Hopeton Lewis
Born in Kingston’s Trenchtown district on 3rd October 1947, Hopeton Lewis grew up in the parish of Westmoreland where he began his musical education at the local church. As a teen, he returned to Kingston, where he qualified as a refrigerator and air conditioning technician, while also finding time to form the Regals, a vocal group with whom he later recorded a series of tracks, backed by the Mighty Vikings band.
Of these Clement ‘Coxson’ Dodd-produced sides, ‘Shammy Back’ and ‘Cyrus’ saw issue on the producer’s Wincox label, but just as interest in the group’s work grew, they disbanded, with Hopeton joining the roster of acts at Ken Khouri’s Federal Records.
According to legend, on one particular night evening while in the company’s studio in 1966, Hopeton struggled to deliver his vocal over upbeat ska rhythm performed by Lyn Taitt‘s band and so requested it be slowed down, with the resulting recordings (‘Take It Easy’, ‘Music Got Soul’ and ‘Sounds and Pressure’) providing what would prove to be the blueprint for the rock steady sound that ensued following their release on record.
Such was the popularity of the tracks from the Federal session that it was reported that over a single weekend, Kingston’s K.G. Records shop sold in excess of 10,000 copies of ‘Take It Easy’, which unsurprisingly soon topped the local charts, with ‘Sounds and Pressure’ sitting at number two, ‘Music Got Soul’ at number five and ‘A Deh Pon Dem’ in eleventh place.
Over the next few months, there followed further popular 45s on Federal’s Merritone imprint, along with the singer’s debut album, ‘Take It Easy’, but unhappy with his contract, Hopeton briefly teamed up with Glen Brown with whom he cut a number of sides at Federal‘s chief rival WIRL Records.
He then started to record incognito for Treasure Isle Records‘ supremo, Duke Reid, with the most significant of his earliest work for the producer being ‘There Comes A Time’ and ‘Get On The Right Track’, on which he partnered Pat Kelly and Phyllis Dillon, respectively.
Soon after, Reid helped Hopeton get out of his Federal contract and had him record the Jamaican Festival Song winner of 1970, ‘Boom Shacka Lacka’, which the singer followed with a series of popular 7″s, including ‘Testify’, ‘To The Other Man’ and the U Roy collaborations, ‘Tom Drunk’, ‘Drive Her Home’ and ‘Judgment Day’.
Around this time, Hopeton also began to write for other artists and in 1971, joined Byron Lee‘s Dynamic Sound Recordings, enjoying immediate success with the company with the Winston Blake-produced ‘Grooving Out On Life’.
Over the next few years, he cut further popular singles for Lee‘s operation, which in 1973 and ’74 released his next two albums, ‘Grooving Out On Life’ and ‘Dynamic Hopeton Lewis’ . Throughout this time, he was also a regular performer on the island’s hotel circuit on the island and throughout the Caribbean, while also fronting Byron Lee’s Dragonaires band at venues around the world.
After finally leaving Dynamic Sounds in the late seventies, Hopeton formed his own Bay City Music record label, which he operated from his shop of the same name in Montego Bay. After issuing a series of secular 45s and the ‘All Night Bubblin” LP, Hopeton decided to increasingly concentrate on writing, performing and producing gospel music.
During the eighties he extensively toured the the globe, eventually settling in Brooklyn, New York, where, from the late 1990s he regularly returned to the studio, primarily concentrating on his gospel work. It was also in his adopted city that, in 2005, he helped found the Grace Deliverance Radio station for which hosted his own popular gospel show three times a week.
Sadly, Hopeton‘s life came to an end, on 4th September 2014, aged 66, when he passed away at his Brooklyn home after suffering kidney failure.
Laurence Cane-Honeysett