of boundaries and barriers. Language
don't have anything to do with it. We see the music as a mystic
vehicle that can take our (message) right round the world, (and)
we are in a revelation time right now."
The chemistry that produced the sound that currently defines the
Mystic Revealers began when Wilmot was a youth in Bull Bay, Jamaica.
Wilmot's passion for reggae was fueled by listening to popular
singers such as Barry Brown, Sugar Minott, Barrington Levy, Freddie
McGreggor and inspirational trips to the first editions of Reggae
Sunsplash.
Wolmot remembers the circumstances that brought the original Mystic
Revealers line-up together. "As a Rasta youth, this was '78,
I figure say, man must know how fe till the soil, and man should
know how fe navigate the Ocean. There are certain basic knowledge
where I feel say, every man should have. So I pursue a three year
diploma course in agriculture at Jamaica School of Agriculture
(at St. Catherine).
"(I was in) a school band. The school band used to play regularly.
And we used to do tours around the Island. It was a time when
we just together as hobbyists. Playing at the school and deal
with the band, I realizin how it sound to perform with a band.
And realize that ya haffe have a band really to get out the musical
idea what you have inside. You might even listen to a record and
say, 'bwai, the record sound nice, but if it was me I wouldn't
have played the bass line this way, or I wouldn't do this.' So
your working within the arrangement of the music.
"In '81 me start working. The first thing me do is go buy
a guitar. We go around and try and find some producer that will
produce a song that we write. Nobody never interested, and Tuff
Gong them no interested, but all over. Is like the dancehall thing
take over. It was as if we were left behind then. Them want something
with a gimmick."
The 1980s presented the roughest challenge to the Mystic Revealers,
as the musical climate did not in any way favor the kind of ideas
that the group wanted to present. The young band did have one
asset on its side, perseverance. "Is just a matter of paying
your dues and sticking it out and being there after the dust settles.
It pay off in the long run in that people recognize us as foundation.
We held it through the time when nothing was happening. And gave
those fans who love that type of music something fe hold on to
through the period of drought."
The band got a break in 1988 and landed a spot at International
Night at Sunsplash. The Revealers would play Sunsplash every year
thereafter until this past summer. In 1990, the group's manager
Julius Chin-Yee, financed a demo album which ended up being Young
Revolutionaries -- the first album. "We were hoping to get
a deal. We weren't really satisfied at the time, because we knew
it was demo album."
Young Revolutionaries was released by Gong Sounds in Miami and
distributed by RAS, who took a liking to the band and agreed to
release another album, Jah Works, in 1993. Jah Works hit with
the single "Religion," featuring a rap by D.J. Sojah,
and tours supporting the album gave the band its first international
exposure.
Wolmot respects the efforts of deejays like Sojah and others who
have fought slackness in the dance. "The dancehall thing
a gwan a yard come back round to consciousness. And is now like
all of a sudden them start realizing, Mystic Revealers! So now
we are a mature tree now. We are not like just a lickle thing
growing like this where you can just look pon it step pon it.You
haffe walk round it now. Cause it get big. Stand up in the wind.
So you haffe notice it now say, bwai, Mystic Revealers! So the
level there now where we reach where the people in the industry
respect what we do. And come say, yea, we pay our dues, and we
is not the greatest, but we on the rise and we haffe make it.
You understand we have respect of all aspect of the music industry
in Jamaica right now."
Space and Time was recorded in the winter of 1994 and released
in the summer of 1995. The album has spawned two singles on the
band's Kariang label in Jamaica, "Dem Problem" and "January
to December."
Wilmot says the band wants to wait until Space and Time has had
a chance to be fully exposed before putting out another album.
"This album to me was such an effort. I feel so good about
it that I'd like to see what (it) can do. I don't want to put
out another album to compete with it right now. It (has) so much
material in it of such a quality to us that me want it fe get
clear round. Promote it fe the disc jockey's play it, because
is the type of album where you play it, (and) you like more and
more of the songs. They grow on you, and they grow on you. After
while you find that this song was your favorite one when you just
heard it, but you like this one, and then by the next month you
say, 'Bwai, this one a me favorite one now.' Is not an album where
there's is just one song on it you like, and then you put it down."
Even though the Revealers are breaking out of Jamaica, Wilmot
has a serious concern for the future of music on the island where
it concerns live musicians and bands. The computer revolution
that swept the Jamaican music industry after Jammy's hit with
"Sleng Teng" in 1985 caused a move away from live musicians.
Wilmot says it's virtually impossible for young players to get
started anymore. "For them kid out in the country who is
musically inclined, if he thinks he can play a guitar what is
the sense for him to spend two, three, four years learning to
become skilled on his guitar, when the only option for him as
a guitarist is to play in a hotel band or be in a backing band,
backing twenty-five different deejay on three riddim for the night?
Is much easier for him to come down to the dancehall and pick
up the mike and start toasting. Is a quicker avenue."
The apparent disincentive to learn an instrument has compounded
the problem of fewer and fewer original bands coming off the island,
he says. "There is no door for bands (to) go through, if
you're going to play your own original music as a band. Is only
so many showcases you gonna have. If you don't stay together long
enough as a band long enough to put out enough material (to) get
you that recognition, (then) you go on a stage and play one song
of yours and 8 or 10 cover songs.
"Going out in front of that audience and playing cover songs
is not building yourself up. It cheating the whole outlook of
the band. If you do a cover song, you must do one, and you must
do it so well and with such an amount of styling and arrangement
that people take it as a showpiece. It difficult for a group fe
really go through and do that."
Moreover, Wilmot says that a young band without a certain amount
of catalog work will be stuck in Jamaica. "We were just lucky
to be at the level where we can tour. In order to get a work permit
to come the U.S., you have to fill certain amount of regulations.
They have to figure that nobody here (in the States) can provide
(the) service that we provide. We're not putting any American
musicians out of work by coming here. We have to be well enough
recognized. We have to get a letter from the American Federation
of Musicians saying that they know about us. If you don't have
a letter, you can't get a work permit."
Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles to success, Wilmot
is eager to give advice to a young singer who approaches him backstage
in Lawrence. "The only way to make it is to find a way to
overcome. Because the minute you give in to the obstacle, you
stop make it. So when something tough, don't give up. Just see
it as another step. Once you overcome that you get to a higher
level because you have been tested and you have found a way around
it. If it took you a day, two days, a week, a month, a year, ten
years, as long as you don't stop, then you always come closer
to your goals. So the main thing is just weigh the opportunities,
decide your priorities, establish a long term goal. Once you have
a long term goal, you can move towards it. Once you do that, and
don't give up, then you will reach."
When asked what the most important thing listeners can take with
them from the Mystic Revealers, Wilmot doesn't hesitate to answer.
"Take us serious. We're not just playing music just for fun,
because we think it's necessary to say certain things. After while,
when you speak, the words pass like a wind and are forgotten or
lost. But when you make a record, they are recorded, and people
hold them from generation to generation. And they will be there
long after you pass away. The words will be there and will be
able to be called upon again and again if those words are of any
value. I hope that we (can be) conscious of what we are saying,
so that we can stand up and defend it even ten, twenty years --
fifty years from now. We haffe know that we said the right thing,
and we can still stand by it. Hopefully that is what the people
will feel in our music."
The author wishes to thank Brother K, Sista G from KKFI in
Kansas City, and Ras Mike in Lawrence for making this interview
possible.
Copyright 1995 Carter Van Pelt
Originally published here
also to appear sin The Beat Volume 15 Number 3