INSTANT KARMA
From Harlesden they come
The story of The Cimarons, Britain’s first reggae band
“IT was a complete accident,” says filmmaker Mark Warmington, explaining how he came across the remarkable story of the Cimarons, the UK’s first indigenous reggae band. He was living and working as a cameraman in Brent when someone at the council suggested he speak to Cimarons guitarist and co-founder guitarist Locksley Gichie. “When he told me about who they’d worked with and what they’d done, it was just incredible.”
The result is Warmington’s film Harder Than The Rock, which tells how the Cimarons formed in Harlesden, took reggae around the world, worked with everyone from Bob Marley to Paul McCartney, but ultimately disappeared under the radar – something that the documentary is seeking to put right. As Gichie says, “It will mean that all our blood, sweat and tears haven’t gone to waste.”