Ken Boothe: Mr. Rock Steady

Ken Boothe: Mr. Rock Steady

1967

Studio One Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Puppet On A String  2. I Don't Want To See You Cry  3. Don't Cry Little Girl  4. Let The Water Dry.  5. My Heart Is Gone  6. When I Fall In Love  7. The Girl I Left Behind.  8. Home, Home, Home  9. This Is Rock Steady.  10. Give Me Back My Heart  11. Mustang Sally  12. Give Me The Right.  13. Run Coming Back.  14. Artibella.



Welcome to the Secret Society of the Record Party....

Only a handful of people know of its existence, while the population at large remains willfully ignorant  of our machinations (callously ignoring our facebook invites)....To gain entrance, you must perform the secret handshake...\

(slips chocolate coin into handshake)

You're just in time for our Sunday fish fry and human sacrifice...But first we must review the sacred text...

 Yes! It's Mr. Rocksteady himself, Ken MF-ing Boothe! A wonder of steady, mid-tempo Jamaican soul sweetened with that smooth voice Ken utilized early in his career...Folks who stumble upon this via the reggae route may be a bit put off by the vocal-centric approach, since its recorded and presented like old soul or doo wop. (vocals often way out front...Less of an emphasis on instrumental groove, although the groove is nice too) ...Your grandparents would probably be more comfortable with Ken Boothe than say, Lee Perry...Take a listen to "Give Me the Right" or "Give Me Back My Heart" for an example of the often pronounced doo-wop vibe...

Just about every song on Ken's debut full-length (he had a mighty run of singles prior to this) is pure classic Studio One.  Hell, "This is Rock Steady" pretty much helped to define the era, although I can imagine any one of these tracks burning up the Jamaican charts...The only song that doesn't do a lot for me is his take on "Mustang Sally" which sounds awfully mild compared to Wilson Pickett's sweaty, superior version...He sounds much more natural with cooler, more laid-back standards-type material (See his haunting, spooky take on oldie "When I Fall in Love")...

One thing I've noticed in my time buying Jamaican records is that its not uncommon for them to contain unlisted bonus tracks...The back cover (and the front cover, now that I look at it again)  only lists 12 tracks but there are actually 14....Which is great, since "Run Coming Back" (their spelling, not mine) is probably the best track on the album...That bass is just about the deepest thing I've ever heard...It practically shakes the entire apartment building whenever I play it (which may be why my neighbors openly curse the day I was born)...The other bonus track is another scorcher..."Artibella" which was also an important track in Boothe's discography...So if you see this record in a used bin, take it out and count the grooves...You're going to want this particular pressing...

"Mr. Rock Steady" is a fine place to start if you're looking to getting deeper into the roots of reggae...And its very diverse...The most common complaint I hear about the genre is the sameyness...No such problem here...

Oh yea, wasn't I doing some Secret Society gimmick today?

Well, here's a top-secret coded message for members of the Secret Society of the Record Party:

D X R X I X N X K  M X O X R X E  BX E X E X R !!!

The first person that wins it gets...oh, I dunno... Five Hundred Friday Night Record Party Bucks...

Which buys up to .05 seconds of false hope when you give them to the wino on the corner (until he figures out it's not real money)...

Alright, enough of this tomfoolery...Here's "Run Coming Back" by Ken Boothe...Enjoy...