Love Is Gonna Let Me Down. Not Reggae, Though

Lovely rendition of the gestalt prayer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_prayer

Steve Earle, of all people, does a pretty good version of Rivers Of Babylon. Of course, it always helps to have Emmylou Harris on board.

and there we wept
when we remembered Zion

I believe it’s jewelers’ “rouge” rather than “rogue,” but I’m only a vague gauge of orthography.

Reggae has let me down a few times–after a few hours or so there’s just a sameness to it. I know, that only shows my own ignorance, but I show that every time I post in any case.

Sad songs come in strange places. There’s a way of listening to the Beach Boys’ “We’ve been having fun all summer long” that makes it heartbreaking. And though it’s 2tone rather than reggae proper, I have always found something intensely sad about Bad Manners’ song “Samson and Delilah.”

@3
Steve Earle makes everything better.

Also guaranteed to never let you down: Count Ossie’s “Grounation“. It just keeps on giving – I can’t think of another thirty-minute track that can make me reach for the repeat button so consistently.

This is central to my point (which is on my head, of course).
~

Well if we are just posting recently discovered tunes…

Really enjoying this one.
Devils Got A Gun by Whitehorse

Oddly (at least to me), the only recorded version of “Rivers of Babylon” I can recall hearing before is Boney M.’s version.

Which gives me a strange urge to take a break from listening to Eluveitie and put on Boney M’s greatest hits. Excuse me.

Perhaps showing my middlebrow tastes one of the few songs I really liked in the genre was

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMrNDnU6PPk

no one lese like Althea and Donna?

A lot of my favorite reggae is the pop reggae stuff the Clash said ain’t got no roots rock rebel.

You must be young. Kids’ group with a big hit in the 80s.

Also, going through various links I remember Desmond Dekkers The Israelites – but it was redone in Ireland as an ad for an electricity company (iirc) – ‘wake up in the morning lots of hot water..’

De gustibus non disputandum est, that’s what I always say.

I throw out for the crowd, though, the notion that even if you don’t like old pop songs, country, or reggae, you should still recognize the greatness of Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, and Bob Marley, and if you don’t, there might be something wrong with you.

Also good:

Well the quote actually refers to Ken Boothe, who I really like a lot. Great voice, did a lot of covers.

Here’s an early hit that I like.

Sort of in response to PatrickinIowa@4 and Belle both, since I was at a particularly sad funeral today, in an Episcopal church. What do funerals mean to us? What about the music at those services? What’s it like to live so far from home that you don’t get to go to many funerals of an at least vaguely familiar kind (or maybe you do, Belle — why do I make that initial assumption? stupid of me, probably). The way music connects us amazes me.

Belle, thanks for the Peter Tosh reference. We loved that LP, but our favourite by far was “Equal rights”, the title track. It really set the tone for the political ethos of the time against the “conservers” of power and privilege, especially in Africa, and it was a great groove besides, cool organ and sweet to dance to. How was it not a world no. one? Did people hear it in the western world of the time?

That Irish Electric Co. cover of Desmond Dekker–just, wow.

You could teach a whole course about that, about the interplay of various former parts of the British Empire, about the cultural triumph of African musical forms and their appropriation by the omnivorous maw of capitalism, about whiteness, about blackness, about, norms of bodily comportment, about gender, about–wow.

Another detail: the cod-Jamaican singer pronounces his “r” on the end of “Nightsaver,” as would the Irish family dancing in the ad. But the perky voice-over, representing the BBC, the Irish Electricity Board, and the mailed fist of empire, de-rhotacizes in the British way to “Nightsava”.

All terrifying, and fascinating. But thanks for reminding me about the original Dekker song, which is now playing through the headphones.

@Meredith at 37. I have no answers to your questions, but as the man said “Who feels it, knows it.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grPFflH9OhE.

He’s actually a bit character in John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera.” Part of MacHeath’s gang.

Beautiful post! It brought back memories of singing “No Woman, No Cry” as a lullaby for my son (I changed the lyrics to No Baby, No Cry and it worked just fine).

Bessie Bank’s original:

Come on people, Eek-A-Mouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3M_R0Fdo_A

I’m just thinking that this Trinidadian I knew had a pretty different accent from Jamaican. I’d figured he was from Africa before he told me.

I’m also thinking of the poor little Taiwanese girl who seems to have been irreparably damaged by her studies in the UK. I tried to get her to use a a th instead of a v but nothing doing. Then again I had the same reaction to somebody who tried to get me to say “liu” in the mainland way.

Thing about Toots is he is one of the world class vocalists, like Salif Keita or Maria Bethania. Not the prissy ones, the real ones. Thanks for reminding me. I lived in Jamaica in somewhere around 1970. Scotty was pretty great too, and of course Marley etc. Prince Buster I think had a house shaped like a crown in the hills above Kingston. There was a totally smoking Rasta camp right behind the Prime Minister’s house. Trenchtown was a weird place; if you were white (and i was, I’m afraid) you were in no danger really, as it it was pretty obvious you weren’t really that white or you wouldn’t have been there. But Toots is it. Those two albums Funky Kingston and In the Dark (especially) are amazing.

I think I’m more of a rock steady fan, but I’m not always sure where the line is drawn. I mean, “Do The Reggae” doesn’t sound all that reggaeish to me.