The Music of The Jonestown Express

(Tom Graddon is a native of the United Kingdom, where he obtained an undergraduate and masters degree in Law from Aberystwyth University. Tom has written previously on criminal and constitutional law and works primarily in police station advocacy and mediation. His interest in Jonestown surrounds the community’s musical contributions and influences. He can be contacted at tom.graddon@gmail.com.)

Jonestown’s legacy, for better or worse, lives on in the 300 cassettes which were recorded there between the town’s inception and its eventual end. Many of these are recordings of Jones reading the news, People’s Rallies and so-called White Nights, but a small number record the community’s musical creativity and flair.

The table below sets out all the songs known to have been recorded by the Express in 1978. There are 91 tracks recorded across 14 cassettes, ranging from covers of popular R&B hits to jazzy instrumental jams to politically charged original compositions. Included in the table is Q785, which is a poor quality, low-res copy of He’s Able. While this is not an Express cassette, a number of artists from the Express feature on the album including Marthea Hicks, Deanna Wilkinson and Loretta Cordell.

The house band of the community, the Jonestown Express was one of a handful of performance groups who played regularly for the Sunday night entertainment in the Pavilion, as well as for visiting guests and new arrivals. The seventeen-strong band featured vocalists, guitarists, drummers, horn players, saxophonists, a bass player, keyboardist and a band conductor. No wonder one visitor called them “the nucleus of a very majestic orchestra.”

The band, for the most part, was a collaboration of amateur and casual musicians, but  Shirley Hicks and her sister Marthea were experienced performers outside of Jonestown and brought their slick professionalism to the band’s performance. Joining them was Robert “Rob” Edwin Davis, who graduated with a music degree from Washington State University and played the saxophone with Brian Bouquet, who worked with him in the carpentry workshop.

Predominantly Marthea Hicks takes lead on vocals, with either Loretta Cordell or Deanna Wilkinson, who also sings on a number of tracks, playing piano. Prior to coming to Jonestown, Loretta had been instrumental in assembling the Peoples Temple Choir for their 1973 album, He’s Able. Between them they polished up the Jonestown Express into a competent performing group, who played regularly not only for the community and its guests but also at venues around Guyana.

Supporting the artists was 17 year old mic tech Don Scheid, who managed the recording equipment and gave lessons to the others in how to use it. It is largely thanks to him that any record of the band in performance exists at all.

Only a few of the band’s performances were recorded, and these are all performances that were made in Jonestown. The majority of the cassettes are undated and of varying quality, partly due to the constraints of the technology and also because different members of the band appeared to have recorded performances at times. As a result, there are considerable audio defects such as reverb, echo and tape distortion on some — but not all — of the recordings, although loud background hiss is common to all the tapes.

The Express stands as a demonstration of the band’s aptitude and enthusiasm for music, and Shirley Hicks and Deanna Wilkinson in particular were fiercely talented vocalists. The songs of the Express are at times heartbreaking for their joyfulness and their passion, made more moving in the knowledge that the members’ careers as musicians were so brief and cut short as they were.

SCHEDULE OF CASSETTES

Total Tracks: 91
Instrumentals marked in bold
Spoken word marked in italics