Jamaican singers Keith Coley, Delroy Denton, and Gilmore Grant first joined together as the Silvertones in the mid 1960s. The group recorded numerous singles with Duke Reid at Treasure Isle and Coxsone Dodd at Studio One over the following decade and a half, but released just one album, 1973’s Silver Bullets, under the direction of Lee “Scratch” Perry, before disbanding.
In this rich and colorful short documentary, timed to coincide with the first-ever reissue of Silver Bullets (out tomorrow via Trojan Records and record delivery service Vinyl Me, Please) Coley takes a film crew through Kingston, and back to the days when songs were composed on public street corners. As he links up with two younger singers (though the Silvertones recently reunited for a performance at last year’s Rototom Sunsplash, Denton and Grant do not appear in the doc) Coley waxes nostalgic, remembering a competitive era when group harmony ruled, not soloists and Autotune.
“You don’t see that so regular again, to combine together and sing harmony under the street light,” Coley remarks. “Cause that is a vibes. I like those vibes.”
Catch the vibes below, and order the limited edition Silver Bullets vinyl reissue here.