Prince Far I

The Voice of Thunder

Michael James Williams was born on March 23, 1945 in Spanish Town, Jamaica, and raised in Waterhouse in Kingston. Before music he worked as a bouncer, security guard and car sprayer and deejayed on the Sir Mike the Musical Dragon sound system, with jobs as a guard at Joe Gibbs's studio and a bouncer at Studio One. He first recorded as King Cry Cry, a reference to his habit of crying when angered, with "The Great Booga Wooga" for Bunny Lee in 1969. Wikipedia says he recorded for Coxsone Dodd in 1970 when King Stitt failed to turn up and that Enos McLeod suggested the name Prince Far I; the Cult article dates the naming to 1975 at King Tubby's. He preferred the word chanter to toaster, and was nicknamed the Voice of Thunder. Psalms for I (Carib Gems) came in 1975 and Under Heavy Manners (Joe Gibbs) in 1976, whose title song addressed a Jamaican state of emergency.

He founded the Cry Tuff label in 1976, splitting production between Jamaica and London with Adrian Sherwood's Hit Run Music. In late 1978 he signed to Virgin's Front Line, which released Message from the King and Long Life, and he made about twelve albums between 1978 and 1981. Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapters 1 to 4 were credited to Prince Far I and the Arabs, the Roots Radics under a pseudonym; Chapter III (Daddy Kool, 1980) marked the handover of production from Far I to Sherwood, who went on to start On-U Sound, with guests including Ari Up, David Toop and Steve Beresford. Four Trojan albums followed, Free from Sin, Jamaican Heroes, Voice of Thunder and Musical History. He spent increasing time in England, worked with On-U Sound and with Suns of Arqa, and played his last show at Band on the Wall in Manchester on December 7, 1982.

He died in Kingston on September 15, 1983, aged 38 (39 in the Pressure Sounds text). Umkhonto We Sizwe, begun with Roy Cousins, came out in 1984. Sherwood has called him a mentor figure, and said a great singer has a voice like an instrument, and that Far I really stood out from the pack. The Mountain Goats' "Sept. 15 1983" (Heretic Pride) is named for his death date, and the Clash's "Clash City Rockers" refers to him. Blood and Fire issued Silver and Gold 1973-1979 in October 2005, and Trojan's Heavy Manners anthology came in 2003.