Jamaican Halloween Spooktacular 2009 Track Four - Lloyd Charmers' "Bone Yard Skank"

Lloyd Charmers (born Lloyd Tyrell, 1938 Kingston Jamaica) started his career in music in 1962 while performing on the Vere Johns' radio talent show on Jamaica's RJR network. He started recording soon after but when his first group, The Charmers, disbanded he joined forces with Slim Smith and Jimmy Riley in the second incarnation of The Uniques in 1967.
Charmers moved on to a solo career in 1970 releasing two mainstream albums and simultaneously ventured into the risque, adult only realm of slack or x-rated content with the tune "Birth Control" and a complete album called Censored, using either his real name or Lloydie And The Lowbites.

Charmers started his Splash record label in the early 70's and began producing other artists like B.B. Seaton, Lloyd Parks, The Gaylads and Ken Boothe. With his studio band, The Now Generation, doing the backing Lloyd Charmers attained a reputation for sophisticated arrangements and in turn scored some fairly big hits during the era.

What we're going to hear today, in a Halloween stylee of course, is an instrumental tune called "Bone Yard Skank" and comes from a 2000 compilation CD on the West Side label titled "Highlights And Lowbites." The ghostly introduction on "Bone Yard Skank" had me hooked the first time I heard it and the smooth flowing tune that follows is absolutely wicked! I tried to run this down as a vinyl single and came up with the identical tune on the Federal label that credited the Bone Yard Belly Dancers instead of Mr. Charmers... go figure.

The Haunt Of Fear issue you see above really has nothing to do with the song but being that I have always enjoyed EC's imagery and the cemetery on the cover perfectly depicts the boneyard I see in my mind's eye.

Spooktacular Track Four