John Brown's Body (band) - History

History

• 1996

JBB released All Time on their own I-Town Records label. The record made Rolling Stone Magazine’s “Top 10 Indie Records List”.

• 1997–2004

JBB signed with the venerable reggae label, Shanachie, and released three albums -- Among Them (1998), This Day (2000), and Spirits All Around Us (2003). The Boston Herald called them "one of the world's best roots-style reggae bands" after the release of This Day. The positive reviews led to an appearance at the Bob Marley Day Festival in Miami, FL., alongside Lauryn Hill and others. After their release of Spirits All Around Us, the band had cemented themselves as a force on the national scene. With appearances at Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, Reggae on the Rocks, and Wakarusa, they earned a reputation for high energy, air-tight live shows.

• 2005

JBB signs with the hip New York City record label Easy Star and releases their fifth studio album Pressure Points. This record marked a crucial point in the sonic development of JBB, evolving completely from a more traditional roots approach, to a cutting edge twist on reggae and dub they called "future roots". Pressure Points was critically acclaimed and the Village Voice review called JBB "reverent as well as revolutionary" while Popmatters described the record as “their strongest, most consistent effort to date.”

While Elliot Martin had only contributed a few songs to the previous albums, the balance had shifted on Pressure Points Elliot wrote 8 of the 11 songs on that album while Kevin Kinsella wrote 3.

• 2006

Tragedy and change struck the band with the sudden passing of bassist Scott Palmer from cancer.

Lead vocalist Elliot Martin and drummer/co-founder Tommy Benedetti decided to soldier on with a new energy and more focused musical attack.

The band recruited local Boston bassist Nate Edgar to replace Scott; he had been a fan since seeing Scott playing years earlier with DJ Logic’s Project Logic.

Shortly after Palmer’s death, John Brown's Body underwent some dramatic line-up changes with the departure of Kevin Kinsella (Vocals and Rhythm Guitar) who formally left the band on good terms, along with organist/guitarist Nate “Silas” Richardson who stepped out to spend more time with his newborn son. JBB turned to its past to replace him: they tapped guitarist Mike Keenan, who had been a member of the Tribulations, the pre-cursor to JBB in the early ‘90s, that featured Kevin, Elliot and drummer Tommy Benedetti. JBB continued to tour and played to extremely enthusiastic audiences over the course of the month. By the end of the journey, they had also lost their horn section Dan Delacruz and Chris "C-Money" Welter who joined punk-reggae band Slightly Stoopid.

According to the official web site: Tommy, the only other original member left at this time, says “when Scotty passed away, that was a breaking point for people who may have been considering leaving. With something as heartbreaking as that, there was an obvious bookend in this band’s career, so it made sense for some folks to take the opportunity to leave (according to a 2008 interview).

One of those people was Kevin Kinsella. Kevin had been talking about leaving the band a few times before that, but never took the final step. “With Scott’s death, I think he wanted to close the chapter on this band he had started and tie it all up neatly,” Elliot says. “He wanted JBB as an entity to cease. The only problem was that Tommy and I were really enjoying playing with the new guys and still felt like there was a lot we wanted to accomplish.” Even though things seemed to be falling apart around them, Elliot and Tommy both felt a powerful new energy playing with Nate, Mike and freshly recruited organist Matthew “Kofi” Goodwin.

Kevin’s departure actually freed Elliot to lead the band in new musical directions. For years, there had been a creative rift between the two primary songwriters and childhood friends. Kevin’s songs tended towards religious themes and roots reggae sounds, more in line with the group’s beginnings. Elliot’s writing emphasized futuristic and atypical rhythms, as well as dense metaphorical imagery. “I used to think that having two songwriters and vocalists was a strength that made us unique, but it probably confused a lot of people. Now our sound is more cohesive,” says Tommy. “We feel comfortable with one another and you can hear it in the music we’re creating.”

During the tense last months with Kevin, Elliot decided to make an attempt to bridge the gap between him and his old friend, writing three rootsier tracks (“Give Yourself Over,” “Speak Of The Devil,” and “Be At Peace”). When Kevin quit, Elliot found himself with three anchors for the next album, and for the first time, much less pressure to make everything fit within a perceived JBB sound. Feeling unrestrained, Elliot next wrote “The Gold,” a more up-tempo drum & bass-inflected tune featuring a guitar line reminiscent of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti western soundtrack, and “Make Your Move,” which takes the group closer towards hip hop. The title track was actually one of the oldest musical ideas to come to fruition on the record. Elliot says, “The seeds for that one are five years old. It was originally a hip hop beat, like a Funkadelic song. The bass line was the same, but much more slinky. I didn’t know what it would become, but I knew it should be the lead for this record.”

• 2007

The band steps in the studio to work on their sixth record at More Sound a recording studio owned by their live sound engineer Jason “Jocko” Randall in Syracuse, NY.

During that time the last of the big life changing events of the past few years involved Elliot’s voice and threatened the band’s ability to soldier on once more. Elliot began to notice problems with his vocal strength and endurance; after months of doctor’s visits and vocal training, the problem was finally revealed to be vocal polyps.

• 2008

Elliot Martin had surgery in early 2008 to remove polyps on his vocal cords and he also began voice training to teach him to put less strain on his throat. According to the band's official website: “I feel better every day. Each show back after surgery, I could feel myself getting stronger. Now I think I’m doing things I couldn’t even do before,” Elliot says. “Add that to the energy of the new line-up and this new batch of songs."

The band released Amplify on New York City label Easy Star Records. Amplify debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Reggae charts. #10 on CMJ's World Music Chart, and made the “iTunes best of 2008″ list for reggae records.

JBB toured across the entire USA for the first time in nearly 2 years.

All Music Guide writes: “Elliot Martin has taken firmer control of the group, and it is now a completely different organism: although the John Brown's Body sound is still distinctly reggae-ish, it's denser, swirlier, sometimes downright funky, and loaded with more powerful melodic hooks.”

• 2009

JBB released their first remix EP Re-Amplify (Easy Star) hit the stores, also debuting in the Billboard Reggae top 10. Re-Amplify featured remixes by artists from around the world including Dubmatix (Toronto), WrongTom (London) and their friend Disashi Lumumba Kasongo from Gym Class Heroes (US).

After a few different incarnations, the horn section is cemented, featuring trombonist Scott Flynn, Drew Sayers on saxophone and Sam Dechenne on trumpet.

2009 brought the band to the United Kingdom for 16 shows with label mates Easy Star All-Stars, and 11 shows in New Zealand with The Black Seeds, also Easy Star labelmates. The tour leads to a musical brotherhood with The Black Seeds and they will perform together at the 2010 Grassroots Music Festival in Ithaca, NY.

In December 2009 JBB covered “Bankrobber” by The Clash for a charity record named “Shatter The Hotel: The Songs of Joe Strummer in Dub”. All proceeds from the record went to benefit Strummerville,: The Joe Strummer Foundation for new music.

• 2010

JBB performed on Jam Cruise off the coast of Jamaica and Grand Cayman Island.

In April and May 2010 the group is performing their first tours of France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Canada at festivals and headlining clubs.