Mic Check – Celebrating Reggae Music History With One – Ronnie Burke
Ronnie Burke, OD February 4, 2023
It’s Reggae Month, Celebrating Reggae Music History With One Of The Founding Member Of The Biggest Reggae Festival In The History Of Reggae Music Reggae Sunsplash, Mr Ronnie Burke OD.
For almost two decades — 1978 to 1996 — Reggae Sunsplash was a staple on the Jamaican and international music festival calendars.
Tonight, we recognise one of the men who created the cartel that launched numerous iconoclastic reggae careers — Ronald Stafford Burke, OD.
The Synergy of the five — Tony Johnson, Don Green, John Wakeling, Ed Barclay, and Burke — produced THE FESTIVAL to showcase OUR MUSIC.
That is, well before Reggae Sumfest.
In fact, Sunsplash started in Montego Bay at Jarrett Park in 1978 with seven days of reggae performances.
Billed as the “biggest reggae festival in the history of the world”, music lovers from across the world flocked to Jamaica to see the stars in their homeland and enjoy the warm breezes off the Caribbean Sea. This musical sojourn also heralded music tourism to the island in the 1980s.
Over the years, the festival featured performances by Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Black Uhuru, Sugar Minott, Eek-A-Mouse and Michigan & Smiley, Shabba Ranks, Gregory Isaacs, Daddy U-Roy, Chalice, Sandii & The Sunsetz, Blood Fire Posse, Marcia Griffiths, Coco Tea, Mutabaruka, Jose Wales, Big Youth, Charlie Chaplin, Burning Spear, Yellowman, Brigadier Jerry, and many more.
Audio and video recordings of the Festivals were packaged and distributed across the world with close to 15 live albums recorded at the musical celebration.
The Festival was so successful that iterations were executed across the Caribbean, Europe, North and South America, Japan and numerous other cities in Asia.
In 2015, Burke the Jamaica College old boy received a national award — the Order of Distinction (OD), Jamaica’s sixth highest honour — for his contribution to the development of Jamaican music, 37 years after Reggae Sunsplash was first held.
Three of the founding directors — Wakeling, Johnson and Barclay — passed. But tonight, we are here to sit at the feet of Ronnie Burke.
