TROJAN BEATLES TRIBUTE BOX SET

 

On the night in the summer of 1975 when I encountered John Lennon by chance at Ashley’s Bar & Restaurant in New York we talked about reggae music, amongst other things. As I recall, John asked me what I thought about Bob Marley so I told him I’d been a reggae fan since I first heard ‘007 (Shanty Town)’ by Desmond Dekker in 1967 and danced to it at a disco Ilkley near where I lived in those days. I told him I’d seen Marley at the Speakeasy in London in May, 1973, on a night when the club was more crowded than I’d ever seen it before. 

        John scoffed and told me that The Beatles had been reggae fans since the early sixties and had recorded reggae or ska long before ‘Obla Di Obla Da’ on the White Album, which at that time was generally regarded as The Beatles’ sole incursion in Jamaican rhythms. He cited the middle-eight in ‘I Call Your Name’ on the Long Tall Sally EP and he was right, of course, though nowadays, when I come to think about it, ‘She’s A Woman’, the B-side of ‘I Feel Fine’, also recorded in 1964, has a reggae backbeat throughout, even though the song is driven by Paul’s bass. 

        All of which makes me wonder whether or not John and his fellow Beatles ever heard any of the 50 tracks on this 3-CD set. Unfortunately, the liner notes, written by someone called Mike Atherton, which I assume is not the former England cricket captain, doesn’t mention when the tracks were recorded but my guess is during the seventies, after the Beatles had split. In among them are a few solo Beatles songs like ‘My Sweet Lord’, ‘Live And Let Die’, ‘Imagine’ and ‘Happy Christmas (War Is Over)’, and there’s also a handful of Lennon-McCartney songs The Beatles didn’t record, like ‘World Without Love’ and Paul’s ‘Come and Get It’. A few of the tracks are instrumentals. 

        I bought this set about six years ago after reading that one of the musicians – I can’t remember who – featured on their All Back To My Place page liked to play these CDs on Sunday mornings. I think I paid about £60 for the CDs, and I played them all this morning as I was reading the paper. Fantastic, the perfect Sunday morning record – nice and smooth, familiar yet unfamiliar, with a few hidden surprises like The Black Beatles – a studio band methinks – and their version of ‘Twist And Shout’ (retitled ‘Reggae And Shout’), and King Kouchi & The Techniques’ dance-hall revision of ‘World Without Love’ (retitled ‘Show Me Your Motion’). 

        But the overall feeling I get from listening to all these CDs is how easily Beatles songs can be translated into reggae, and how the rearrangements suit the songs, most especially ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (by Marca Griffiths) and ‘Something’ (by The Blues Busters). Used Trojan Beatles Tribute set can be found on eBay at prices ranging from around £40 to between £60 and £70, so it looks like the price is holding up. Certainly worth the money if, like me, you’re both a Beatles and reggae fan.