How reggae legend Marcia Griffiths inspired one of the biggest wedding dances of all time
The Jamaican singer sits down with Q’s Tom Power to look back on her incredible career
If you've ever done the Electric Slide at a wedding or celebration, you have Marcia Griffiths to thank.
Known as the Queen of Reggae, Griffiths started singing in Jamaica in the '60s where she was signed to the legendary reggae label Studio One (home of Bob Marley and the Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, and Lee "Scratch" Perry). She went on to have some big hits in the '70s as Bob and Marcia — her duo with the great Bob Andy — and she was also one of Bob Marley's backup singers, the I-Threes.
But when it comes to Griffiths' hit song Electric Boogie and the famous dance it inspired, the story actually starts in Toronto.
"This is where it all started," the Jamaican singer recalls in an interview with Q's Tom Power in Toronto.
In the '80s, Griffiths came to Toronto to do a performance with the I-Threes. While walking down Yonge Street, she decided to check out a local music store.
"I saw this rhythm box, like a keyboard, nice little size," she says. "I started playing around with it and the man in the store came and he showed me a lot of features on this keyboard [with] over 100 different sounds…. And I discovered this beat. It was going like 'poof, bah, poof, bah, poof.'"
Griffiths says she took the keyboard back home with her to Jamaica and showed it to her friend, the singer-songwriter and percussionist Bunny Wailer.
"I said, 'Bunny, come and look at this box!' And I showed him one particular beat that I loved," Griffiths tells Power. "So he combined the beat with the piano and put [in] some matching hand claps that gave it a boost….
"[He] came back the following day with the song. It was so spontaneous, we didn't sleep on it. We went straight in the studio and guess what? He took 11 different keyboard parts from the one rhythm box that I bought right here in Toronto, and added it to the song Electric Boogie."
In 1989, Griffiths was on the Reggae Sunsplash tour in the U.S., when she got a call informing her that the Electric Boogie "just took off with a dance."
"By the time the tour got to Washington, D.C., I was forced to learn the dance and perform it on stage!" she says.
"It was a group of guys in Washington, D.C. who created this dance. We had regular Electric Slide day in D.C., and we're talking about 100,000 — I stood on stage and watched 100,000 people doing the Electric Slide. It was like a wave…. It was something to behold."
But Griffith's memories of making the song aren't all positive.
"I'd feel better if I was able to make some money from it," she tells Power. "But unfortunately, Bunny Wailer claimed 100 per cent from the song and whatever I made from that song is from performances. Thanks to [Island Records founder] Chris Blackwell, who thought it was so unfair that nothing was given to me, I eventually, in the end, got some performance royalties."
Under Blackwell's advice, Griffiths then returned to the studio to re-record the song with Wailer, who she later discovered was already in the process of recording his own version without her.
"When I finally found him, he had already done the song and was now doing the video with some dancers," she says. "I cannot find the words to tell you how bad I felt, but good over evil I say, because his version didn't do anything…. They didn't know that version and they didn't love that version. So it didn't work out for him….
"I have to say this before I close out: it shows me that when God says yes, no one says no. And it says many are called, but few are chosen. And I honestly believe that God chose me as a missionary on a mission doing God's work."
The full interview with Marcia Griffiths is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She also talks about how her career began when she won a talent show, the early days of reggae and what it was like touring with Bob Marley. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Marcia Griffiths produced by Ben Edwards.
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