Joseph Israel 'Gone Are the Days' album

If ever there was proof of the universal power and appeal of reggae music, it’s Gone Are the Days, the striking debut album from rising reggae star Joseph Israel. Featuring sweet reflections of love, gripping, headline-torn news reports, moving tales of spiritual awakening and affecting calls for unity, Gone Are the Days is the first album from the Tulsa, Oklahoma-born, Arkansas-based singer, whose voice has for the past three years teetered on the edge of broader recognition.

Recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, at the fabled Tuff Gong studios (birthplace of iconic albums by Bob Marley and his sons), as well as Shaggy’s Big Yard Studio, among others, Gone Are the Days features the stamp of approval from some of the genre’s heavyweights: The disc features collaborations with leading second-generation roots reggae artist Luciano (“Ruff Times”) and Mikey General (“Universal Love”), as well as the smooth voices of Erica Newell and Rochelle Bradshaw (backing vocalists for Ziggy Marley and Luciano, respectively).

Available online since Tuesday, September 26th, 2006, and in stores March 6, 2007, from New Door Records/UME, the 15-track disc also finds Israel, who has toured nationally with Luciano and Abijah, backed by a litany of top reggae musicians, including saxophonist Dean Fraser, lead guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith and bassist Chris Meredith, who co-produced Gone Are the Days with Israel.

For Israel, born Joseph Montgomery Fennel, the disc represents the culmination of a lifelong fascination with the culture and music of Jamaica. It represents his strong belief in Jah (Yahweh) as the almighty God, and comes after countless sojourns to the island country to study the faith, music and culture.

Conscious and idealistic, the songs composing Gone Are the Days point to a better way to live, to a better world. “This CD, what it’s really all about to me, is bringing things out that haven’t been said,” says Israel. “This is not a religious album. I’m just trying to promote the truth, and hopefully other people will want to hear it.”

Biography

Through its simple, sweet reflections of love, its headline-torn news reports, its tales of spiritual awakening and calls for unity, there is a thread running through the songs on Joseph Israel’s debut disc, Gone are the Days. Combined, they quite simply point to a better way to live, to a better world.

Conscious and idealistic, they are songs that compose an album whose release marks the impressive and thoroughly independent rise of the white, Christian-born American, whose utter devotion to the music and culture of Jamaica and the messages of roots reggae can be felt throughout. If the album marks the 28-year-old, self-made musician’s coming of age as an artist, it does so through songs that, among other things, mark his coming of age as a man.

In the album’s title-track, Israel preaches the need to question authority and what’s been served up to us on the evening news or in the history books of our youth. It’s a song in which he recalls his own awakening, intellectually and spiritually: “So many paths, only one to choose/If you live for yourself, you will lose/In your heart, let true love rule.”

Laced with Biblical imagery and featuring everything from a tender dedication to his wife (“Perfect Love”) to an angry, rage-riddled lambasting of third-world oppression (“Hotta Fiyah”), the disc’s 13 tracks represent the realization of a life-long dream for the Arkansas–based Israel. And they also mark him as a bona fide member of the roots reggae community, despite his skin color or country of origin.

Recorded over several months in Kingston, Jamaica—at the fabled Tuff Gong studio (Bob Marley and the Marley family’s studio), Shaggy’s Big Yard studio, and others—Gone are the Days carries the endorsement of a cast of reggae vets. It finds Israel backed by a litany of such players, including saxophonist Dean Fraser, bassist Chris Meredith, lead guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith, rhythm guitarist Ian “Beezy” Coleman, drummer Wilburn “Squidley” Cole, keyboardist Paul “Scooby” Smith, pianists Franklyn “Bubbler” Waul and Paul “Wrong Move” Crossdale, and percussionist Uzziah “Sticky” Thompson.

Israel duets with second-generation roots reggae star Luciano on “Ruff Times” and Luciano’s fellow VP Records artist Mikey General on “Universal Love,” while Erica Newell and Rochelle Bradshaw—backing vocalists for Ziggy Marley and Luciano, respectively—add backing vocals throughout. A devoted family man, Israel also features his wife, Kristy, on backing vocals, and their daughters, Rebekah and Chavah (they also have a boy, Cypress), add a sweet touch to the end of “Mankind,” urging listeners to “Stop fighting/Love one another/Feed the mommies of little children.”

“To have been able to make this record, it’s very humbling to me,” says Israel. “I just feel so blessed. To have been in a room with all these guys, I felt like there was angels in the room. The vibe was so high that I would just teach them the song and—boom!—in one take they had ‘em.”

Israel self-financed Gone are the Days, recording and independently releasing the disc in 2005. Just as Israel’s songs caught the attention of everyone from Luciano to Mikey General, the disc in the months after its release caught the attention of Universal Music Enterprises, who is releasing the disc nationwide through their label New Door Records.

It’s the next step in a career that has been building since Israel—born Joseph Montgomery Fennel in Tulsa, Oklahoma—was just two years old. It was then, while still a toddler, that he became smitten with Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Babylon by Bus album, especially the track “Positive Vibration,” his favorite song as a young child.

With his father both a reggae fan and the owner of a Fayetteville, Arkansas, club and restaurant called Jose’s, and his uncle a big roots fan also favoring the likes of Burning Spear, young Joseph was surrounded by reggae. As a teen, he started delving deep into the music himself (the Marley cannon, Spear’s classic Marcus Garvey, Bunny Wailer’s Blackheart Man, Peter Tosh’s Legalize It), and the inspirations behind it, from thinker-activist Garvey to Malcom X. At 14, his parents took him on the first of what would become regular trips to Jamaica. At the same time, he was getting into the likes of younger roots artists like Luciano, as well as genre-blending American artist Ben Harper.

As a teen, his interest in the Rastafarian religion—whose followers abstain from eating meat, put little value in material goods and view marijuana as a sacrament—began to grow. A member of the varsity basketball team in high school, he quit sports, and during trips to Jamaica, began studying with Rasta elders such as Ras Bee-Bow of Negril and Bongo Hu-I, the great teacher and herbalist of Montego Bay. As the Rasta culture took root in Joseph, so did long dreadlocks. Israel felt a mystical identity to Jamaica, its people and music.

Back home in Arkansas, Israel began writing and performing. In 2000, he formed the band Kepha (translated as “the rock” in Hebrew), which released a single, self-issued disc, and opened for the likes of roots heavy weights Culture and Burning Spear. The group soon folded and Israel founded the Lions of Israel, with whom he started blanketed the American west. In summer 2003, he performed a solo acoustic set before Ziggy Marley on one stop on the latter’s U.S. tour. The gig proved a pivotal one, as Israel clicked with members of Marley’s backing band, including bassist Chris Meredith, who co-produced Gone Are the Days with Israel.

In the fall of 2003, Israel toured with popular roots artist Abijah, cutting the Lions of Israel’s live CD on the last night of the tour. At the end of the year, he joined forces with Mikey General, who was being backed by Newell and Bradshaw. By tour’s end, all four made plans to record a track together, what would become the closing track on Gone Are the Days, “Universal Love.”

Co-written by and featuring General, Newel and Bradshaw, “Universal Love” was the first song recorded for Gone are the Days. It captures one of the main themes of the record: unity and kindness. Another is the need to live well, to do the right thing, to act righteously. Still another is overcoming adversity.

“We’re living in, the most intense time ever, as far as I can see,” says Israel. “But I think that one day very soon, the strongholds that are holding the people today that are keeping the people down, are going to be toppled—not by force, but by love and truth.”

Says Israel: “This CD, what it’s really all about to me, is bringing things out that haven’t been said, and preserving the musical tradition that Bob Marley started, adding to the foundation that he laid, with original rhythms and real songwriting. This is not a religious album. I’m just trying to promote the truth, and hopefully other people will want to hear it.”

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Joseph Israel - Gone Are the Days