Kingston 1970s overview

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Kingston’s emergence as a significant music centre can be attributed to two factors. The first is geographic: Jamaica was close enough to the United States to be strongly influenced by its music—New Orleans, Louisiana, radio stations could be heard in Kingston, and sailors regularly returned to Jamaica with rhythm-and-blues records that were made in the United States—but far enough away to avoid being simply absorbed by it. The second is political: because the U.S. government sought to isolate Cuba, Kingston replaced Havana as the music capital of the Caribbean region. Jamaica’s distinctly lopsided rhythms (part New Orleans, part local traditional ...(100 of 349 words)