Exuma

Born in Tea Bay on Cat Island in the Bahamas, Macfarlane Gregory Anthony Mackey grew up in Nassau before moving to New York in his late teens, where he initially performed under the name Tony McKay on the Greenwich Village folk circuit. Beginning in 1969 he developed the Exuma project with Sally O’Brien and a collective of musicians around the Junk Band, crafting a musical world informed by Bahamian traditions—junkanoo, calypso, Caribbean folk, reggae, African rhythms—and a loose rock approach. The Exuma stage persona drew on the imagery of Obeah, a spiritual and healing practice in the Caribbean that Tony McKay connected to his Bahamian family heritage. Exuma released a debut album, Exuma, in 1970, followed that year by Exuma II; subsequent albums included Do Wah Nanny (1971), Snake and Reincarnation (1972), Life (1973), Penny Sausage and Street Music (both 1979), and Universal (1982). In the 1970s Exuma also created the stage production Junkanoo Drums, presented in New York, before settling in New Orleans, where he became a regular at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival from 1978 to 1991. His repertoire circulated beyond his own career, notably through Nina Simone, who covered several of his songs. Exuma died in 1997 in Nassau.