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Internationally acclaimed British singer and songwriter Alex Clare has special ties to Jamaica, the island where he recorded some of the tracks for his début album, The Lateness of the Hour, which was produced by Major Lazer and Mike Spencer and released in July 2011 by Chris Blackwell’s Island Records. The album was recorded at the famous Geejam Studios in Port Antonio, a place where many celebrities, including the late Amy Winehouse, who shared a birthday and a bond with Clare, also recorded.
By some quirk of fate, in November 2024, Clare released the critically acclaimed album Rebuild Again, which, while referencing the October 7, 2023, events in Israel, also echoes the experience of Jamaicans in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa on October 28.
Last Sunday, the platinum-selling Clare was the highlight of the Chabad Jamaica-produced An Evening of Light, Music and Giving held on the East Lawn of King’s House in St Andrew, which also saw powerful performances from Yung Ras and Ozarii. A Hurricane Melissa relief benefit event, the proceeds support the ongoing recovery efforts across the island.
Clare, sometimes sitting and playing his guitar, sang songs that connected on a soul level, even if they were unfamiliar or in a different language. A Hasidic Jew, he, like many of the patrons, was celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish eight-day festival of lights.
“I am in Jamaica to commemorate an event that happened 2,300 [years ago] when the Greeks conquered the land of Israel and had extinguished the candles in the holy temple in Jerusalem, and by a miracle, we found a little cruse of oil that was supposed to only last for only one day, and miraculously God made it last for eight days, which gave us enough time to [get] enough oil and we celebrate this as a victory of light over darkness, of positivity over negativity, right over wrong,” Clare explained to The Sunday Gleaner.
But why Jamaica?
“I was asked by the Rabbi [Yaakov Raskin] to come. I love Jamaica. I made my first album in Jamaica at Geejam in Port Antonio. My last performance in Jamaica was more than 14 years ago,” Clare said.
He told The Sunday Gleaner that accepting the invitation “felt like a good thing to do ... it’s good to be back”.
The audience seemed to agree wholeheartedly and responded with cheers and sing-alongs when Clare performed songs such as Back of the Wagon, Three Hearts, and Fire as the eight-pronged candelabra, which was ceremoniously lit by Karina and Jesse Lehman, burned throughout the night. He also sang Rebuild Again, from his album of the same name, and his global hit, Too Close.
Too Close, which peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart and number seven on the US Billboard Hot 100, after its use in an Internet Explorer 9 ad campaign, propelled his début album, which hadn’t been selling well, to international fame. It was the song used to advertise that Clare was coming to perform at the An Evening of Light, Music and Giving, and it was a night on which many references were made to Hurricane Melissa and the need for ongoing relief efforts.
Rabbi Yaakov Raskin told The Sunday Gleaner that it was “a beautiful night” and expressed thanks to God for the turnout, as well as “the thousands of viewers online and for our international supporters”.
“We have another container arriving just before New Year’s. We are bringing in containers every month to help the people long-term. The most important message is Acts of Routine Kindness (ARK), and everybody should leave with the seven points of life, which is to be a better human being,” Rabbi Raskin said.
Raskin, who recently launched the ARK programme in Jamaica, issued ark-shaped savings containers to patrons, urging them to pass it on to those in need when it was full.
LIFESTYLE
Clare, too, was inspired by acts of kindness and spoke of his commitment to his Orthodox Jewish religion. He “was brought up in a Jewish home, not a religious home”, but became religious much later in life. He explained how his musical mission syncs with his Orthodox lifestyle.
“Our mission is to elevate any ability that God has given us and to use it for the right thing. It is a big blessing to be a musician [and] to be able to perform and to write. It is not a contradiction to be a religious Jewish person and to work in the music industry. On the contrary, it’s a Jewish person’s job to elevate the world around him,” Clare said.
Sporting a full beard, he explained that that, too, is a part of his lifestyle because “a beard is associated with God’s attribute of mercy”.
“There is a biblical commandment not to destroy the corners of the beard, so some people understand that to mean you don’t shave. Our particular group, we don’t trim our beard. We just make them grow naturally,” Clare said.
The British singer-songwriter has a fascinating backstory as a part of his journey. In 2006, before achieving international fame, he briefly dated fellow British singer Amy Winehouse. His Wikipedia bio states that they met while he was performing and working at a bar she frequented in Camden, North London. “Clare [gave] his story regarding his relationship with her to the tabloid News of the World, which ran it with the headline ‘Bondage Crazed Amy Just Can’t Beehive in Bed,’ Wikipedia states.
However, in a 2011 interview with www.thefader.com, Clare labelled his decision to speak with the tabloid as “stupid”.
“ I can’t justify it at all. It definitely wasn’t about any money because I didn’t make any. I kind of wanted to get some revenge, honestly. I wasn’t in a particularly good place … She was in an even worse place. It was a stupid thing to do.”
Commenting on Winehouse’s death in a 2012 interview, he is reported as saying: “ She was an incredible person and musically wonderful. When I first heard her sing with just an acoustic guitar, I didn’t touch my guitar for at least two months afterwards because I was so intimidated. We made music together all the time. We particularly tried singing polyphonically to songs by Toots and the Maytals, which never worked well, though. I can’t recommend anyone to sing Toots and the Maytals polyphonically.”
Among the sponsors of the event were Walkerswood, The Gleaner Company (Media) Limited, Hatzolah Air, Avi Glina, Reggae Sumfest, Isratech, Half Moon Jamaica, S Hotel Kingston, Kedem Foods, and Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel.
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