Men Cry Too: an interview with the reggae band Beshara



Beshara performing in 1979



A few weeks ago, I went to interview Errol Nanton and Tony Garfield, two of the core members of the Birmingham reggae band, Beshara.  Beshara were formed in the mid-1970s around the same time as bands such as Steel Pulse and UB40.  Unlike those bands, however, Beshara's story is very much one of what might have been.  In 1981 they had a hit with Men Cry Too and recorded an album with Stiff Records, only for it to be pulled at the last minute.  Like doezens of other bands who never quite made it but were seen by many, Beshara represent an equally important but under-acknowledged part of Birmingham's cultural heritage.  Below are some extracts from my interview.

Q: What made you decide to form a band?

Errol: I used to sing in a church – the Seventh Day Adventist church.  My mum used to send me to learn the piano, my brother was learning the guitar, and we teamed up and started playing in church.  When I started to work, a friend of mine found out that I used to sing in a church, and he said he was interested in forming a group.   We started out as the Kushites, and used to do mostly reggae covers.  Then Raymond [Watts] took over the singing, and we changed the name to Beshara, which means ‘surprise’ in Arabic. 

Tony: Our musical influences were the older artists – we used to listen to stuff that had vocal harmonies , things like the Abyssinians, Mighty Diamonds, John Holt, things like that – melodic things.  A lot of those were like roots bands, really and truly. 

Q: Did you feel like you were part of a wider reggae scene in Birmingham?

Tony: There was a scene, and most of the reggae musicians were friendly with each other.  But there was healthy competition.  There were some good bands around, especially in Birmingham.  We used to go down to London and scare the shit out of them.  Our vibe was like a stronger vibe – in London they used to do easy stuff, but the shit that used to come out of Birmingham – we had to fight twice as hard and we had to be twice as good.

Q: So what happened to the original Beshara album deal [with Stiff Records]?

Tony: Well we want down to London [in 1978], and we smashed this album, absolutely smashed it.  Spent a week in the studio.

Errol: We thought we were signing to Island Records, but they ended up signing us to Stiff, a different label.  We had a deal to supply us with all new instruments, we had about a two grand advance, and they would pay for the studio recordings.  So we went in and recorded it.  But when it was time for them to go for the release, that’s when they started giving us trouble, ignoring the calls.  In the end they said they had to cancel the contract...

Q: What was your reaction to that as a group?

Errol: We were gutted.  If they had released the album, we would have broke.

Tony: It was horrible.  We were disillusioned.  We ended up back on the road, taking any work we could get, supporting other acts.  We were just trying to get into as many places as we could, get as much stage time as we could.  It was hard.

Q: How do you look back on that period in the 1970s and 1980s?

Tony: It’s still the best time of my life.  The music thing, it was like a drug.  If you get bit by it, you try and get away but you keep coming back to it.  I just loved doing it.