By Stephanie Lyew/Gleaner Writer—
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Grief has struck the family of former member of The Aces, James Wilson Samuels, known popularly as ‘Winston’ Samuels, as they mourn the musician’s death. According to Edward Delroy Bradshaw, he took his brother to the Burlington Medical Centre in Brown’s Town, St Ann, after his showing flu-like symptoms last Friday and was instructed to take him to St Ann’s Bay Hospital where they could better treat him.
“He was shaking. I was told he had pneumonia, and after an X-ray showed he had inflammation of the lungs, they admitted him at the hospital,” Bradshaw told The Gleaner.
He was left devastated by the news that his eldest brother died from COVID-19 when he returned during visiting hours the following day, on Saturday, January 28, he said, having just buried his younger brother Robert Bradshaw a little over a week ago.
“I am the last one left. Robert died on December 17, and now this again. James wasn’t strong enough to walk by himself – him don’t go anywhere – is me take care of him, and I hardly go anywhere either much less to carry home that virus give him,” said an emotional Bradshaw, adding that his brother’s “movement was limited”, having suffered a stroke five years ago.
“His right side was paralysed for a while, but he began to move around a little bit, his speech was not so plain, his memory was not good, and the most we would go is to the doctor to get a check-up and for him pressure tablet,” he continued.
Samuels was part of some of the most iconic ska, reggae and rocksteady productions as a member of Desmond Dekker’s backing band, The Aces, including the 1968 hit single Israelites. It was the first Jamaican-produced single to earn the number one spot on the British charts, and proved almost equally as popular, breaking onto the Billboard Pop chart in 1969 before eventually peaking at the number nine position. It was one of the records that was credited for opening the floodgates for reggae in the United Kingdom, and the song that Bradshaw names as a favorite.
He recalled the first time Samuels visited the countryside home in Gibraltar, six miles away from Brown’s Town, being a celebratory time, even though his becoming a Rastafarian at the time was not pleasing to their mother, Lena Bradshaw.
“The Israelites song did well for James. He drove a little Morris Minor convertible back home the first time … and returned as a Rasta, which our mother never liked the idea of him turning to Rastafarianism,” he said.
“As a bigger brother, him used to give me bare jokes and shared with us all of what he saw and taught us all of what he knows from living in Kingston so many years. Ah him teach me how to smoke weed and what its various uses,” Bradshaw added, followed by a loud chuckle.
The two brothers did not see each other until years after, as they both were busy travelling, he explained. Unfortunately, most of Samuels’ life stayed under wraps, and not much is known about any fortune he may have earned from the success of the productions he was part of. At the time of his stroke in 2017, news had spread that he had passed away, but Bradshaw further explained that was the “fault of misinformation”.
No arrangements have been made for the reggae musician’s burial as yet, as his brother is left sorting out expenses. Samuels would have turned 79 years old on September 3.
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