Baltimore was the first big international hit for The Tamlins, a Jamaican reggae group founded in 1970 and renowned for their remarkable vocal skills. The original lineup was Carlton Smith, Junior Moore and Winston Morgan. From small beginnings in nightclubs, they became highly sought after by producers and singers alike for their rich harmonies and superb musicality, working with the likes of Peter Tosh in particular, as well as with Delroy Wilson, Pat Kelly, John Holt, and Jimmy Cliff.

The original song was written in by the highly influential composer Randy Newman for his 1977 album Little Criminals. But it took the legendary Nina Simone to nudge it into a form closer to The Tamlins’ version for her eponymous 1978 album Baltimore.

The Tamlins’ line-up was originally made up of Carlton Smith, Junior Moore and Derrick Lara, each a remarkably strong singer in his own right. But a wonderful synergy occurs when they work together, such that the sum is greater even than its great parts. They have been described as “a cross between Bob Marley and Earth Wind & Fire, a combination that makes them definitely worth experiencing live.” However, it’s no longer possible to hear the original group as Derrick Lara sadly died of cancer in Feb 2020.

For more information, check out the bio and recordings list here at Reggaeville.

Oh an while we’re talking about Baltimore, here’s some info about the phenomenon that was The Wire that Mark mentioned.

Marina Abramović was born in Belgrade, in the Serbian part of what was then Yugoslavia, a year after the end of the Second World War. Her parents had been very involved in Tito’s Partisans and so had a privileged place in post-war Yugoslav society. Their activities meant that she was largely brought up by her religious grandparents for the first few years of life.

She has been a pioneer of performance art, presenting works with hair-raising levels of threat and vulnerability. Most celebrated / notorious / infamous (take your pick!) was her Rhythm 0 which entailed her standing for six hours in a Naples Art Gallery next to 72 objects (which included food and drink, scissors, a gun and a bullet). Visitors were invited to do whatever they wanted to her, using one of the objects. It started off gently, but by the end one visitor even held a loaded gun at her head.

After her 20 year relationship and working partnership with Ulay (the West German Uwe Laysiepen), they devised a formal end by walking from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China and meeting in the middle. When they did, they greeted one another, spoke briefly, and then each continued their journeys. The next time they would meet was in 2010 at ‘The Artist is Present’.

She made ‘The Artist is Present’ at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York in 2010. A documentary about the process and experience was then released in 2012.

This involved sitting at an empty table for around 730 hours in total, and visitors were allowed to sit with her for a minute. There was to be no speaking or physical contact, just being in one another’s presence. Many spoke of the extraordinary experience of sitting like this with a stranger.

This German-language film won Best Foreign Language Oscar and made a far greater impact on Anglophone cinema audiences than German films often get. It is set in East Berlin in 1984 (of course, it’s no accident that this was the year selected), under communist rule. The GDR (German Democratic Republic: ie East Germany) was constantly scrutinised and patrolled by the country’s security services, (the Stasi). And this fictitious account posits the possibility of one senior officer who finds himself swept up in the lives of those he is charged with surveilling.

In some quarters the film was highly controversial, because of the sheer implausibility of a single individual having both  the means and the opportunity to do what Gerd Wiesler (played by the astonishing Ulrich Mühe) did in the film. There were just too many internal checks and ‘safeguards’ to prevent such unilateral action. This is debated, of course, but the wonder of the film is that it does find humanity in the bleakest of contexts. And that is what makes this such an inspiring work of art (perhaps naively, perhaps not).

For here, see that art and humanity can pierce through the rigid constructs of a totalitarian state and make a difference. The film’s 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes is well-deserved.

One of the film’s great sadnesses is that Ulrich Mühe (right) died post-production but before general release. So he never got to see the impact it made around the world.

Most will be (blissfully) unaware that Mark has been working on a novel about life in East Germany for almost a decade (!!) now. Here are some of his happy snaps from a research trip way back in 2018 (incl. visits to the former Stasi HQ and the Hohenshönhausen remand prison.