Outside of their releases on Frontline, the Gladiator's wide discography has marked Jamaican music.
Albert Griffiths, Clinton Fearon and Gallimore Sutherland began recording in 1966 when they released You Are The Girl on the B-side of the The Ethiopians' massive hit Train to Skaville. The A-side gained a second wave attention when is was re-recorded by The Selector in the UK.
I've been listening Albert Griffiths' singing for years as the band is largely reponsible for contracting reggaemylitis1 to me. On this track however, bassist Clinton Fearon is the lead vocal.
As you can guess from the title, Rich Man Poor Man is a song about poverty, a state of which the group knows well having grown up in Trenchtown, but also deals with the issues in a corrupt society. After a great organ-lead intro, Clinton beggins :
The Rich man, poor man, beggar man, the thief
Everyone claim that them a the chief
The rich man buy the poor man's life
The poor man take away the beggar man's wife
Clinton tries to put an end to this situation warning us :
If you step pon fire, fire gonna burn y'
You play with puppy, puppy lick yu mouth
The latter is a common Jamaican expression which is an equivalent of familiarity breeds contempt.
In more recent years, Clinton Fearon has been touring the world giving accoustic concerts, as well as re-recording accoustic versions of the band's hits. Rich Man Poor Man can be found on Mi an' Mi Guitar.
In all, the song is uplifting as it looks towards a brighter future, something that all sufferah's from Trenchtown will tell you they are longing for. Inspired from the Bible, the weak ones now will soon become strong...
1 Peter Tosh coined the word in his eponymous song, when he was diagnosed due to a "funny feeling in my bones, blood and toes up to the brain". Since the 70s, the contagious disease has spread resulting in stock shortage in record shops across the globe.
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