Pick up, pick up
The Royals - Pick Up The Pieces
Soul Jazz never ceases to amaze me when it comes to the depth of their catalogs and their always constantly high quality. They first started mining the Studio One vaults in the early 2000s, and have been able to release twenty or so compilations since then, the latest of which is Studio One: Groups.
One of the reasons Soul Jazz is able to do this is because Clement "Sir Coxone" Dodd (1932-2004), the owner of Studio One, had an ear for quality, cared about nurturing artists and helping them grow, and saw to it that the studio recorded music every single day. With such prodigious output, he made (and for a very long time, kept) Studio One the number one recording studio in Jamaica.
Now, I won't front on this and pretend that I know a whole lot about Jamaican music (that's what robot Dave W. is for) - I know what I like when I hear it, and what I don't like. What I don't like is what passes for modern reggae, which really means dancehall. Whenever I DJ out and play some roots-reggae and someone asks me "you got any Sean Paul?" I cringe and tell them "nope" - I just don't like it. It doesn't appeal to me sonically. I greatly prefer the music of the past - the late 60s through 70s, from rocksteady and early reggae, up to the bizarre sonics of the dub-reggae movement. As I understand it, rocksteady grew out of ska, and like ska music, features guitars and horns on the up-beat, and vocals influenced by American soul music. This specific style only lasted a couple of years, but would evolve, thanks in no small part to Jackie Mitoo and Lee "Scratch" Perry's changing production styles and instrumentation (especially the deepening of the bass sounds), to reggae. So this music and these groups - predominantly trios (with a couple of duos, and a few quartets) - are the subject of Studio One: Groups, and I love it.
The liner notes - written by Rob Chapman (author of the acclaimed Studio One discography, Never Grow Old) - are thorough and extensive, and on this particular track, say that the song was recorded in 1967, but delayed and released as a Studio One 7" in 1973, credited to the Tempests, and was then re-recorded and reissued in '76, credited as the Royals. The lead vocal is by Roy Cousins, who would go on to form the Tamoki & Wambesi labels as a producer.
Studio One: Groups is out now on Soul Jazz, and is available direct from the label, here (UK), or from our friends at Forced Exposure. Highly recommended.