DOCTOR BIRD | Coming in January… Dandy & The Sunshot Records Collection
Dandy: The Ska’s The Limit - Featuring Sugar And Dandy, CD
- 24 tracks new to CD.
- First serious collection of 60s British ska.
- The very best of Dandy’s early recordings.
Long before joining the ranks of Trojan Records and achieving international success, Robert Thompson AKA Dandy was a rookie singer-songwriter recording for Carnival, a subsidiary of Crossbow Records, a small independent London-based company owned by Allan Crawford. Keen to take advantage of the ska craze, sparked by Millie Small’s international smash ‘My Boy Lollipop’, the Australian music entrepreneur signed the young Jamaican-born singer-songwriter with the intention of pairing him with another vocalist, although it was not until after Dandy had cut a number of singles on which his voice had been double-tracked that Keith Foster filled the role of ‘Sugar’.
Throughout the second half of 1964 and into the following year, Sugar & Dandy featured on a series of popular singles, followed by the release of the LP, ‘The Ska’s The Limit’, on which they were presented as the headline act. Dandy subsequently cut solo material for Carnival, but after the label was wound up in the summer of 65, he moved on to record for Jamaican music specialists, Melodisc and R&B before making his home at the newly created Trojan Records in 1968.
This collection focuses on Dandy’s formative years as a performer, featuring significant best-sellers, such as ‘What A Life!’, ‘Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be’, ‘I’m Not Crying Now’ and ‘Let’s Ska’, along with numerous obscurities that have remained unavailable on any format for six decades. As with the companion Doctor Bird volume, ‘Rock Steady With Dandy’, all recordings have been officially licensed from the singer himself, and with 24 of the 28 tracks new to CD this is a must-have acquisition for fans of the singer and the timeless sound of ska!
TRACK LISTING
1 What A Life! - Sugar & Dandy
2 Time And Tide - Sugar & Dandy
3 One Man Went To Mow - Sugar & Dandy
4 I’m Not Crying Now - Sugar & Dandy
5 Cryin’ - Sugar & Dandy
6 Oh Dear - Sugar & Dandy
7 Vipers - Sugar & Dandy
8 Let’s Ska! - Sugar & Dandy
9 Blues Got A Hold On Me - Sugar & Dandy
10 Tra-La-La-La-La - Sugar & Dandy
11 Think Of The Good Times - Sugar & Dandy
12 Only Heaven Knows - Sugar & Dandy
13 I’m Into Something Good - Sugar & Dandy
14 I Want To Be Your Lover - Sugar & Dandy
15 Crazy For You - Sugar & Dandy
16 I Don’t Know What I’m Gonna Do Now - Sugar & Dandy
17 Girl Come See - Sugar & Dandy
18 Without Love - The Rub A Dubs
19 To Love You – Dandy
20 You Got To Pray – Dandy
21 I’m Looking For Love – Dandy
22 I Know - The Rub A Dubs
23 It’s Just Got To Be – Dandy
24 So Long Baby – Dandy & Del
25 My Babe – Dandy
26 Now I Have You – Dandy & Barbara
27 I’m Gonna Stop Loving You – Dandy
28 Hey Boy! Hey Girl! – Dandy & Del
Various Artists: Silver & Gold - The Sunshot Records Collection 1968-1971, 2CD
- 20 tracks new to CD
- First ever anthology of Sunshot Records.
- Includes numerous Jamaican chart hits.
The growing international interest in Jamaican music as the 60s progressed emboldened increasing numbers of dynamic and ambitious music makers on the island to launch their own record labels. By the close of the decade, Kingston’s recording industry was awash with such talent, with this new generation of enterprising record producers including such future luminaries as Lee Perry, Joe Gibbs, Bunny Lee, Harry Johnson, Lloyd Charmers and the man whose early productions provide the focus of this compilation: George Phillips AKA Phil Pratt.
The singer-turned-producer whose initial recordings had been distributed by former Skatalites’ road manager Ken Lack introduced his Sunshot Records label early in 1969, finding almost immediate success with major Jamaican hits by celebrated singer Ken Boothe. Encouraged by these early triumphs, Pratt swiftly expanded his artists roster to include other major stars on the burgeoning reggae scene, with the likes of John Holt, Dennis Alcapone, Pat Kelly and Horace Andy all scoring significant hits with the producer.
This first Doctor Bird volume of Phil Pratt’s productions brings together almost the entirety of output from his from the first two years of his career as a record label manager and features numerous major hits alongside an abundance of obscurities that have remained unissued since their original release over 50 years ago.
