Saturday, July 16, 2016

Day 259 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Colin Roach & Bunny General - Sylvia

Picture this... West Indian Record Mart, Takoma Park Maryland, on a Saturday much like this, summer 1992.  My buddy Nick and I had just begun buying current records fresh from Jamaica mainly because we had finally been able to track down where we could get them.  It was long before the advent of the internet where records could be tracked down and purchased with a few mouse clicks, we actually had to put in 2 hours of drive time just to get to them.  Popular at the time was King Jammy's Muslim riddim and when I bought the cassette copy of Boom Shots #11, West Indian's latest store-produced mix, I got quite an earful of a plethora of tunes on a multitude of riddims but today's track "Sylvia" by Colin Roach & Bunny General was definitely one of my favorites!  A minimalist digital dancehall rhythm coupled with the "Sylvia's Mother" lyrics originally written by Shel Silverstein and made popular in the 1972 single by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, this was a helluva combination!  Unfortunately the record store didn't have any copies of the Jammys single when we returned the next week and it wasn't until until twenty years later that I finally tracked down a copy and added it to my collection.  And while we don't usually explore much of the music from the early 90s, this one still kicks ass!   

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