Idaho Mountain Express: From Rasta to Urantia

Friday, January 25, 2013

From Rasta to Urantia

Pato Banton to rule Reggae in the Mountains

By TONY EVANS
Express Staff Writer

Courtesy graphic

Reggae in the Mountains, a winter festival of Caribbean sound now in its fifth year, will bring reggae singer and toaster Pato Banton to Ketchum to round out the Nordic Festival weekend. Banton has played with The Beat, UB40 and Sting.

The show will begin on Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m., following the Boulder Mountain Tour awards ceremony, at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts performance lot on the corner of Fourth Street and Second Avenue.

Banton will be joined by Soul Medic, Mega Banton, Voice of Reason, Lions Den Unlimited, DJ Vision and Obie Won. Tickets for the show cost $20 and are for sale at are on sale at Johnny G’s Subshack, Backwoods Mountain Sports and Atkinsons’ Market in Ketchum, or online at frontgatetickets.com.

Banton was born in Birmingham, England, known as “Reggae City, U.K.” due to its proliferation of reggae and other Caribbean musicians and songwriters. Banton first came to public attention in the early 1980s when he worked with The Beat. He was one of the guest artists that appeared on the UB40 album Baggariddim in 1985.

Banton has recorded several of his own albums, including “Mad Professor Captures Pato Banton,” followed in 1987 by “Never Give In,” which included a collaboration with Paul Shaffer. Banton’s “Wize Up (No Compromise)”, included the college radio hit and Police cover “Spirits in the Material World.” His “Life Is a Miracle” received a Grammy nomination for Best Reggae Album in 2001.

Recently, Banton has been playing with Mystic Roots, a reggae band formed in Chico, Calif. According to a Wikipedia article current this week, in early 2005, spiritual guide Yahe Boda invited Pato to do a short tour across America to “gather the people in praise.” This experience led to Pato recording the inspired double album titled “The Words of Christ,” a narrated album of Christ’s teachings as revealed in the Urantia Book.

The Urantia Book, also called The Urantia Papers or The Fifth Epochal Revelation, is a spiritual and philosophical book that discusses God, Jesus, science, cosmology, religion, history and destiny. It is said to have information channeled from incorporeal beings speaking through an anonymous individual in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955. The Urantia Book (published by a nonprofit group) was compiled by well-known Chicago physician William S. Sadler and his wife, Lena Sadler, in 1955.

Pato’s most recent release is “Destination Paradise” (2008). He began 2009 with the formation of a new band, the Now Generation, which undertook a tour of the U.S. with a commitment to spreading the teachings of the Urantia Book through his performances and speaking engagements.For more information, see www.reggaeinthemountains.com.

Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
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