Jamaican Halloween Spooktacular 2011 - Track Twenty - Voodoo Man

So we're arrived at the last Friday in our Halloween Spooktacular and we're gonna take you into the weekend on an up-note.

At the ripe age of 13 and under the auspices of Coxsone Dodd, Delroy Wilson (Oct. 1948 - March 1995) began his recording career at Studio One. He cut his first track "Emy Lou" in 1961 and emerged in the ska era as the first line of offensive armament in a feud amongst rival record producers Duke Reid and Prince Buster.

By the time rocksteady rolled around Wilson's voice had matured and he had a string of hits including "Dancing Mood," "Riding For A Fall" and "Conquer Me." Around that time he left Studio One and went on to record for Bunny Lee, Joe Gibbs and others. But that's going far beyond where we need to go today.

This tune, "Voodoo Man," which is actually the b-side to the Lee Perry penned attack on Prince Buster "Spit In The Sky," was produced by Dodd in 1963 during ska's heyday and released on the Island Records UK subsidiary Black Swan.

In the tune, Delroy Wilson basically addresses the belief the some Jamaican's have about the benefits of voodoo. Whether it involves a cure for medical ailments or repairing a broken heart, Wilson concludes that the only thing a Voodoo Man is good at taking away is the heft of your wallet when he robs you blind.

At the top of this post you'll see a poster for the 1957 film Voodoo Island. Now I've never seen this film but came across the trailer when I was putting together this years mix and it worked perfectly to establish our thematic change from yesterday's tune. Judging by the synopsis of Voodoo Island on IMDB...

"A wealthy industrialist hires the renowned hoax-buster Phillip Knight to prove that an island he plans to develop isn't voodoo cursed. However, arriving on the island, Knight soon realizes that voodoo does exist when he discovers man-eating plants and a tribe of natives with bizarre powers."

...it definitely sounds like the kind of bad film that I would absolutely love! Besides, with Boris Karloff in the starring role how can it be as bad as the reviews have suggested?

Have a great weekend and I'll see you again on Halloween for the final track!