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Show " i rev 1 '1 mil illin J photo by Nan Chalat "The Park City crowd never lets me down. It's always an outrageous party," said John Bayley after Friday night's concert at the Cowboy Bar." John Bayley brings his own blend of rockalypso to the Cowboy Bar by Nan Chalat Next spring you may be able to get a glimpse of that contagious laugh on a new RCA video, but for now the best way to share in John Bayley' s rollicking reggae high spirits is to catch him at the Cowboy Bar. He filled the house last Friday night and kept the crowd dancing throughout the evening. Bayley defines his brand of reggae music as "rockalypso." It's a blend of British rock and calypso, he said. "Several different types of music come out of the islands and they all end up being classified as reggae. But other styles are coming out with their own identity. "Of course, I also pay tribute to Bob Marley and the other well-, well-, known reggae musicians too." ' " But for the most part Bayley plays his original compositions, ad libbing and improvising as he goes aiong. "That's why I like to play alone so the creativity can take over. As a solo musician I have absolute musical freedom." However that freedom has a price. Bayley has to muster the energy of a full band every time he goes on stage. He fills out his sound by electrically amplifying his acoustic guitar, strapping a tambourine to his knee-high leather boots and using a Delta-Lab digital echo unit. He plays a six-string Ovation guitar which he trades off with an eight-string bazouki. A bazouki? Isn't that a Greek instrument? Yes, but Bayley saw it in a music store, liked it, and now his Greek bazouki plays reggae rockalypso and it sounds like it was made for it. Contrary to his Rastafarian appearance, ap-pearance, Bayley is not a native Jamaican. He was born in Guyana, a small country on the north-eastern coast of South America. He earned his ticket to the United States with an academic scholarship to study theology and psychology at Shorter College in Little Rock, Arkansas. His music career started as a sideline, playing for friends and then in local coffeehouses. "And then, well, you know how it is, suddenly there are contracts and agents and income taxes," he said with his trademark laugh. In 1977 Bayley moved to Colorado Springs, where he found the mountains fulfilled something that was missing when he left the, ocean. '. "The mountains have that :same kind of energy," he said. But he doesn't ski. Other than spending 60 percent of his time on the road "I'm a homebody," he said. Bayley still lives in Colorado Springs. He is married and has a 14-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. From Park City Bayley was headed home to Colorado Springs before another gig in Aspen. He is scheduled to appear at the Cowboy Bar again in January. Bayley wound up his last set at the Cowboy Bar with a spiritual space odyssey, a tune called "Mercury" and his uplifting song about "Positive Energy." Throwing back his beaded dreadlocks with an ear-to-ear grin he yelled, "It's crazy and I love it!" Judging from the crowd's enthusiastic enthu-siastic reply, they did too. |
