After a Rest, Luciano Looks to Revitalize the Sagging Spirit of Reggae

The singer Luciano is one of the spearheads of a movement to return positive, spiritual messages to reggae music, which has been dominated by the sex-and-guns themes of dancehall deejays for the last decade.

But the artist sent shock waves of a different sort rippling through the reggae world last year. After a string of major reggae chart hits in his native Jamaica and England, he completed his major-label debut album, then promptly disappeared. He headed for the Jamaican hills for a 40-day sabbatical that many perceived as a permanent retirement.

“We all need a little space, a little time to get away and reflect,” says Luciano, 32. “It was a disconnection from the whole busy schedule and finding more time for my family and friends, [Rastafarian] elders and brethren in the hills, and some time for myself and the Higher One. So it was a spiritual vacation.”

Now a refreshed Luciano is back in business, making his Southern California debut on Sunday at the “Reggae at the Ranch” concert at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu.

The episode illustrates the way many young Jamaican artists over the last three years have returned to the original spirit of reggae’s greatest figure, Bob Marley, and their popularity shows that the audience for those uplifting, “conscious” messages is on the rise.

The music on Luciano’s album, “Where There Is Life” (on Island Jamaica), shows that he isn’t just a ‘70s roots reggae throwback. It flavors his rich voice with spare, contemporary arrangements, creating evocative settings for lyrics that can resemble personal prayers or point the way toward a new outlook on life.

“We’ve been working for it, all the positive artists like Tony Rebel, Buju Banton, Capleton and Yami Bolo, to name a few,” he says, sitting in Island Records’ Sunset Strip office this week. “We can’t help but work towards a positiveness because we realized there was a decadence in the music after Bob Marley.”

Despite the serious words, Luciano is engaging and earnest, often laughing heartily when he turns a phrase he likes. Born Jepther McClymont, Luciano learned guitar from his father and was influenced early by Marley, singer Dennis Brown and Jamaican folklore poet Louise Bennett. After singing in church and working with sound systems (Jamaican mobile discos), he waited until 1992 before entering what he calls the music “fraternity.”

“I always have this spirit of wanting to master something,” he says. “I was an upholsterer, and I became the head upholsterer for my firm. When I sing, I sing to the full capacity of my lungs and my being.”

Luciano chose his stage name from a list--he later discovered it meant “bearer of the light”--before his first single was released in 1992. He embarked on a two-year search for a creative partnership that ended when he teamed up with producer-writer-arranger-manager Phillip “Fattis” Burrell.

“I wanted something like a home or stable in which I could work and have my freedom and time to go deep into my mind,” he says. “It’s by uniting with other minds and people, and sharing and listening, that I have managed to grow.”

Luciano first broke through in reggae circles in 1993 with “Shake It Up Tonight,” but his work with Burrell on “Chant Out,” “One Way Ticket” and Marley’s “Chant Down Babylon” put him in the creative vanguard.

Their collaborative approach--sessions take place when the creative urge strikes, not according to the schedule of an album “project”--was designed to maintain the spiritual connection central to Luciano’s music.

“I realize people are now taking music as a business, but I say music initially, at the present and forever more will be a spiritual phenomenon,” Luciano says. “Music is more than getting a name or fame.

“It’s about expressing your spirit and soul. Sometimes, I wish I could live my life like the notes of music, the way they flow so easily.”

* Luciano will appear with the Wailing Souls, Daddy U-Roy and others at “Reggae at the Ranch” Sunday at Calamigos Ranch, Mulholland Way, Malibu, 11 a.m. $22.50 advance, $25 day of show. (310) 515-3322.