Everyone knows by now from the majority of tunes I review, that I am partial to a sweet reggae vocal tune. My tune of the week has all the key elements of what I look for in a tune, hope you like it too!
The featured track is ‘Only My Song to Sing’ by Busty Brown. The first time I heard this track was at a reggae ‘connoisseur’ clash where I was doing MC duties at. One of the competitors used this as his final tune in the one fi one. I remember losing my mind and composure when I heard it, the crowd did too!
It was one more tune to add to the ever lengthening wants list. By good fortune, at another event I was involved with recently, I managed to pick up a copy.
The record was released in 1976 on the ‘Jama’ label. The singer Busty Brown, was a member of the ‘Chosen Few’. Sweet harmonizing vocal tunes were the essence of the groups recordings, and a great deal were done under the tutelage of Derrick Harriott. Mr Harriott is an artist famed for producing and performing such sweet sounding reggae songs, which could arguably be seen as the precursor to Lovers Rock.
This particular track is a solo effort from Busty, but the production and song were the concept of B.B Seaton from the Gaylads, another artist with a legacy, making some of the sweetest harmony driven recordings to leave the Jamaican shores.
Busty Brown is the same artist that had a hit song ‘I Love You Madly’ which is a reggae cover of a song originally done by the Motown group the ‘Fantastic Four’. This again has ultra sweet harmonies.
Without even hearing the track, but by reading the lineage that the song derives from, you can bet your bottom dollar that you will hear the epitome of a well put together, sweet, seventies reggae vocal song.
Mark Professor, (Wreck It Up Crew/ Stereocity Sound/ Soca Saga Boys/ The Reference Library, London)
