Miscarriage of Justice may be TJ’s first complete album, but it’s not his first record release.
Pretty Lady (1982), a Chic inspired funky disco number with a driving bass line, received great critical acclaim and rave reviews from some of the top DJs of the time including Greg Edwards.
Firefly (1989) is further proof of TJ’s versatility. This up-tempo dance track, tinged with the funky undercurrent that is present in the majority of TJ’s music was very well received by the clubs of the time.
The Interview
Here’s a bit more background on the main man behind Miscarriage of Justice…
SPM: How and when did you first get involved with music?
TJJ: It all started when I heard my first Beatles song in the Caribbean when I was 11 years old. The song was ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’. I just thought that was the best thing I had ever heard, and I have been a massive Beatles fan ever since… Up until that point the only type of music I had ever been exposed to was calypso and reggae. From then on I was hooked on music.
SPM: What made you take up the guitar?
TJJ: Well my first love was really the bass. Paul McCartney in the Beatles was the man as far as I was concerned. I used to wonder to myself, ‘What is he doing?’ ‘How does he know to do that?’ Bass guitars weren’t exactly close to hand in the Caribbean, so I used the next best thing - the acoustic guitar that was always lying around - to try and work out those bass lines! Soon though, I started to learn to play the guitar. As I got older and came over to England I knew that music was all I wanted to do.
SPM: When did you join your first band?
TJJ: I joined my first band in 1969, Funky People. The music policy was as the name suggests - funky! In those days if you were in a band you often got work abroad in Europe and I couldn’t wait to get away. We went to Germany straight away to do a 2 month tour. Funky People became Everyday People (just with a different lead vocalist) and lasted 2 years.
SPM: What happened after that?
TJJ: From then on, I continued to work in numerous bands during the early seventies. Other bands I worked in included the best black progressive rock band in England at the time called Demon Fuzz. Then I joined a great Afro Rock band in England called Assagai. That band folded again due to lack of opportunities for that kind of music. That was quite common - a lot of English black bands did not get the support they needed in this country. You had to do pop.
SPM: So did you go down that road?
TJJ: As it happens, I did! After Assagai, I began touring with a pop star at the time by the name of Bruce Ruffin for a couple of years - he had a couple of top ten hits, so we did top of the Pops a few times and toured around Europe.
I joined Spartacus in 1976. Spartacus R was the bass player from Osibisa. We had great fun but made no headway - same problem that Assagai faced- and after that I joined Jabba a great south London band who played everything like Soul, blues, funk, reggae I learned a lot from them - that you don’t have to pigeon hole yourself into any one musical category. Since then, I’ve never done that. After that I joined Jesse Green, who had a big hit called Flip in the 70s.
Then the 80s came and I found another pop star to work with. I went to Germany to work with Precious Wilson, who was very big over there at the time. Precious Wilson was the lead singer with a band called ‘Eruption’, who was produced by Frank Farian (producer of Boney M). After that came to an end, I went back to my musical roots and joined a soca band called ‘Friends’. We toured all over Great Britain for about four years.
SPM: >You’ve clearly worked with a wide range of artists. When did you start doing your own stuff?
TJJ: Well I’d been writing and recording my own songs since the mid seventies. I started releasing a few singles under my own name, including with “Pretty Lady” in 1982 and “Firefly” (1989). They got a lot of radio plays, but were not big hits. One radio show that they did feature regularly on was called ‘Soul Spectrum’, on London’s Capital Radio. I’ve always been grateful to Greg Edwards for his support.
SPM: Did you continue playing live music?
TJJ: Of course! Performing is my lifeblood. Into the 90s, I really got into playing blues. Blues and Jazz was starting to get more and more popular, and this was helped by things such as the launch of Jazz FM and the release of the Robert Johnson back catalogue. I remember buying this and getting blown away.
In the early nineties I joined a blues band called station House. This band was put together by “Bob” the manager of ‘Bob’s Goodtime Blues’ at the Station Tavern in Latimer Road because he wanted a black blues band to play at his pub. We used to play there every Sunday with different vocalists. The singer Taka Boom, sister of Chaka Khan, used to sing with us regularly and even Chaka herself came and sang with us a few times. The FBI singer, Root Jackson, joined us a couple of years later and we still play at venues and blues festivals across the country.
SPM: So, tell us a bit about the album then…
TJJ: My latest project is Miscarriage of Justice. This is the result of two years of hard work, recording and writing and is a very personal showcase of my music, my influences and my experience. I hope you enjoy it.
The album mainly came about because of Shawn Marcellin, the keyboardist in MOFJ. I’ve known Shawn for many years. I was driving to a gig one day when Shawn called up and asked me if I wanted to do an album at his studio and to cut a long story short I agreed.
SPM: What do you hope to achieve with this album?
TJJ: Well, let’s see… we hope to find a cure for cancer, AIDS, crack world poverty, rid the world of dictatorships, illiteracy, greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, hate, stupidity, backwardness…
Good luck, TJ - Miscarriage of Justice is an album destined to change the world, so why not everything in it?
