The idea of an album which fused Jamaican roots reggae and Polish folk music seemed so incomprehensible to John Peel that when he found himself holding a copy of just such an album he laughed out loud because he felt that the conceit could not possibly work. However, Higher Heights Twinkle Inna Polish Style - a collaboration between veteran reggae group Twinkle Brothers and the Polish family folk group Trebunie-Tutki - worked its magic and Peel admitted, before playing it on this show, that he had been humming Skanking on the Grass all week.
Looking over Twinkle Brothers’ discography, they were no strangers to Poland. This may have been facilitated by Norman Grant’s 1980s move to the United Kingdom which opened up Europe as a consistent venue for touring. In 1988, they recorded Twinkle in Poland and the following year saw the release of a live album recorded in Warsaw. Grant’s exposure to the music of Eastern Europe, especially in the Tatra Mountains area inspired and excited him, eventually leading him to seek out a musical collaboration.
The historic meeting took place in the autumn of 1991 when the snowfall had already started dressing the mountains in white sparkles and Norman Grant accompanied by Dub Judah entered the mountain hut of the Trebunia “Tutka” family. The family have lived in their house for as long as the memory can stretch. For generations they have played their music with its roots right where the mountain stream of Bialy Dunajec springs out. The family opened their doors wide with the old Polish saying, “The guest brings God into your home.” and Madam Zosia greeted everybody with all the warmth of her heart. - From the sleevenotes of Higher Heights Twinkle Inna Polish Style.
Between 1992 and 1994, the two groups released four collaborative albums. If we accept the chronology on Discogs, Higher Heights Twinkle Inna Polish Style was the third of these releases. There are shared tropes between the two styles of music which, on this record, form the basis of a loose concept album about (SPOILERS) an outlaw called Johnny (referred to as Janosik in the sections sung by Trebunie-Tutki) who returns to his village after hiding out in the mountains so that he can enjoy a reunion with his wife. But trouble is never far away and he gets into a fight with someone which leads to him getting killed towards the end of the second side of the record.
I heard every track on the album apart from the last one, so don't know how it ends.
In keeping with most concept albums, the plotting is quite vague and repetitive, but the two sound styles meld together well enough to avoid sounding jarring or a novelty. In choosing to play Skanking on the Grass, Peel steered clear of any of the tracks which are integral to the story. But the track is still one which takes elements of storytelling and setting from both the reggae and European folk traditions: trying to smile through poverty by enjoying simple pleasures of dancing while mothers fret about the children ruining their nice shoes, an important status symbol as the first visible sign of progress out of barefoot poverty. Next, will come a bicycle and then the ultimate symbol of progress, a car.*
After 1994's Comeback Twinkle 2 Trebunia Family LP, the groups went their separate ways until 2008 when they reunited to record Songs of Glory - Piesni Chwaly which went Gold in Poland.
*This is my theory, not one from the album.
Video courtesy of Akla the First
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