Cat No 5898732

Stanley 'Starlight' Beckford is a musical legend in his Jamaican homeland, but almost totally unknownin the wider world. Now aged 60, he was the vocalist of historic bands - including the celebrated Soul Syndicate, the Starlights, and Stanley & the Turbines; as well as the composer of major hits like "Soldering" and "Wanted Man". After some forty years in the business, he is still a popular figure, a prize-winning songwriter and television star.  He appeared at WOMEXin 2002.

He attended Kingston's All Saints High School a few years before Bob Marley, and became a regular local performer. But , with the development of 'reggae' in the late 60's, his distinctive voice, high-pitched and a little nasal, was better suited to the countryside repertoire of 'mento' than to the new town 'wailing' style, illustrated by Bob Marley and his followers.

'Mento' is a more basic, stripped-down rural predecessor to Reggae   -   similar to the relationship between Country Blues and Chicago Blues.  A kind of 'skiffle-reggae' with frequent double-entendre and touches of Trinidadian calypso, which Jamaicans would probably refute.

For the recording of "Sings Mento", Stanley's wife and daughter, Thelma Beckford and Monique Miller, provided the vocal back-up, along with the two Blue Glaze singers. Several other artists joined in: violinist Theodore Miller, himself leader of an excellent authentic mento formation, the Lititz Mento Band;  three percussionists (Sky Juice, Michael Enkrumah Henry, and Leroy Horsemouth);  plus the only reggae musician invited : the fine guitarist Mickey Chung,