REINER
new sound came from new producers such as Lee Perry, Clancy
Eccles, and Bunny Lee, who established their own studios in the late
1960s. Unable to hire established studio musicians, they turned to
younger talents such as Aston and Carlton Barrett and Leroy Wallace.
These producers and musicians established the new reggae beat that
soon became the most popular style in Jamaica, eclipsing both ska and
rock steady.
Of all the various groups to emerge from the reggae sound, none
had a greater impact than Bob Marley & the Wailers. Singer,
songwriter, and guitarist Marley became the greatest reggae star ever,
with an enduring international appeal. Born in 1945, Marley grew up
in Trench Town, a rough slum in Kingston. He formed the Wailers
with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone in 1960, and they made their
first recordings in 1962. In the later 1960s, Marley became an
adherent of Rastafarianism. In 1970, they signed a recording contract
with Chris Blackwell’s Island Records. Blackwell gave Marley the
money and artistic freedom to do largely as he pleased. What
followed was a string of some of the most influential reggae record-
ings in the genre’s history. On albums such as Catch a Fire and early
singles, Marley and the Wailers took on political, religious, and social
topics, from ghetto conditions in ‘‘Trench Town Rock’’ and ‘‘Con-
crete Jungle’’ to ‘‘Natty Dread’’ on Rastafarianism. Tosh and
Livingstone left the group in the early 1970s, but Marley continued
on, releasing such reggae classics as ‘‘No Woman No Cry,’’ ‘‘Get Up
Stand Up,’’ ‘‘Exodus,’’ and ‘‘Them Belly Full (But We Hungry).’’
His 1975 album, Live, was a bestselling record that encapsulated the
live power of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ sound. Marley died of
cancer in 1981 at 36 years of age.
Along with the success of such reggae ambassadors as Marley
and the Wailers during the 1970s, another event that made reggae an
international cultural force was the release of the 1973 film The
Harder They Come. This film, by white Jamaican filmmaker Perry
Henzell, starred reggae singer Jimmy Cliff as a young street tough (or
‘‘rude boy’’ in Jamaican slang terms) who comes to Kingston,
records a hit record, and then gets in trouble with the law. Although
fictional, The Harder They Come was based on several years of
research by Henzell on the culture that surrounded reggae music. The
story of success, oppression, and rebellion hit a literal and figurative
chord with young people around the world, awakening an interest in
Jamaican music and culture that has never completely subsided. The
soundtrack album that accompanied it, which included such stars as
Jimmy Cliff, the Melodians, the Maytals, and Desmond Dekker,
introduced reggae music to millions around the world.
By the early 1980s, reggae was evolving once again. DJs had
always been important in Jamaican popular music, bringing music to
the masses and sometimes acting as producers of reggae artists. DJs
began to dominate Jamaican music in the late 1970s and early 1980s
in a style that came to be known as ‘‘dancehall.’’ DJs such as Ranking
Trevor, U Brown, and Trinity began to revive an earlier style from the
1960s, called ‘‘toasting,’’ that had DJs adding vocal effects or talking
over instrumental tracks. With toasting, this was an ad-hoc musical
form. In the late 1970s, these younger DJs began to record their own
songs in the toasting style, which was dubbed ‘‘dancehall.’’ The
dancehall style became the dominant musical form in reggae with
such performers as Yellowman, Sugar Minott, and U Roy, and had
direct connections to the emerging rap or hip-hop style among
African-American performers in the United States in the early 1980s.
The dancehall style continued to be the dominant form of reggae in
the late 1990s.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
Although the dancehall style now predominates, the earlier
Jamaican musical forms continued through the 1980s and 1990s. The
reggae style was by no means dead, and groups such as Black Uhuru,
Steel Pulse, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Third World, and a host of
other stars carried the reggae tradition forward. Ska enjoyed a revival
in Britain in the late 1970s as young English musicians discovered the
music through the many Jamaicans and West Indians living in
London. Such groups as the Selector, Madness, the Specials, the Beat,
and hundreds of other groups revived the ska sound, using its musical
forms while often combining them with socially conscious lyrics that
commented on life in Margaret Thatcher’s Great Britain. The ska
revival also infected the United States, and the style continued to draw
a large cult following both in the United States and in Britain during
the 1990s.
—Timothy Berg
FURTHER READING:
Chang, Kevin O’Brien, and Wayne Chen. Reggae Routes: The Story
of Jamaican Music. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1998.
Manuel, Peter, et al. Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from
Rumba to Reggae. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1995.
Tougher than Tough: The Story of Jamaican Music. Mango Rec-
ords, 1993.
Ward, Ed. ‘‘Reggae.’’ The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock
& Roll. Edited by Jim Miller. New York, Rolling Stone Press, 1980.
White, Timothy. Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley. New York,
Owl Books, 1998.
Reiner, Carl (1922—)
Among the most influential comedic actors, writers, directors,
and producers of his generation, Carl Reiner has been associated with
many of the brightest lights in American comedy during the post-
World War II era, including Mel Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, and
Steve Martin.
Reiner was born in the Bronx on March 20, 1922. During the
Great Depression he got his first taste of show business as a writer and
actor in a dramatic workshop sponsored by the Works Projects
Administration (WPA). He was drafted into the U.S. Army during
World War II, and further developed his performing abilities while
acting in a South Pacific service troupe directed by Shakespearean
actor Maurice Evans.
After the war, Reiner was part of the first generation of writer-
performers on the new medium of television. In 1950 he was signed to
write and co-star on NBC’s variety series Your Show of Shows,
starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Reiner appeared on-screen,
serving largely as a straight man to Caesar and Coca’s antics. In the
writer’s room, Reiner worked alongside such greats as Neil Simon,
Joe Stein, and a young, maniacal Mel Brooks. Brooks and Reiner
developed a rapport for mad improvisation—Reiner would introduce
Brooks as a Jewish pirate, for example, and Brooks would begin off-
the-cuff dialogue. On one such occasion, Reiner asked Brooks about
witnessing the Crucifixion. Brooks’s persona became the genesis of
the 2,000-Year-Old Man character. The pair developed the routine at
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
Carl Reiner (left) with Mel Brooks.
show business parties during the 1950s, and on the advice of Steve
Allen and George Burns, they recorded an album of the routine in
1960. It became a best-seller and spurred four more records.
Reiner wrote the critically acclaimed autobiographical novel
Enter Laughing in 1958, which Joe Stein adapted into a hit Broadway
play. Reiner realized that the story of his life—a young husband and
father who wrote comedy—would also make a good TV situation
comedy. The idea eventually became The Dick Van Dyke Show,
which debuted in 1961 and ran for five seasons. The series was a
beautiful combination of physical shtick, verbal jousting, and ensem-
ble acting, and turned Van Dyke and co-star Mary Tyler Moore into
TV superstars. Reiner eventually made guest appearances as Alan
Brady, the demanding, vainglorious star for whom Van Dyke’s
character was writing.
During the 1960s and 1970s Reiner branched out as a successful
film director. His 1969 movie, The Comic, starred Van Dyke as a
silent screen comedian. Reiner’s next film was the cult classic
Where’s Poppa? (1970), a blissfully off-color farce with something to
offend everyone (the film ends with the middle-aged protagonist
about to go to bed with his aged mother). He directed the 1977
surprise hit, Oh, God!, starring George Burns as the Almighty; the
RELIGIOUS RIGHT
film was written by fellow Caesar alumnus Larry Gelbart, and its style
echoed the 2,000-Year-Old Man routines.
Reiner found his ideal film collaborator in stand-up phenomenon
Steve Martin. Reiner directed Martin’s first starring role, The Jerk
(1979), which grossed well over $100 million. Reiner and Martin
teamed up three more times, most famously on the 1984 hit, All of Me
(co-starring Lily Tomlin).
By the 1990s, Reiner was an elder statesman in the comedy field.
He reprised his Alan Brady character (and won an Emmy) in a 1995
episode of the popular Mad about You sitcom. In 1998 he and Brooks
recorded their first 2,000-Year-Old Man album in a quarter century,
for which the pair won a long overdue Grammy. ‘‘Thirty-nine years
ago we were nominated for a Grammy, and lost,’’ Reiner said in his
acceptance speech. ‘‘We can’t wait another 39 years!’’
Reiner married singer Estelle Lebost in 1944, and they have
three children. The eldest is actor/director Rob Reiner, known for
such films as This Is Spinal Tap and A Few Good Men. Estelle is
probably best remembered for her one line—‘‘I’ll have what she’s
having’’—in the deli scene in son Rob’s 1989 hit, When Harry
Met Sally.
—Andrew Milner
FURTHER READING:
Reiner, Carl. Continue Laughing. New York, Birch Lane Press, 1995.
———. Enter Laughing. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1958.
———, and Brooks, Mel. The 2,000-Year-Old Man in the Year 2000:
The Book, Including How to Not Die and Other Good Tips. New
York, Harper Collins, 1997.
Waldron, Vince. The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book. New York,
Hyperion, 1994.
Religious Right
Since the 1970s, the Religious Right, often known as the
‘‘Christian Right’’ or the ‘‘New Christian Right,’’ has referred to a
coalition of organizations and individuals with three major goals in
U.S. politics: to get conservative Protestants to participate in the
political process, to bring them into the Republican party, and to elect
social conservatives to public office. It is not, however, merely an
electoral movement. Broadly speaking, the Religious Right is made
up of evangelical Christians who are socially, theologically, and
economically conservative. Its adherents are primarily, but not exclu-
sively, white middle-class Americans who affirm so-called ‘‘family
values,’’ promote laissez-faire economics, and believe in a generally
literal interpretation of Biblical Christianity. Although the coalition
claims support from conservatives among Catholics and other relig-
ious groupings, it is generally made up of evangelical Protestants, and
it is from this tradition that the movement has emerged. The Religious
Right is best known for its positions on contemporary hot-button
issues; for example, its adherents oppose abortion on demand, reject
homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle, push for prayer in public
schools, and protest high taxes and an expanding welfare state.
The rise of the Religious Right began in 1976, dubbed the ‘‘Year
of the Evangelical’’ by Time magazine. The New York Times claimed
that the blossoming evangelical movement was ‘‘the major religious
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