Reggae Roots

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Ask the lead singer of Jah Roots if he feels his band sometimes isn't taken seriously, and there's no hesitation in his reply.

"Of course. Because we're white, we're from Missouri and we're playing reggae music," said Josh Heinrichs, whose band will headline Saturday's Reggae on the Riverfront in Peoria.

The six-man group has had plenty of success as of late. It has toured the country as an opening act for reggae stars from all over. It managed to snag Junior Marvin, a former lead guitarist for Bob Marley and the Wailers, to contribute on its latest album, "Joy." Its 2007 release, "Crucial," turned up on the tiny island nation of Guam's list of the top 10 reggae albums of 2007 - not bad for a group of guys from Springfield, Mo. But the band's successes never seem to silence its critics.

"I see (online) all the time, 'How could six white dudes from Missouri have a love for Ethiopia or know anything about Rastafara?' They don't understand that they are being racist toward everybody by saying Asians can't be Christian or that black people can't be Jewish, you know what I'm saying? Even though we don't claim to be Rastafarian, there should be nothing wrong with it (if we did)."

The band is made up of Heinrichs on vocals and guitar; Josh Nail on percussion; Steve Washburn on bass; Mike Hulsey on lead guitar and keyboards; Eric Groves on drums, and a vocalist and DJ who goes by the name I-Ron. Their catalogue includes tunes such as "Ganja Weed," "Good Highs" and "Spliff and My Lady." And Jah Roots is about more than just making music; it's pretty much a lifestyle for its members.

"We all have dreadlocks and we all smoke ganja, we do it openly and talk about it openly, we're all vegetarians and we all do these things because we believe in the Rasta livity and what it represents," Heinrichs said. "It boils down to one love for everybody. We don't talk about any one religion like Rasta or Christianity, we don't claim to be anything like that. We just claim to be full of love for everybody and everything. To me personally, and the way we all feel in the band, we don't want to subscribe to one religion or one way of thinking. Everything's expandable."

Heinrichs' first music project was a duo that he and Hulsey formed in 1998. It was a jam band that sounded a little like Dave Matthews or Ben Harper. But in 1999 he came across Bob Marley's "Natty Dread" album and was hooked. He bought every Marley album he could find, then came across a rare video of the 1981 Reggae Sunsplash festival in Jamaica. The video was taped the year Marley died, and it had scores of reggae artists paying tribute to the legend.

"That one album really, really got us into reggae," Heinrichs said. "We started covering Steel Pulse song after Steel Pulse song. And we started asking all of our friends, 'you guys want to be in a band?' Somehow, some lucky way, we ended up not sucking and people liked our music and we ended up getting gigs."

It's not the band's first time in central Illinois; they earned a spot at this year's Summer Camp festival in Chillicothe after winning a battle of the bands contest. And they've honored requests to open for acts such as Bunny Wailer, Prezident Brown, Damian Marley and George Clinton.

"We just felt like, bona fide; like we were good enough to play with them," Heinrichs said. "So we just started taking it on the road and we've been hitting the U.S. as hard as we can.

"I'm very lucky to be able to chase this music dream and have a family that supports me," he said. "All of our families support us and love us and believe in us. If everybody had that love and respect, the world would be a lot more positive place."


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Source: pjstar.com
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