I bought this album in New Zealand. I've had it for 40 years and only just noticed something when I took it out for this posting.
The album sleeve is Music World Ltd NZ ©1981, but the album label is Bulldog Records U.K. (P)1970. I got myself a relicensed reprint !! That's fine by me, makes it a little more interesting.
Desmond Dekker was probably the first reggae / ska / rocksteady singer I ever consciously heard. When 'Israelites' came out in 1968 and hit #1 when I was back in the U.K. in 1969 (#9 in the US) it made me sit up and take notice. Quickly followed by 'It Mek' I realised I'd found a new musical form to embrace.
To fully appreciate some of these songs a rudimentary understanding of Jamaican patois (patwa) is handy. 'It Mek' for example loosely means 'that's why' or 'that's what you get'. Going forward to the song by Musical Youth, 'Pass the Dutchie' .. originally that was a song by The Mighty Diamonds, 'Pass the Kouchie'. Kouchie was slang for a cannabis pipe. Musical Youths version changed it to a patois term 'Dutchie' which is a type of cooking pot.
Anyway - I digress.
Desmond Dacres (changed to Dekker around 1963) had been around for a while. Born in Kingston, he was an apprentice tailor in St. Thomas, then when he went back to Kingston he became a welder. In 1961 he got a recording contract with Leslie Kong, a Chinese-Jamaican producer. It would be another 2 years before he had a record released and in the meantime Desmond introduced a fellow welder to Leslie Kong. The fellow welder was Bob Marley. We know the rest !!
By 1963 Desmond began releasing records, progressively getting more and more fame and recognition locally. His fourth record made him one of the top stars on the island. 'King of Ska' was recorded with backing vocals done by The Cherrypies. They became better known by their other name, The Maytals, especially when Toots Hibbert took the lead. Desmond's first songs were all sort of social, religious, moralistic, but in 1967 he started referencing the 'rude boy' culture of Jamaican life. '007' (later '007 (Shanty Town)') became his first international hit in 1967 and gave him a major rude boy following.
After gaining popularity through 1967 and 1968, Desmond became a permanent resident in the U.K. in 1969.
In 1970 he released a version of Jimmy Cliff's song 'You Can Get It If You Really Want', within just a few weeks of Jimmy's own version and even using the same backing track. Despite that, it got to #2 on the U.K. charts.
In 1980 he signed with Stiff Records who had primarily punk and new wave acts, but were moving into groups like Madness and The Specials.
Desmond's first album with Stiff was the 1980 'Black and Decker' where he reworked earlier hits into more of a 2-Tone Ska styling. As part of that sound, one of the backup groups was Akrylykz, a ska band founded in the Hull School of Arts. The saxophonist in that group was Roland Gift, later to become frontman/singer for Fine Young Cannibals.
Despite everything, Desmond was declared bankrupt in 1984, but thanks to a TV ad using 'Israelites' he began to bounce back. In 1993 he did a collaborative album with The Specials, 'King of Kings' which had a reworking of Desmond's 1963 Jamaican hit 'King of Ska'. In 2003 the soundtrack to the movie 'The Harder They Come' was re-issued with 'Israelites' and '007 (Shanty Town)' giving him another exposure to a new audience.
In 2006 as he was getting ready to headline a world music festival in Prague, Desmond sadly had a heart attack and passed away at the age of 64.
So many acts became famous because of Desmond's early breakthroughs. British ska and 2-Tone may never have made the same impact without Desmond and the music he introduced to people like me.
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