JUDGE DREAD
THE FACTS
1. Judge Dread's real name was Alex Hughes, but he also recorded as Jason Sinclair, Jamie Kent, The Dreadnoughts, The Bumpers and Rockers Express.
2. In the Sixties, the Judge was a professional wrestler, a bad guy called The Masked Executioner. He later became heavily involved in martial arts.
3. The Judge's first involvement in the music business was as a bouncer on the doors of London clubs like the Ram Jam and The Flamingo Club. It was at the Ram Jam that he walked into a dressing room to find Tina Turner standing there stark naked.
4. He also worked as a dustman and as a minder and debt collector for record labels before becoming a recording artist in his own right.
5. During the late Sixties, Judge Dread became the first white person to run his own sound system. To keep bang up to date with the latest Jamaican releases, he regularly travelled to Sheppey in Kent to buy records off the banana boats that docked there.
6. His first record Big Six (Big Shot) was originally called Little Boy Blue and cost £8 to record. Despite an airplay ban that would last his lifetime, it entered the charts in August, 1972, stayed there for 27 weeks and reached number 11.
7. Big Six was also released in Jamaica on the Moonhop label and charted. Nobody believed it was a white man singing. When it was played at blues parties in London, nobody believed it was Alex either.
8. The NME recently said the Judge had a number of "minor hits". Presumably they were referring to Big Six, Big Seven, Big Eight, Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus), Big Ten, Christmas In Dreadland and Y Viva Suspenders - all of which reached the Top 30 when a chart place actually meant you were selling vinyl and not securing a place with hype and backhanders.
9. In 1973, Judge Dread recorded the official song for Oxfam's Ethiopian Famine Appeal. The song was a cover of Clancy Eccles' Molly, and despite being totally clean, BBC radio refused to play it. It was obviously more important to keep the Judge off the airwaves than it was to feed the starving millions. Wankers.
10. By rights, Judge Dread should have a place in the Guinness Book Of Records for having the most banned hit records, but the Guinness Book Of Records have banned him too.
11. When Trojan Records went bankrupt in 1975, the Judge was reputedly owed over a million pounds. Instead of getting it, he had to pay the liquidator for the rights to the songs he had recorded including Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus) (Horse) which was heading for the number one spot at the time. He quickly re-released it on Cactus, but it was too late and the lost sales meant it stalled at number nine.
12. The Judge’s 1976 album, Last Of The Skinheads (Cactus), included the classic Bring Back The Skins, a song he was justly proud of and called “the skinhead national anthem”. Within a few years, his dream had come true.
13. In 1979, The Judge’s then music publisher, Rob Dickens, played him a demo of a new ska band. The Judge thought it was shit. The band were Madness. He later wrote a song for them, One Eyed Lodger, but released it himself as a B side in 1981.
14. One April Fool’s Day, Snodland in Kent woke up to find it had been renamed Dreadland. All the road signs for miles around had been changed, as had every shop sign in the village.
15. If Screaming Lord Sutch’s Monster Raving Loony Party had ever been elected to govern the country, Judge Dread would have been Minster For Sex.
16. The Judge was a big football fan, spending most Saturday afternoons watching non-league football in and around Kent. Chatham Town was a regular haunt as was Margate. When asked to pick man of the match along with Arthur Kay, he picked a bloke for no other reason than he was bald. In fact the player had gone home on his motorbike before the presentation could be made, so sure was he that nobody would pick him.
17. Judge Dread was all set to play a pub singer in BBC’s Eastenders before his untimely death. He was also meant to have played Sid Vicious’ next door neighbour in The Great Rock N Roll Swindle, but Sid died before that part was filmed. He did however appear as a borstal boy in the 1962 film, The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner, which starred Tom Courtenay.
18. Judge Dread lapsed into a diabetic coma back in 1994 and suffered a series of heart attacks. Despite being clinically dead on more than one occasion, he lived to tell the tale. Back from the Dread he called it.
19. 1988 was shaping up to be a big year for the Judge. He had just returned from a series of well attended Scandinavian gigs and was planning to tour the USA for the first time.
20. The Judge always joked about wanting to die on stage. Nobody expected it to happen on Friday 13th of March, 1998, while he was performing at Canterbury’s Penny Theatre. He was 53.
Working Class Hero
If I'd never discovered the
delights of skinhead reggae, I would still have been a huge fan
of rude reggae superstar, Judge Dread. It would have been
hard not to be after growing up in Snodland, the village in Kent
that Judge Dread called home for most of his adult life.
His career in the music business
speaks for itself - in the Seventies, only Bob Marley & The
Wailers had more reggae hits in the national charts than the
Judge - but despite his massive success, he never lost touch with
his working class roots, something that made him a legendary
figure not only in street music circles, but amongst everyone who
had the good fortune to cross his path.
Even as a kid of seven or eight,
the Judge would always say hello if you passed him in the
street. "Alright, boy," he'd say as he sauntered
past, the big bloke with the long hair who looked every inch the
bouncer and professional wrestler he'd been during the
Sixties. The big bloke with the long hair also just
happened to be a million selling recording artist at the time,
but the success never went to his head. At the time I knew
he was a singer, but it's only looking back now that I realise
just how big a name he was.
Born Alex Hughes in 1945, he had
grown up in London alongside the first wave of immigrants from
Jamaica. After leaving school, he lodged with a Jamaican
family, and it was only a short step from there to a lifelong
love affair with Jamaican music. His work as a bouncer led
to work as a bodyguard (to the likes of The Rolling Stones) and
as a debt collector for Commercial Entertainments (who used to
arrange UK tours for Desmond Dekker, The Pioneers and the like)
and Trojan Records. Little did he know that within a few
short years, not only would he be sharing a stage with the likes
of Bob Marley & The Wailers, but would become an even bigger
star than the Jamaican artists he idolised. The rest of
course is history, and for over 25 years the Judge has been
entertaining the likes of you and me with songs like Up With The
Cock, Jamaica Jerk Off and the legendary Bring Back The Skins.
My memories of Alex are many, but
all have one thing in common. Laughter. Every time I
met him he had a story to tell that would have the tears running
down your face. If he hadn’t made it as a singer, he
would have made a top of the bill comedian that’s for
sure. He really was a natural. And while the mainstream saw
him as a moral danger to society, the truth was the bloke had a
heart of gold. How often was Mary Whitehouse pushed through
her village in a bath on wheels to raise money for charity?
The last time I saw him in
Snodland was when I went back there during the filming of the
World Of Skinhead documentary. It was a freezing cold day
and we met outside the Savoy snooker club, which had been a
cinema when I was a kid and also the venue that the Judge used
for promoting reggae acts. When Desmond Dekker went to
number one in the charts with Israelites back in 1969, Judge
Dread had him playing at the Savoy and the place was packed
solid. He gave me a framed photo of Desmond and himself
standing on the steps of the club nearly 30 years before,
something that I will treasure always.
Shortly afterwards he came to
Glasgow to perform at an old ballroom close to the Gorbals.
From the off it looked like a dodgy gig - the promoters, one with
what looked incredibly like a shotgun in an unzipped sports bag,
obviously had to lose a lot of money fast - so a few of us made
sure things were okay. Not that there was any aggro.
In fact we spent most of the evening in the dressing room amazed
that so much food and drink had been laid on for one bloke (not
that any of it went to waste with Quinny and Drummy
around). Alex was performing without a band that night and
I had the privilege to do the backing tapes. A basic task I
know, but I was as proud as punch to be sorting the music for the
one and only Judge Dread.
I’ve never been one for
heroes because they always let you down, but Alex you were an
exception to the rule. You lived and died for Friday night
as the song goes, and for that and everything else you gave us we
will be forever grateful.
Judge Dread. 1945-1998.
Working class hero.
You were a fucking star, Alex.
Nuff said.
George Marshall