Label: Spark
Year of Release: 1969
In the late sixties, the sound known as reggae (or "The REGGAE, ow!" as Johnny Johnson and His Bandwagon confusingly referred to it) was scorchingly popular with crossover hits emerging left, right and centre. This led to numerous small British independent labels trying to sign whatever club acts were based in London at that time, with Beacon Records jumping on both a bunch of mysterious sorts called Brixton Market, and the initially ska influenced Black Velvet. A lot of this material was slightly popped up for mainstream consumption, to varying degrees of success.
Spark, on the other hand, had Sydney Elliott on their books, who turned out this cultishly popular little single in 1969. "Who Dat Girl?" isn't 100% authentic reggae either, having an overly strict arrangement which sounds very Anglicised. The track itself is a bouncy, joyful affair about women in miniskirts, though, which was an incredibly popular lyrical topic during this period. Sydney delivers it well, and while your classic reggae DJ probably isn't going to spin it, it's an interesting period piece. It throws a tiny chunk of bubblegum into the blender and sounds like a possible hit.
The flip "Strawberry Blonde" is, as you might have guessed, about the desirability of ladies with that particular colour of hair, even going as far as to praise their cooking abilities. I doubt he did a scientific study on their souffle making abilities before recording the track, so it's best to take his words with a large pinch of kitchen salt (while also hiding behind the excuse that this was 1969 and these ideas about women's roles in the home hadn't quite fallen out of fashion yet).
Sydney Elliott was a popular club draw in the sixties and seventies, issuing another record on Spark (the rather more soulful "If Music Be The Food Of Love") and another for CBS ("Desperation") before disappearing from the recording studio vocal booth. He later became the uncle of the considerably more successful Maxi Priest, and the father of Jacob Miller of the reggae group Inner Circle.
3 comments:
Maxi Priest is Sydney's nephew
Sorry - mistake corrected!
Sydney also recorded a 1975 single on Inline Records called Emery's Ammer, a tribute to Henry Cooper and recorded in response to Float Like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee about Henry's epic match with Muhammed Ali. It includes the original BBC recording of the bell at the right. It was produced by David Barnes and recorded in London. It was released under the name King Roy.
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