Kwaku BBM: Reggae Memories Playlist Or The Non-Anorak’s Choice

Of course I’m showing my age when I say I was in boarding school in Birmingham, when I first saw Dave & Ansell Collins perform ‘Double Barrel’ on Top Of The Pops, which went on to give Trojan its first UK chart-topping single 50 years ago!

Trojan would go on to bag a number of Top 30 hits, the pool from which records were generally selected to be performed on the once powerful Thursday evening TV viewing ritual that was Top Of The Pops. However, although Maytals‘ ‘Monkey Man’ only made it to the outer reaches of the Top 50, it was still a big tune, at a time when reggae records seldom breached the Top 50. Except if it was deemed a novelty record, or had serious promotion behind it, which often meant paying a plugger to promote the record to the powerful gate-keepers – the pop radio producers and presenters.

It was a catch 22 of sorts, as a record was unlikely to make it into the charts if the big pop station of the day BBC Radio 1, or the commercial radio stations that came on the scene from the mid-1970s onwards, wasn’t playing the record on heavy rotation.

Of course, the dulcet lead vocals on ‘Monkey Man’ was that of the recently departed Toots Hibbert. I recall buying a copy of Toots & The Maytals‘ ‘In The Dark’ LP. But I don’t know if I bought a copy of the ‘Monkey Man’ album, though I remember one of the songs on that album, ‘Pressure Drop’, was remade by the soulful rock singer Robert Palmer. In fact, it was the title track of Palmer’s 1975 album. I recall the cover was displayed in the windows of a number of record shops in London’s West End. It had a provocative attraction, on account of the fact that It featured a naked female.

Bob And Marcia‘s cover of the socio-political ‘Young, Gifted And Black’ was perhaps mollified for mass, pop consumption, with a bubbly arrangement awash with strings. Though it got to no. 5, it’s the lesser hit, ‘Pied Piper’, which I recall much better. I suspect it formed the soundtrack to my 1971 summer holidays.

The following summer I remember Dandy Livingstone breaking through the Top 20, and playing the keyboard and singing ‘Suzanne, Beware Of The Devil’ on Top Of The Pops. The way he and the record were featured in the pop magazines of the day, I expected him to be fixture in the pop market with several hits to come. Unfortunately, after one Top 30 single, he was not to revisit the pop charts. However, his place is assured in the pop annals for composing the much covered ‘Rudy, A Message to You’, and in the reggae annals, for being one of the first Trojan signed UK artists and producers.

Although Desmond Dekker had had some big hits with The Aces in the late 1960s, such as ‘007’ and the chart-topping ‘Israelites’, I’ve chosen Dekker’s bubbly, poppy ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want’. Because that’s the record I remember raving to as a youth. It went all the way to no. 2 in 1970. However a few months before, Nicky Thomas made it into the Top 10 with his only hit, ‘Love Of The Common People’. Another of Trojan’s UK strings-upped pop-crossover aimed releases. It was so sad to read quite recently that Thomas had taken his life.

Then unusual for reggae acts, much less a British act, Greyhound was a British band that had three Top 20 hits, including the 1971 Top 10 hit ‘Black And White’. There was some socio-consciousness running through the bubbly song. The group had come out of The Rudies, who along with lead singer Freddie Notes breached the lower end of the Top 50 with their cover of ‘Montego Bay’, a few months after the original version by Barry Bloom had reached no. 3 in 1970.

I don’t know if the country music writer of ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’, Kris Kristofferson, ever released his version as a single, as I don’t recall hearing it in the 1970s. However, whilst the generally better promoted Motown could only manage a no. 11 with Gladys Knight & The Pips‘ soul version, Trojan managed to get John Holt‘s soulful reggae version to no. 6 in 1974. I remember seeing Holt perform his only UK pop hit on Top Of The Pops. However, it wasn’t until much later that I was inclined to buy the ‘1000 Volts Of Holt’ parent album.

Ken Boothe ended 1974 with the wonderful Top 15 hit ‘Crying Over You’. A few months earlier, he had delivered another Trojan chart-topper – a cover of Bread‘s song ‘Everything I Own’. No doubt the input by musicians such as The Cimarons and the sweetening elements overseen in north London Chalk Farm studios overseen by Lloyd Charmers made it a pleasant product for Radio 1 producers and listeners. However, what I found amazing is that until I came to compile this Playlist, I had assumed that Radio 1 type pop-rock band Bread had made the top 10 with their original version. But no, they didn’t even breach the Top 30. They got to no. 32. Of course Boy George, of Culture Club fame, went on to have a solo number one in 1987 with his version, using the same reggae or lovers rock style as Boothe’s version.

I’ve pointed to the strings that were overdubbed on several pop crossover aimed reggae tracks. But I guess, if it ain’t broke, why bother fixing it? Trojan continued with its strings-upped arrangements, which probably made reggae more appealing to Radio 1 gate-keepers. Another such example is Horace Faith‘s ‘Black Pearl’, which reached the Top 15 in 1970. The following year, The Pioneers broke through in a big way with their Top 5 hit ‘Let Your Yeah Be Yeah’. I loved that record back in the day. Although the follow up, ‘Give And Take’, was a smaller hit, the sprightly track is another of the group’s favourite offerings. The Pioneers, like several of their Jamaican contemporaries would decamp to Britain, which provided a lucrative market for many Jamaican acts.

Bruce Ruffin could be said to have the luck of the 9s. In 1971 he reached no. 19 with the bubbly, poppy ‘The Rain’. And the following year, he breached the Top 10 by reaching no. 9 with ‘Mad About You’. In an age of scant black music information – this was before the Black Music magazine or Black Echoes newspaper, two publications that gave reggae respectable coverage, and decades before the universal library that’s the internet, I used to think Ruffin was a sibling of the American Ruffin singers – Jimmy, and David of The Temptations! Hey, Johnny Nash and Donnie Elbert were African-Americans who make rocksteady or reggae records.

By the way, the crossover stakes weren’t just made up solely of pop and soul covers or recordings with strings-upped arrangements. In 1974 the “oddest” and authentic underground reggae record crossed over unto the pop radio and the charts. Rupie Edwards‘ ‘Irie Feelings (Skanga)’ bucked any formula to find its way into the Top 10. Of course today, we’re much used to dubby, toasting by likes of U Roy. But in the mid-1970s, it was a style pretty much confined to the reggae underground.

As a soul head, I knew the song ‘It Hurts So Good’ from saucy singer/raptress Millie Jackson‘s 1973 album of the same name. But I also welcomed Susan Cadogan‘s choppy, reggae version which ended up entering the Top 5 in 1975. I actually bought her album, which yielded one lesser crossover hit.

Tito Simon‘s choppy, rhythm-driven ‘This Monday Morning Feeling’, a Top 50 hit in 1975, must have been one the last crossover hits before the old Trojan group of companies were liquidated.

At this juncture, I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the 2015 ‘This Is Trojan’ is one of my favourite Trojan compilations. Because it has many of the pop crossover reggae singles I recall either raving to or enjoying listening to on the radio or watching on TV. But of course there’s more to reggae than simply the records that cross over into the national pop charts.

I’m the convenor of London’s International Reggae Day (IRD) hub event, In 2019 we decided to mark Dennis Brown‘s music annually, as he passed away on the day IRD is celebrated, which is July 1 (JulyOne). Additionally, I had the pleasure of re-acquainting myself with Brown’s great body of work, as I had to write a retrospective for a Brown supplement in the UK Weekly Gleaner. The last time he had been on my radar was a few years after Bob Marley had died. He was touted as the one to take over Marley’s baton. He was signed to a major label and had scored a couple of minor crossover hits, of which ‘Love Has Found Its Way’ wafted across the early 1980s pop radio airwaves, threatening to be a bigger hit than it eventually was.

In the said supplement, I wrote about how I had bought a copy of Brown’s ‘Words Of Wisdom’ LP, but discovered the album version of ‘Money In My Pocket’, the main reason for buying the album, paled in comparison to the versions I was hearing in the clubs and on specialist radio. This was 1979, and there were now several reggae programmes on legal and pirate radio. It turned out that what I was hearing was the 12-inch remixed version. Anyway, I returned the LP, and re-purchased the same LP, which was then being sold bundled with what I suspect was surplus stock of the 12-inch single! What a bargain that was! As Brown is equally deft at singing roots and culture, the double header selected out of several potential choices, is the awesome ‘Revolution’.

Incidentally, Brown’s producer, Joe Gibbs, had found success in Britain before Brown’s Top 15 hit. Gibbs had scaled the heights of the British pop charts, when his production of ‘Uptown Top Rankin’ by the teenage duo Althea & Donna, came seemingly from nowhere to hit the no. 1 spot in 1977. The record had actually been initially championed by Radio 1’s left-field DJ John Peel. Unfortunately the duo ended up being a pop one-hit wonder.

Although it has its genesis in a jazzy, ska version, it is the choppy reggae version of Lord Creator‘s ‘Kingston Town’, produced by Clancy Eccles in 1970, and later covered by UB40, that is better remembered. It has one of the most charming lyrics, methinks.

In the Ghanaian circles I moved in, the main musical fare at parties would be soul and/or jazz-funk. However, when it was time to change the mood with a few reggae tracks, it was the likes of Derrick Harriott‘s ‘The Loser’ and Winston Groovy‘s ‘Please Don’t Make Me Cry’, that would be played. Another favourite Jamaican artist within Ghanaian circles was Sonya Spence. I did have two well loved albums of hers in my collection. Respect is due to my friend and reggae veteran Chips Richard, whose Harlesden, Brent-based company released the Sky Note records. Incidentally, Richard informs me that his record company released the most amount of female reggae artists, including of course Carroll Thompson‘s ‘Hopelessly In Love’.

I particularly remember beginning to discover some of the soulful singers, such Delroy Wilson and Alton Ellis from hearing tracks such as ‘I’m Still Waiting’ and ‘You’ve Made Me So Happy’ respectively, at a blues party at a house in Harlesden, north-west London. This house I later discovered belonged a local producer and sound system operator. Once again, I was following my reggae-head cousin, whose name is Sonny. Curiously, his brother, Bunny, had a completely different musical taste. I discovered a lot of soul, blues and rock from his LP collection.

Pity Wilson and Ellis don’t get a double header selection here. If space had allowed, I would have included Wilson’s socio-conscious optimistic ode ‘Better Must Come’ – “who God bless, no one curse”. Plus Ellis and The Flames‘ ode to the brief musical and dance style – ‘Rock Steady’.