What Reggae fan gets into a battle with the greatest Reggae journalist of all time? This guy.
Just did a remodel on the "crazy room"...now a retreat for my mother in law (also- who the hell does that?), and needed to play a song.
This song was released in 1964 and was a SKA blockbuster in the UK as I am to understand it, and also banned. I know this because said music journalist who took his moniker from it has told the story a million times...and in spite of it not making the lists online (can't help but notice the lack of Jamaican tunes there anyway...and kinda have the feeling few of them were played on the radio at the time, it seems legitimate that this would be one that NO one would play.)
For those of you not familiar with Jamaican patois...the lyrics are "I beg you turn your belly, gimme, Penny Reel-o Let me rub out of the money,Penny Reel-o" in spite of what is posted at so many lyric sights online (Let me rob her of the money...umm, nope). That said, this lyric suggests attaining a certain level of familiarity with someone as compensation for a debt. Hardly the thing the British airways were promoting at the time.
Back to Penny Reel. He was not a nice bloke, but a brilliant writer, and a regular on a forum I moderated about ten years ago. It became a game really...he would say something really scathing and nasty to another forum member, and I would relinquish him to the penalty box for a few days. He would come out madder than ever after this exchange, and be again, particularly nasty to someone, and back he went.
I guess now it is a good thing that I always valued decency over credentials, because the man really was one of my heroes, and fortunately he directed one of his tirades at me. In it, he created an "Old West" kind of feel, and spoke of a Sheriff who was more a power hungry dictator than a peace-maker, and I adored reading it. I wish I could find it now. In any event...our protagonist was called "The Cloverdale Kid".
Don't get me wrong- the man was a FOUNDATION personality in the genre I love the most. If you are interested,
here are some of his articles and reviews. I just found out that he has passed and even though we would have NEVER gotten along, a part of the world I will miss, in spite of our differences.
Anyway- the point. I played him a song.
Penny Reel O- The Cloverdale Kid. Lets SKA!