Mento artists and groups

"The Ultimate Guide To Great Reggae" covers the entire history of reggae by focusing on hundreds of its greatest songs. It's the first reggae book that has extensive content on mento and puts it into proper perspective in the story of reggae. You'll love it! (mentomusic.com)

A new page has been added to desribe mento recordings orignating from outlide of Jamaica. (mentomusic.com)

"Great Expectation", the new Jolly Boys CD, is now available. And it's a chart success! Read more about it here, and then be sure to visit their new website. (mentomusic.com)

A new compilation, "Sound Man Shots" on the Complete Roots label, gives us 19 mento sides on CD -- more than half not available elsewhere -- plus more. (mentomusic.com)

Courtesy of Dan Neely, video of a June 2009 performance of Toots And The Maytals' "Sweet And Dandy" by The Blue Glaze Mento Band has been posted to the "More Resurgence CD Scans page. (mentomusic.com)

More than 50 years after its release, Capitol Records finally released Lord Flea's "Swingin' Calypsos" LP (along with its follow-up single) as bonus material on a Harry Belafonte CD called "The Early Years At Capitol Records". (mentomusic.com)

Video of five songs from a live 2003 performance by the late Stanley Beckford with The Blue Glaze Mento Band (featuring the late Vincent Price) have been added to the Stanley Beckford page. (mentomusic.com)

A new mento t-shirt is available. It features an illustration of mento musicians taken from a vintage 1950s Jamaican album jacket. (mentomusic.com)

There was jazz, calypso-jazz, mento-jazz, reggae-jazz, acoustic rural mento (small combo and big band), jazz renditions of Bob Marley music, nyabinghi drumming and more at Monty Alexander's Lords of the Caribbean show in NYC last night. (mentomusic.com)

A mento/folk video clip from 1939 (!) has been added. (mentomusic.com)

A new page for Arthur Knibbs with scans, song clips and a photo has been created. (mentomusic.com)

A new CD by former Jolly Boy Allan Swymmer has been released. (mentomusic.com)

A sixth (and probably final) CD volume of Chin's Calypso Sextet has been released by Ivan Chin. (mentomusic.com)

I am very sad to report that Stanley Beckford has lost his battle with throat cancer. (mentomusic.com)

A photo and mention of Lord Flea from a 1957 issue of Life magazine has been added. (mentomusic.com)

Scans of a 1978 single of Lord Tanamo's reggae cover of the Count Lasher/ Chin's Calypso Sextet track, China Man From Montego Bay have been added. (mentomusic.com)

A jacket scan and a description of an obscure album of 78 RPM singles called "Get Jamaican Calypsos", has been added. (mentomusic.com)

A scan and description of another golden age single has been added: "Pick Your Choice" backed with "Shepherd Rod". (mentomusic.com)

A scan of the rare 50 year old paper sleeve from a Chin's Calypso Sextet single has been added. (mentomusic.com)

www.mentomusic.com started its 4th year on the web on January 31. At 4, it's officially a big boy, with over 1 million hits. The last year was a good one for uncovering, collecting and posting information about mento music. The following new pages were added: A page for vintage and current mento-related souvenirs from Jamaica, a page the now NYC-based Carlton James and The Rod Dennis Mento Band, a page for mento pioneer Lord Fly. Many more label and jacket scans, song descriptions, sound clips, video downloads and artist photos, were added, as was information of all kinds. For example, information about the first Jamaican recording artist, Lord Fly, provided by his descendants, has been added. And the names of the band members of Chin's Calypso Sextet have been rediscovered. The past year has also seen reviews of two new mento compilation CDs, two new mento t-shirt designs for sale, the "Bob Marley and The Wailers and Mento" page becoming the basis of a well-received article in The Beat magazine's annual Bob Marley issue, and the addition of an RSS news feed. Also, by the end of the month I will have finished the less than fun project of scrubbing out all the typos from the site that have crept in as I constantly alter the text as information is uncovered.Why any of this? Because mento music is great music, and historically important, but under-documented. My hope is that reggae and ska fans will discover mento through www.mentomusic.com and enjoy it as much as I have. (mentomusic.com)

A new "I Love Mento" shirt design has been added to the Mento Shirts page. (mentomusic.com)

What do contemporary jazz great Sonny Rollins and 1950s doo wop group The Ink Spots have in common that has to do with mento? Both have covered the old mento song, "Hold 'Em Joe", as added to the cover versions listing. (mentomusic.com)

Two updates have been made to the Chin's Calypso Sextet page: First, the names of all the band members have finally been uncovered and posted. Second, pictures of this week's reunion between Ivan Chin and Alerth Bedasse have been posted. (mentomusic.com)

Some recollections about The Frats Quintet from the folk singers' last surviving member, Wilfred Warner, have been provided by his daughter and son. (mentomusic.com)

A scan and description of a good single, "Mento Sweet", by Denzil Laing, has been added to the mento-reggae section of this page. (mentomusic.com)

The first photo that I've found of Marie Bryant has been added to this page, along with a scan of her most popular single, released on red vinyl. (mentomusic.com)

The description of the Lloyd Wilks LP, "Jamaica Magic" has been expanded with more text, scans of a jacket variation and lyrics to four popular Jamaican songs: "Day-O", "Yellow Bird", "Jamaica Farewell" and "Island In The Sun". This LP features backing vocals of a Soulettes line-up that includes Rita Marley and Nora Dean. (mentomusic.com)

A hotel LP by the middle-period urban mento band, Calypso Joe, has been added to this page. (mentomusic.com)

Information has been added for anyone who would like to contribute money to Stanley Beckford's mounting medical bills. (mentomusic.com)

Pictures of a third label variation of the King Barou single "Calypso Cha Cha" / "Shame and Scandal In The Family" have been added. (mentomusic.com)

Though not of great quality, pictures of the Lord Antics and the Boys LP, "Harder Than You" have been added. (mentomusic.com)