Hugo Barrington

Artist: Hugo Barrington

LP: Presenting Hugo

Song: "'Des' We 'Des'"
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Hugo Barrington would like to remind you that legal representation is the right of every Jamaican citizen. In other good news, even after embarking on a legal career under the name Hugh Faulkner, Hugo never gave up on his music. You can read more about Hugo Barrington's work as Executive Director of the Legal Aid Council in Jamaica here, go here to find out how he's staying connected to his music, and read his biography at the United Reggae website here.

[ Hugo Barrington in 2014 ]

Keith Stewart

Artist: Keith Stewart

LP: Jamaica Calling

Song: "Last Thing On My Mind" 
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Song: "Young Man" 
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I wanted to post something a little bit zippier today, but I've been feeling under the weather and Keith Stewart's warm voice is like a calming Caribbean bubble bath. He's like the Jamaican John Denver. After a ten year stint as half of Keith and Enid, Keith Stewart went solo in the late 1960s, working the hotels on the north coast of Jamaica. His version of "The Last Thing On My Mind" is one of the loveliest things I've heard in quite awhile. Sadly, Keith, who was also a talented painter and played a mean game of cricket, died of kidney cancer about four years ago; you can read more about Mr. Stewart in the Jamaica Observer here. 

[ Keith Stewart: July 1, 1938 — November 3, 2010 ]

Millie Small

Artist: Millie Small (The Blue Beat Girl)

LP: My Boy Lollipop
Song: "Sweet William"
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Song: "Don't You Know"
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This past Saturday my friend Elizabeth and I attended a health and safety resource fair for work at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Federal Way, a suburb about 20 miles south of Seattle. Along with resource information for the community, the event featured delicious Mexican food and dancers wearing colorful dresses in the tradition of the Jalisco region of Mexico! I was able to get some neat pictures of the dancers with the camera on my phone.

I'm not sure where or when, but at some point I'd heard about a record store located in a Federal Way strip mall—advertized as "the only record store between Seattle and Tacoma!" After several u-turns, Elizabeth and I found Al's Music (Games & Video) after our outreach event and both of us left the place with musical treasures in our hands. (I had to dig through lots of Cher and Dan Fogelberg albums, but it was worth it.) My best find is probably this 1964 ska-pop record by talented Jamaican youngster Millie Small. Born in Gibraltar, Jamaica on October 8, 1948 (LP liner notes) or on October 6, 1946 (Wikipedia), Millie won a local talent contest when she was 12 years old. She was "discovered" by producer Chris Blackwell who became Millie's manager and legal guardian (!). Chris took Millie to London and, before long, her hit single "My Boy Lollipop" was sailing up the singles charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The song peaked at #2 on the British and the American pop charts, and it's even been featured in relatively recent Hollywood movies like this one and this one. Ms. Small's subsequent singles didn't match the success of "Lollipop," but she continued to record and perform into the early 1970s. Rumor (well, Wikipedia) has it that Millie may be staging a comeback, planning her first performances in over 40 years. I hope it's true. More information about Millie can be found in the liner notes, included below. 

Millie Small on YouTube:

[ "My Boy Lollipop" ]
 

[ Millie Small — The Blue Beat Girl ]

[ Al's Music, Games, Video — Federal Way, Washington ]

Jackie Mittoo

Artist: Jackie Mittoo

LP: Let's Put It All Together

Song: "Feel Like Makin' Love"
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Song: "Frangipani"
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The last and final record store I went to on my road trip through Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana was Domino Sound Record Shack in New Orleans—off the beaten path and away from the touristy parts of town. Like most other record shops I visited in the South, this was one of the very best. I picked up so many records at Domino Sound, they had to put them in a cardboard box for me to carry them away. Though it was hard for me to choose which one record to post, I chose this 1975 Jackie Mittoo LP for two reasons: #1.) I've been working on a large jigsaw puzzle at work with my friend Beatrice, who sits at the adjoining desk. I made some exciting progress on Friday since work was slow, and this morning I awoke from a dream in which I was finding and correctly placing tiny pieces into the big jigsaw picture. So with its puzzle-themed cover, Mittoo's LP seemed a perfect fit. #2.) I really like it. Reggae isn't my favorite genre, but when it features solo electric organ it's definitely my cup of tea.

Born in Brown's Town, Jamaica in 1948, Jackie Mittoo's grandmother began teaching him to play the piano when he was just four years old. He was a member of The Skatalites in the 1960s and then emigrated to Toronto, Canada at the end of that decade. He continued to make music and played in lounges in Toronto and, though perhaps not as well known as the only Jamaican reggae musician anyone outside of Jamaica has ever heard of, Jackie Mittoo worked with some of the best in the business until his death from cancer at age 42. By then Mittoo had become known as a master of his craft. You can read about Jackie Mittoo on Wikipedia here and go here to see his complete discography—with photos!

[ Jackie Mittoo: March 3, 1948 — December 16, 1990 ]

[ Domino Sound Record Shack — New Orleans, Louisiana ]

Claudja Barry

Artist: Claudja Barry

LP: 12" single

Song: "I Will Follow Him"

[ listen ]

Song: "Work Me Over"

[ listen ]

If you're like I and dozens of other Americans, one of your resolutions is to stick with a vigorous aerobic workout routine this year. The songs from this 1982 Claudja Barry single helped get me started (and sweaty and sore) this morning—they can do the same for you! Born in Jamaica in 1952, Claudja's family took her to Canada when she was just a tot. After high school she ran off to the Big Apple where she landed a part in the musical "Hair," which led her to Europe where she landed a part in the group Boney M, which led her to a solo career which produced several hit dance singles, which of course leads back to my early morning aerobic routine. You can read more about Claudja Barry on Wikipedia here, then find her full discography and see what she's up to nowadays on her official website here. Say, what did this lovely performer's boyfriends used to call her in the early '80s while wooing her with baby-talk?
Hi-lite for answer here: "Claudjagoogoo"

Nuns on YouTube:

[ "I Will Follow Him" ]

 [ Claudja Barry ]

Percy Dixon and His Merry Boys

Artist: Percy Dixon and His Merry Boys

LP: Scandal In Montego Bay

Song: "Kinsey Report"

[ listen ]

Here's an old Jamaican calypso ditty from 1964 about Alfred Kinsey and his revolutionary indoor-sports reports, "Sexual Behavior In the Human Male" (1948) and "Sexual Behavior In the Human Dame" (1953). The famed biologist is also known for creating the Kinsey Scale, where a rating of 0 means a person is exclusively heterosexual and a rating of 6 mans they're exclusively homosexual, with many people rating somewhere in between. The gentleman on the cover of this album, for example, is a Kinsey 5. Notes and photos from the back of the LP are included below.

[ Percy Dixon and His Merry Boys ]

Musical Youth

Artist: Musical Youth

LP: 7" single

Song: "She's Trouble"

[ listen ]

After the smash success of their 1982 "The Youth of Today" LP, which spawned the immensely hummable reggae hit "Pass the Dutchie," somebody who probably acted like they knew what they were doing decided that Musical Youth needed a "Different Style!" for their 1983 followup record. Unfortunately, the new style they got was the same one already being used by lots of other American performers at the time, like this guy, and the truly "different style" that had made Musical Youth such a refreshing novelty on the pop-radio airwaves of the early 1980s was gone forever. "She's Trouble" isn't a terrible song though—it climbed to #65 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and the cover features a neat photo of the group balancing precariously on the rails of a roller-coaster. And at least the guys were still allowed to wear great clothes. You can read about Musical Youth on Wikipedia here and find their first two albums compared and contrasted on the Reggae Reviews website here.

Toots & the Maytals

Artist: Toots & the Maytals

LP: Funky Kingston

Song: "Country Road"

[ listen ]

Have you ever wondered how it would sound if John Denver had been born in Kingston? Popular reggae group Toots & the Maytals hold the record for the most #1 hits in Jamaica! You can read about the group here.

 

  

Byron Lee and the Dragonaires

Artist: Byron Lee and the Dragonaires

LP: Going Places

Song: "Sell the Pussy"
[ listen ]
Song: "Message to a Black Man"
aka: "Message From a Black Man"
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Please don't ask me about Byron Lee. I'll slip into a state of frenzied excitement or, more likely, a dreamy ecstasy—and I won't get anything done at work today. You can read all about the influential Jamaican bandleader here, read about his work with The Dragonaires (and see their discography) here, and find Lee's biography, photos and other things here. There's a nice Byron Lee obituary from the Reggae Times here and you can watch Byron Lee trying to teach a white guy the Pussy Kat Dance on YouTube here. Notes from the back of this 1970 LP included below.

BYRON LEE AND THE DRAGONAIRES
Jamaica's & Caribbean's Number One Band

Ask anyone in the Caribbean about Byron Lee and they'll
either go into a dreamy ecstasy or frenzied excitement as
they talk about the Caribbean's no. 1 band. Ask anyone
also about BWIA and you'll more than likely get the same
type of reaction as they talk about the Caribbean's no. 1
airline, which links these sunny tropical shores with the North
American gateways of Miami, New York and Toronto.

Ask about Byron Lee's last Caribbean and U.S. tour and
people from all walks of life will tell you "it was the greatest."
Ask about their last trip on BWIA's fabulous sunjets and
they'll also tell you "magnificent."

Will Byron Lee fulfill the outstanding demands to
tour Europe? Most definitely!

Will BWIA carry out their expansion programme to serve
the United Kingdom and Europe? Most definitely, and
with new Boeing 707 sunjets, the fastest
between Europe and the Caribbean.

And in BWIA's twenty fifth year of serving Jamaica,
Byron's homeland, the airline is proud to once again
have carried the Byron Lee show throughout
the Caribbean and the United States.

Sit back and relax then as Byron Lee's music, as featured
on BWIA's sunjets, puts you on a real groovy cloud.

[ Byron Lee: June 27, 1935 — November 4, 2008 ]