Noel 'Zoot' Simms - See Them A Come - NiceUp

Studio One 7″

‘See Them A Come’ was released on Studio One 7″ in 1967, but also featured on the Soul Jazz Records ‘Studio One Rude Boy’ compilation.

Noel Simms was born in 1935 in Kingston and attended the Apha Boys School. His career as a vocalist began singing as a duo with his school friend Bunny Robinson. They began making RnB acetates for sound systems in the 1950’s, after winning numerous talent shows and developing a huge following. From there they recorded for the likes of Coxsone Dodd and Prince Buster.

Although his vocal output may not have been huge, Simms has appeared on over 200 albums and literally thousands of tunes as a session musician, featuring in the line ups for The Aggrovators, The Upsetters, The Revolutionaries, and the Roots Radics amongst others. If you flick through your albums and look at the credits for percussion, they will often be credited to the same person, Zoot “Scully” Simms (or one of his many other names such as Noel “Scully” Simms, Noel “Skully” Simms, Scully Simms, Skullie, Skully). He also toured extensively the world over in the backing bands for a host of huge reggae artists.

With a career in the business since the 50s from RnB through to ska, rocksteady, reggae, roots and beyond, Scully really is a true foundation artist. And despite losing his sight, he was still writing and recording up until the mid-2000s.

See Them A Come has recently been relicked by the Mungo’s Hi Fi camp with YT’s cut, ‘Serious Time’, a favourite. Whenever I hear it however, I can’t help wanting to play the original. Those great horns, and his sweet, soft tenor voice all add up to a great piece of Studio One niceness.

See Them A Come

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

Intro from ‘Deep Roots Music’ – Skatalites with Scully on percussion