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Natural-Ites were created in late 1982 in Nottingham, England and their music became known across the length and breadth of the reggae family for its warmth and freshness throughout the Eighties.
Jay
Editor
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| Percy McLeod (left) and Ossie Samms were the driving force behind the Natural-Ites since the beginning. |
| Natural-ites |
Their first album, Picture on the Wall, was released to great critical acclaim in 1985. Lead vocals were shared between Ossie Samms, Percy McLeod and Neil Foster, with an array of musicians, known as The Realistics, providing the rhythm and horn sections on the album. However, it was Ossie Samms (now known as Ossie Gad) who penned their debut single, Picture on the Wall, that propelled the band into the spotlight. Airplay on BBC Radio 1 in particular widened the band's appeal and fan-base, and live sessions for top DJ's John Peel and Janice Long, combined with appearances on television including Channel 4's The Tube, alongwith regular gigs around the country, helped the record enter the mainstream British singles chart, no mean feat for an independent reggae outfit.
The Picture album, released on the CSA label and produced by Johnny White, proved to be a major springboard for the group. Samms, McLeod (who also played rhythm guitar) and Foster shared the writing and lead vocal duties and were backed by band regulars Lenroy Guiste (bass), Paul Prince (lead guitar), Marcus Hodges and Winnie Williams (keyboards), Alton Rickets and Chester Marzink (drums), Albert 'Eitiko' Barnes (trumpet) and Hugh Duffus (sax), amongst others. Recording took place in London and Nottingham, their home town, with mixing at the Aquarius Studios in Jamaica. The band's second single, Lion Inna Jungle, quickly followed their initial successful release and like Picture, became a roots classic amongst reggae followers worldwide. Again, it was Samms who wrote and sang vocals on the single.
Within a year, a third single, Lately, was making an even bigger impact and remained at the number one spot in the UK Reggae charts for six weeks. Samms, a devout rastafarian, was again responsible for the song, which formed the backbone of their second album, Marvellous, released in 1987. By this time, Neil Foster had departed leaving Samms and McLeod as the main pairing, alongwith the same Realistics core of Guiste, Prince, Hodges, Williams, Barnes and Duffus with Dennis Cole now on drums and Wil Fearon (percussion). The Marcus Garvey Studio in Nottingham was home to the recording, again under the control of producer Johnny White, with the album released on the Realistics Record label. Another single, Cry For You was released and followed up by a Temptations cover version, I Wish It Would Rain.
The band's third and final album, Naturalites in Ites, was released in 1989. However, it failed to make the same impact as their previous releases and marked the beginning of the end for Nottingham's finest. McLeod and Samms continued to share the writing and singing duties with familiar back-up from Guiste, Prince, Barnes, Duffus and Fearon, joined by Chris Whitely, Winston Squires and the return of Chester Marzink. Within a year the band's members had gone their separate ways and the British and worldwide reggae fraternity had lost one of its finest exponents.
GIG NEWS : The Natural-Ites returned to these shores fresh from an appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July 2001, from a trip to Hawaii to promote their new release 'Year to Year' and following a successful appearance at the Nottingham carnival, to appear at La Mustiques Nightclub in Aston, Birmingham on 15 September. Joining Ossie Gad on stage was his original partner Percy McLeod, Marcus Hodges on keyboards and Dub Judah on bass .
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