ShowDiasporic Music
Broadcast TitleSalute to The Vibrations; David Austin on Fear of a Black Nation
Broadcast Date2013-07-21
Record Date2013-07-21
SummaryRichmond interviews Carlton Fisher, lead vocalist of the Vibrations and David Austin, author of Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2013) and the forthcoming The Unfinished Revolution: Linton Kwesi Johnson, Poetry, and the New Society (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014). Austin is also the editor of You Don't Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James (Oakland: AK Press, 2009) and A View for Freedom: Alfie Roberts Speaks on the Caribbean, Cricket, Montreal, and C.L.R. James (Montreal:Ari Press, 2005), and co-editor of a special edition of the journal Race and Class titled: "Canada: Colonial Amnesia and the Legacy of Empire" (July 2010). For many Years David Austin worked as a community and youth worker in Montreal. He has produced two radio documentaries for CBC's Ideas: C.L.R. James: The Black Jacobin and Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth. He currently teaches in the Humanities, Philosophy, and Religion Department at John Abbot College in Montreal.

Formed in Los Angeles, California in 1955, the Vibrations were originally known as the Jayhawks. The Vibrations released "The Watusi" in 1961 and later recorded "Peanut Butter" under the name The Marathons. In 1964 their hit record "My Girl Sloopy" was a Top 30 single and "Love Up In Them Hills" was released around the same time. Visit Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali on Facebook.