Squidly Cole pays tribute to his father Stranger Cole - Pioneering singer ‘helped shape the sound and evolution of Jamaican music’

Drummer Squidly Cole had been rehearsing with Stephen Marley’s band for the Roots and Rhymes Summer Tour with Marley and Buju Banton, which is currently in motion across the US. But when his father, Stranger Cole, took sick, it was a given that Squidly's priorities had to shift.

"I was the one who was taking daddy to his doctor's appointments and being there with him when he was doing his tests and being admitted to [the] hospital," Squidly told The Sunday Gleaner.

It was known that Stranger was having back pains, but the pioneering ska, rocksteady, and reggae singer was of the old school where men hardly visit the doctor. When he did, the diagnosis wasn't what the family wanted to hear, but even when Stranger was admitted to the University Hospital of the West Indies, there was still hope.

"Daddy expected to leave the hospital, and I thought so, too. When he passed away, I was so shocked. About 11 a.m., mi hear mi phone a ring, and it was Babsy [Minister of Information, Youth, Sports and Culture Olivia Grange] … Babsy and my father grow up together. She seh, ‘Bwoy Squidly, dem want yuh’. My father had died. The hospital didn't want to tell me that over the phone," Squidly Cole, whose given name is Wilburn Cole Jr., shared.

"Yeah, man. It mash me up," Squidly said quietly. “He died on June 11, and he was 85. Last Friday, June 26, was him 86th birthday. I have his passport, so I am sure of his age.”

Grange remembered Wilburn Theodore ‘Stranger’ Cole in a social media post, noting that for more than six decades, he “helped shape the sound and evolution of Jamaican music from ska through rocksteady to reggae”. 

“His timeless hits include Bangarang, Rough and Tough, When You Call My Name (Sometimes referred to as When I Call Your Name), Just Like a River and Run Joe. Bangarang is, in fact, widely regarded as one of the earliest recordings of the reggae genre,” Grange said.

Squidly described Stranger as “the best father a child could have” and spoke with pride about his achievements in the music business, pausing to actually sing some of Stranger's massive hits as he journeyed with The Sunday Gleaner back in time when ska and rocksteady were the beats of the streets.

"The first song that Daddy sing for [producer] Duke Reid … Duke Reid tell him that him like it, but him have a big artiste to sing it. Well, that song [In and out the Window sung by Eric ‘Monty’ Morris] went number one. Then, after that, my father sing two songs … When I Call Your Name, a collab with the great Patsy Todd and Rough and Tough, both on the same record, Side 'A' and Side 'B'. And both of them went number one. That was in 1962 … and when Jamaica get independence that year, it was Daddy song dem that was mashing up di place," stated Squidly.

That was the door-opener for Stranger Cole, a graduate of the legendary Alpha Boys’ School (now Alpha Institute), where he learnt to play the tenor saxophone and “developed an enduring love for jazz and a foundational music education that helped launch his pioneering career”. Stranger and Patsy would go on to record a string of hits as a duo.

“They did song like Hey Hey Baby ... that song have a El Paso kind of guitar track that sound like it mek in Mexico. But that is how we are as a people... creative. Give me the Right is another song with Patsy. Everywhere I go in the world, people know that song," said Squidly, who, at 15, was the youngest drummer to ever tour with a top artiste, Jimmy Cliff. 

A 14-time Grammy Award-winning musician, Squidly also toured with Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers as drummer and has worked with Damian Marley, Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Lauryn Hill, Bob Marley, and Buju Banton. Squidly shared that in 1992, while playing a gig at The Orange Bowl in LA with Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, Stranger, who was living there at the time, came to the show, and they had a life-changing conversation.

"I invited daddy to come home, and he returned to Jamaica … he saw that the music was in a good place, and he ended up making hit songs that introduced him to a new generation,” Squidly recalled.

Stranger also had duets, as they were called back in the days, with Ken Boothe, Gladstone ‘Gladdy’ Anderson, Delroy Wilson on the WC (Wilson and Cole) label, which was owned by them, and Hortense Ellis.

It was in 1971 that Stranger migrated to the United Kingdom, where he toured extensively and moved on again to Canada in 1973, settling in Toronto, where he worked as a machinist in the Tonka Toy factory and later opened a record store, the first Caribbean shop in Toronto's Kensington Market area. He later relocated to the United States before returning home.

Stranger’s bio states that his first album, ‘Forward’ in the Land of Sunshine, was released in 1976, with a few other albums released over the next 10 years. His first album in 20 years, Morning Train, a collaboration with Jah Shaka, was released in 2006. Stranger Cole is featured in the 2009 documentary Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, in which he and other stars of that era reunited to record a new album of the same name.

In closing, Squiddly spoke highly of his father's humility and his desire to be just like him.

"Mi miss mi father. He had fun with the music. Him songs popular in some unexpected places. In Mexico, dem know Love Me Today, word-for-word … a song that record in 1968. Him was one of the greatest writers ... and him tell mi the technique how him do it. Him live a good life. Give thanks. My father is the humblest man dem know. Him nuh wear nuh 'X' pon him chest ... a we seh rough and tough. My goal is to be humble just like him,” Squidly stated.

Stranger is survived by his children, Christopher, Philippa, Philip, Princess and Wilburn ‘Squidly’ Cole Jr.

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