Today’s Track: The Jamaicans – “Things You Say You Love”

January 2, 2020 — Leave a comment

Here are the things I say that I love: Pyjamas, Bed, Cake, Alcoholic Drinks, Books, Art, Tea, Coffee, Chocolate and most importantly… Music! It’s time for your daily musing!

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “This Is Trojan: Rock Steady” (Compilation LP Box-Set) (April 2018)

If I’m honest, it’s been a strangely difficult task for me, Jacob Braybrooke, to find a song to write to you about on such a peculiar day as January 2nd, so I ultimately decided to take you decades back for a Jamaican Rocksteady classic originally performed by The Jamaicans, a Ska/Rockfteady outfit that was formed in 1967. Not very much is known about their origin, besides the fact that it had three founding members: Derrick Brown, Martin Williams and Norris Weir, who tragically passed away at his home in Port Lucile in November 2018, following a lucrative career where he went on to release ten successful gospel albums. It still feels fairly recent, in my books. Later in the 60’s, Tommy Cowan joined the ranks of the line-up to form a quartet. At one point, it was a quintet with Flats Hylto and I Kong, with the group calling themselves “The Jamaicans” at the behest of Jamaican shipping agent Aston McKeaachron, as the studio felt it would increase their international appeal. “Things You Say You Love” is one of their most essential and well-received tracks, which recently had a re-release on their label’s compilation boxset, “This Is Trojan: Rock Steady”, in April 2018. The compilation album features golden classics from the likes of Desmond Dekker & The Aces, Phyllis Dixon, Alton Ellis & The Flames and Keith & Tex! I think it’s definitely well worth seeking out if you can find it in the January sales!

A shuffling horn-based arrangement and a low-tempo kick drum beat is the catalyst for the super-smooth harmonies and the jangly dancebeat tone. It provides the basis for a jazz-inspired tune and a two-step pace which makes it accessible to shuffle your body along to. The quartet vocally express the bluntness of happiness not always coming to pass and the theme is that, in life, you can’t win them all and you need to keep your chin up in acceptance that moving forward is always the best direction to go forwards. The verses are chronologically muffled, with the track being vocally performed in very tedious fragments, which come across as our way of thinking. “Things You Say You Love/You’re gonna lose” and “Can’t last too long” are repeated over quiet, down-beat soul melodies. It’s a highlight of a very truthful lesson in life which is still relevant decades beyond the original release of the track, as it’s a peaceful comment on the way that we, as humans, organise the good and the bad of our lives and the way that we, quite simply, do things. Along with the slick and soulful vocal harmonies, it sits very proudly amongst the other Jamaican classics of it’s time.

Pictured: The Jamaicans in 1967 – Derrick Brown, Norris Weir, Martin Williams and Tommy Cowan (All Lead Vocals)

Thank you for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, with an in-depth look at the new track from a Slovakian polyphonic vocal singer and songwriter who specialises in Dark Polyphonic Vocal music from the region of “Horehronle”, combined with light and breezy elements of neo-psychedelia and synthpop. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Boxing Day Special: Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans – “The Bells Of St. Mary’s”

December 26, 2019 — Leave a comment

Put down the Turkey sandwiches, finish cleaning up the crumbs from the Christmas dinner table and eat up the leftover cakes, it’s time for a special Boxing Day blog post!

Pictured: Bobby Sheen “Bob B. Soxx” (Vocals), Darlene Love (Backing Vocals) and Fanita James (Backing Vocals)

A vintage track that jumped out to me during my radio show planning like The Polar Express skids on ice – “The Bells Of St. Mary’s” by Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, an early 1960’s vocal trio comprised of Bobby Sheen, Fanita James and Darlene Love, is a vocal version of a traditional 1917 classic that was originally written by A. Emmett Adams after seeing St. Mary’s Church in Southampton. The lyrics actually have no direct correlation with the festive season, but the track has since been considered a more traditional Christmas song due to being used in a scene of a Christmas Pageant in a 1945 Bing Crosby film with the same title, as well as being used in a scene for “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. The Drifters also performed a cover for the 1990 film, “Goodfellas”. Later cover versions include a 1965 version by Andy Williams and a 2008 version by Sheryl Crow. In fact, you could probably say that it’s a Hollywood treasure!

“The Bells Of St. Mary’s” by Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans is a winter warmer of a vintage track, which is destined to get you in the festive feeling for this celebratory time of year. A lesser-known christmas song, it’s filled up, like a Stocking on Christmas Eve night, with solid and feel-good male harmonies and an orchestral arrangement of strings and backing vocals behind it. Sheen pours out the joy and love with: “The young loves, the true loves/That come from the sea/And so my beloved when red leaves are falling” before he proclaims: “Love bells shall ring out/For you and me”, aided by James and Love, in a call-and-response manner. It has a very traditional feeling to it, as the bells ring in the background of the track and the percussive instruments shake with the roll of a sleigh sound. The track was later released in 1963 on Phil Spector’s “A Christmas Gift For You” compilation of festive carols and it fits right in with all of the seasonal hymns we usually sing year-on-year. The album in question was a huge favourite of Glasvegas Frontman James Allen, who said in an interview for NME, “I used to listen to it every day, even in summer. I think my neighbours thought I was mental”. It’s a bit of an old one and it might come off a bit fuddy-duddy for some listeners, but it’s a timeless tune that is deserving of some more love than it usually gets for Christmas and I don’t think that Allen’s mental at all.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for Phil Spector’s “A Christmas Gift For You” compilation album (1963)

Thank you for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, with a look at a track from a UK-based Bassist and Producer who found success as part of progressive rock bands King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer! It’s a festive track, which reached #2 in the UK Singles Charts, so it isn’t quite time for you to start looking into the new year ahead just yet! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: The Ethiopians – “Engine 54”

October 31, 2019 — Leave a comment

It’s time to get ready to rock steady with another Jamaican classic from the 60’s! Oh and Happy Halloween, by the way, I guess… On that note, it’s time for your new post!

Look, I know. It’s Thursday, October 31st. I know it’s Halloween. OOOOOOH! Spooky… Look, I’m just like Ebenezer Scrooge when it comes to Halloween! Bah Pumpkins! I’ve never really “done” Halloween to be honest, in fact, the traditional Halloween house decoration of the Braybrooke household is the sign from the local police saying “No Trick Or Treaters here thank you”. I just don’t get it. It’s so much hassle, encourages greed and vandalism. The most frustrating thing it boils down with for me is: What is it we’re even celebrating? Ghosts? Regardless of my grumpiness, if you are going out tonight, I hope that you have a great time and that you stay safe! On the blog, however, instead of doing the obligatory spooky track, I thought it’d be nice to do something lighter to counteract the witches in the dark as we cap off Black History Month with another Jamaican Rocksteady classic from 1968!

“Engine 54” is a track by The Ethiopians, who were one of the first Jamaican reggae groups to perform widely in the UK! The group previously had a hit with “Train To Skaville”, an even more upbeat anthem which barely touched the UK Singles Charts at #40 in it’s ’68 release. It didn’t receive lots of attention from the press, but it gained commercial success on the dance club scene, where it became very popular. As the title suggests, the main beat of “Engine 54” rolls along at an inseparable pace like a steam engine train. It builds up to be a slow number filled with male harmonies and a story based on leaving from a Kingston train station to ventures anew. The vocals of each male narrator blends harmoniously and neatly, which plays up to their strength of chemistry as a group. The track also has a slight soul ballad sensibility to it, which is created by the steady, highly melodic, rhythm of the steel drum beats and the woozy humming of the train noises from the vocals. It’s a track that doesn’t take itself incredibly seriously and it’s highly fun to bop your head along to. It may come across as a little “fuddy duddy”, as I like to say, due to the age of the record feeling a little bit outdated in this day and age and the quality of the record’s playout due to the old age of the media files, which have been digitally restored with care and attention to detail, but it’s still a groovy number that plays up to the strong vocals well and it’s a signature track of a genre which, although it may not seem like it at first, has left a significant mark on the mainstream pop formats that we’re all used to hearing today.

Pictured: Cover Art for “Engine 54” (1968)

Thank you very much for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, with an in-depth look at a new track that I’m personally very excited about, as it’s only being released today and it’s the new track from one of my god-tier artists who is releasing her first new material in just over 5 years! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Today’s Track: Desmond Dekker & The Aces – “Fu Man Chu”

October 26, 2019 — Leave a comment

Are you into Reggae? I’m going to rock you steady with a Jamaican classic from 1968!

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Action and Intensified” (1968)

Over the last week, myself and the rest of the commitee of my student radio station have been importing loads of reggae tracks into our music playout system as a way of freshening up the diversity on the station and filling a void of world-based music to experiment with our timely curated playlist. It comes courtesy of the music scheduling head, who bought around 3 different compilation box-sets the other day. Bless him! I proceeded to call most of them “fuddy-duddy” (old-fashioned and a bit pompeous) as a typical 21 year old male naturally would. However, there is one track which really stood out among the pack for me, which is a 1968 rocksteady banger called “Fu Man Chu” by Desmond Dekker & The Aces, Dekker being one of the first Jamaican exports to gain a decent amount of attention outside of the Kingston scene.

Even after 51 years, the track teaches a timeless lesson on true happiness stemming from being kind to others and being grateful for what you have, which is communicated through Desmond’s soft and delicate vocals: “It make no sense, at all, to say where we used to work” and “It makes no sense, at all, to say how much you used to earn”, with the former line coming across like a subtle reference to slavery or racism in Jamaica a very short time before the track would have been recorded, as it’s way before my time, but it’s still a decipherable message that’s relevant today. It has a very slow and steady rhythm, with an almost entirely acoustic style of instrumentation and a simple kick drum melody, but the real stand-out is the gentle humming midways through the song, which gives the track a very uplifting tone which keeps the vocals from feeling preachy. It’s simply a nice message, with references to “Fu Man Chu”, a fictional heroic character from China, who sported the trademark long and thin moustache that is still seen prominently within Asian media and African culture to this day. This is a warm ray of sunshine and the perfect tune to liven up the particularly rainy October that we’re currently experiencing in the UK. It may be “fuddy duddy”, but it feels so in a way which is infectiously groovy and catchy!

Pictured: Desmond Dekker on-stage for a live performance (unknown location and time)

Thank you for reading this post! Of course, it’s Sunday tomorrow, so I’m going to be re-evaluating a punk classic from the 00’s that I remember from seeing on Scuzz TV, a now-closed music video TV channel, for my weekly themed series of Scuzz Sundays posts! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/