Bandele brings everything to Red Bones

SINGER/songwriter Lasana Bandele will perform in Jamaica for the first time in almost two decades when he appears Wednesday at Red Bones Blues Cafe, St Andrew.

Bandele, who scored big with the 1989 song Living in Shacks, said fans can expect "everything" from his overdue performance.

"I will be doing old and new (songs)andele brings everything to Red Bones and I'll be doing poetry," Bandele told the Jamaica Observer. "This show intends to be intimate and open at the same time. I want it to be a kind of family vibes."

Since his debut on Reggae Sunsplash in 1990, Bandele enjoyed further success with the songs Fire In The Mountain and Don't Wait.

He left Jamaica in 1990 to study film and sound engineering in California.

From St James, Bandele recorded and released his first song Hanging Locks in 1974, followed two years after by Send Us Home. In 1978 Bandele released his third single, Changes, and spent one year writing Music News for JBC Radio.

His latest single is a cover of Bob Dylan's Blowing In the Wind.

"Jamaica is where my focus is right now. I have two albums to release, the working title for one of them is Anybody Out There," he said.

After spending three years at the Jamaica School of Music and one year at the Jamaica School of Drama, Bandele said he started writing poems and songs in 1972.

The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) awarded him a bronze medal in 1980 for his poem Mad Dogs, and a Certificate of Merit in 1981 for Prison, another poem.

That year, he began arranging music for other artistes. In 1982, he was appointed managing director of Truth and Rights Production Limited, a company that produced music for budding artistes.

Bandele formed Storitela Music Limited and Storitela Publishing in 1984, and began producing his own songs.

Following the success of Living in Shacks, his first single on the label, Bandele produced his debut album, Storitela, which included the songs Big City, Subway Blues, Break Free, Bird Land and Waiting Inside.

(from Jamaica Observer)