History
The members of Aswad are UK descendants of immigrants from the Caribbean. They attended Holland Park School.
The original members of Aswad were Brinsley Forde, Angus "Drummie Zeb" Gaye, Donald Griffiths, George Oban, and Courtney Hemmings.Aswad were the backing band of Burning Spear's 1977 Live album, recorded at the Rainbow Theatre in London. Other contributors included Vin Gordon, and Karl Pitterson.
They became one of the UK's top reggae bands in the 1980s, following the departures of Hemmings (in 1976), Oban and Griffiths (both in 1980), and the arrival of Tony "Gad" Robinson (as a replacement for Oban). They were distinctly different from Jamaican reggae acts, in that they wrote songs that dealt with the issues surrounding the experiences of black youths growing-up in the UK; such as "Three Babylon" and "It's Not Our Wish", and the powerful jazz-influenced instrumental "Warrior Charge".
Aswad gained a wider audience with the New Chapter album (1981). "Love Fire" gained wide recognition when it was used as the backing rhythm for Dennis Brown's "Promised Land".
Among Aswad's catalogue of hits is "Don't Turn Around", a UK no.1 pop hit in 1988, originally recorded by Tina Turner as a B-side to her "Typical Male" single. They followed this up with UK #11 hit "Give A Little Love", and a reggae flavoured rendition of "Best of My Love", first popularized and written by The Eagles. In 1989, they contributed the single, "Set Them Free" to the Greenpeace Rainbow Warriors album. In the same year they performed together with Sir Cliff Richard the song "Share A Dream" recorded the previous year, at Wembley Stadium as part of The Event (16 and 17 June 1989). Their next hit, "Shine", was released in 1994. Another track was the upbeat 1998 remake of The Police's "Invisible Sun", performed with Sting.
The band also hold the distinction of having played with each one of the ex-Wailers.
The band has toured extensively, playing in diverse locations from London's Royal Albert Hall and Montego Bay's Reggae Sunsplash, to gigs in West Africa, Israel and Japan..
Brinsley Forde left Aswad in 2008.
Aswad released their most recent material in 2009, with the album City Lock. They released singles "What Is Love?" and "Do That Thing" in the same year.
Read more about this topic: Aswad (band)
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“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)