Can a white man sing reggae?

Just back from the Rhythm festival in deepest Bedfordshire, it's one of those smaller music festivals that actually seems to care about the music and the punters rather than being solely for the purpose of advertising. The first band that our little party elected to see were a ska/reggae/rocksteady band called Rebelation. They were a little late starting due to the lack of microphone stands so we watched them flitting about the stage setting gear up. One guy looked familiar, a slim white fella with dreadlocks down to his waist and a very smart blue tonic suit, I was pretty sure I'd never seen the band before so I started racking my brains to see where I remembered him from, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't place him into any band or from any gig I'd ever been to.

He turns out to be the singer of the band, their first number is a pleasant up-tempo ska song that presses the right buttons with the crowd, it comes to me just as the song is coming to an end, I don't know him via music, he goes to watch King's Lynn FC, I've seen him at the Walks!

I've never spoken to him but let's face it King's Lynn is hardly Camden and people of such individuality are pretty thin on the ground, in a place where flares are still in fashion from the first time around anyone who looks slightly different stands out - the only reason I didn't realise immediately was that this situation is so far out of context with a Unibond League fixture against Worksop Town.

One thing I do find a little unnerving however is when the music style becomes a little more reggae orientated and this white guy from Norfolk suddenly starts referencing "Jah", "Babylon" and "Zion". I get suspicious at the best of times even with black singers who sing in patois then talk to the crowd in-between songs in a Birmingham accent (as Ranking Roger did later the same night during the Beat set), but a white guy from Norfolk? Then I started thinking about some of my musical heroes - take Elvis Costello for example, over a career now well into it's 30's I've seen him many times and I own every album he has officially released in the UK along with quite a few which are, as they put it, of indeterminate origin. Now Elvis sings with a definite American accent, there is no getting away from it, as with 99% of all British rock singers (think Jagger, Bowie, Rod Stewart, etc.) virtually all of his hundreds of songs have the lazy American drawl. It's not surprising when you trace the source of all rock music back through rock 'n' roll, jazz and the blues it all starts with black American gospel singing so with all the influences being American it's hardly surprising that an American affectation is evident. Indeed it is much easier to name the artists who don't sing with an American accent than those who do, that'll be Billy Bragg, The Proclaimers, Lily Allen and er.... oh yes, Chas and bloody Dave!

So why shouldn't a white man sing reggae? It's no different from Brits singing in American and let's face it, it's hardly new, think UB40, Mishka, Sting. A lot of it is whether it is done well and I have to admit that on this occasion the quality of the performance, the level of energy and the sheer catchiness of their tunes far overshadowed any thoughts of incongruity.

At the end of the day I have seen Elvis Costello (born and raised in London) sing in American then announce the next song in a scouce accent when he is anywhere near Liverpool yet anyone who has seen his TV show ("Spectacle") would be hard placed to judge the mid Atlantic drawl he speaks in on that. So the next time I see Tony Devenish (for that appears to be his name according to their website) at the Walks I'll say hello and tell him how much I enjoyed the Rebelation set at Rhythm Festival, it'll be interesting to hear his accent when he replies.