Unexpected Ska
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
Pulled this from a Dollar Bin expecting typical teen idol stuff.....man was I surprised!!
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
Comments
I'm partial to "Home By Eleven" (Dade - hard rockabilly), "Nobody's Fool" (Entrance - Dan Penn song, in a soul vein) and "So Much Love" (ABC-Paramount, soul again).
wouldn't that be really early for ska to be making an appearance on these northern shores, particularly with a mainstream-attempting dude (if i'm understanding his marketing as hit/star/teen idol correctly).
i always thought of ska as not hitting american soil until at least '67/'68, but am i totally off on that?
also, really enjoy those clips. good stuff.
yeah, honestly, you are pretty off. Ska had a bit of a run as a dance craze in
the early 60's in the US, partly as an overflow from the appeal in the UK, mainly
through James Bond and Dr. No and such, and partly through general US interest in
"island rhythms" and dances at the time, from exotica to calypso nightclubs, etc.
And the cover of the album looked like this:
There was obviously a minor movement to get ska going in the States in '64, judging by this album cover. Ray Barretto even recorded "Ska Cha" that year for Tico. But, America wasn't quite ready for the ska sound just yet.
except for the fact that it was popular
yeah? for how long, one minute and 53 seconds (or however long "my boy lollipop" was?)
they tried to make a thing out of it in the US, but then again they tried to make a thing out of the Lambada too. there were some cash-ins, but neither one lasted very long, and by '65 the ska thing was pretty much dropped (temporarily), as far as America went.
hell, i'd say the '80s and '90s US ska waves were more permanent than what went down in '64
We're talking about the mid-60's, where a new style of music or dance was big every 6 months.
Ska was a dance-craze.
Saying it didn't go over is like saying "America wasn't ready for the Jerk yet"
Nowhere near as big as the Twist, but more successful than the Frug, that was Ska.
It had a hit song, was in movies, and teen idol types were recording versions of it.
I'll accept that.
The Lambada was big, all right, but it was already a trivia question after maybe six months.
Well, I did say it was a minor[/b] trend from the gitgo, didn't I?
It had its' day. Notice I didn't say "days." Yeah, I know Annette Funicello had a song called "Jamaica Ska." But saying the '64 incarnation was an out-and-out success just seems a little too generous, to me.
1964 ska may have had its' golden moment in the States. But basically "the Ska" was to the Twist what a regional one-hit wonder is to the Beatles.
terd home, just to back up my argument from 2 weeks ago.
not sure about "unexpected"..as this was a big hit, but a great one none the less.
Hit me up for worldwide mailorder. We've got pretty much every part that's currently available, and a lot of N.O.S. stuff that's generally not available. The website represents about 20% of our actual inventory.
www.scooterwest.com
Bill Deal & the Rhondels were from Norfolk, VA. That "ska" beat actually came about when they adapted a polka beat to Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs'"May I" at a concert, just to be funny. This wound up being their first big hit. "I've Been Hurt" was the followup. Both were hits in 1969.
So Deal & co. were thinking "polka" when they recorded those two songs, not ska.
I don't even know if Deal & co. knew what ska was at the time, but the tunes sure did come out sounding that way.
I believed you, you don't have to prove it. I figured ska had some small measure of popularity in the States in '64. I just don't think it was MASSIVE, but it was definitely hovering around on the radar.
Growing up in NY there were some pretty great teen music TV shows.
Lloyd Thaxton hosted one(Which may have been filmed in Ca.)
My favorite was a local NYC production The Clay Cole Show.
this
well, the OG's agree w/ you:
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091011/ent/ent3.html
and don't forget the 64 world's fair in Queens with Jimmy Cliff and Prince Buster both performing at the Jamaican pavillian backed by Byron Lee... i am guessing that might have spurred Atlantic to record their Jamaica Ska LP...
People were understandably entranced with the 'exotic' music they heard while having the time of their lives and often bought records in the airport on their way home. in fact, I've scored several NM Ska grails in classical collections this way - these were seldom played once back home.
Anyway, I think this contributed greatly to the spread of Ska, Calypso, and Bossa Nova to the U.S. around this time.
What 80's US Ska wave? you mean UK Two-Tone stuff? It was popular to a certain
degree with the Specials and English Beat, but hard to call mainstream.
That's why I didn't[/b] call it mainstream. Blues, rockabilly, garage and even ragtime aren't mainstream (anymore) either, but there's always been a subculture keeping those genres going. I'd put ska in there too as a fairly marginal genre that sustained.
Since 1980, people have related to it as music. The older stuff has been reissued. Ska has made a couple of comebacks. There have been newer bands coming up who were playing it. In other words, from 1980 to now, if you're in a room with a bunch of knowledgeable music freaks, if you mention "ska," people will know what the hell you are talking about.
Back in the sixties, though, it was all "hey, kids, Lloyd Thaxton is going to teach you about that kooky dance craze called 'the ska!'" And "gee, honey, our trip to Jamaica was delightful, let's buy this ska record as a memento that we will never listen to!" And then there was Millie Small with her ten minutes of fame. Yeah, I know ska was making inroads in the States in 1964. But where was this movement in '65? '66? '67? In the bargain bins with the Vaughn Meader records, that's where.
That's why I say American acceptance of ska in the sixties was premature and didn't really stick to the wall like it has since the eighties. Yes, it attracted minor attention, but it wasn't ***THE SOUND THAT DEFINED 1964*** like you make it out to be. If it were, then Millie Small and Prince Buster would have had two or three years worth of continuous American hits, and not just a track here and a cut there.
i dunno man... Madness "our house" being one of the videos run over and over again on the mtv in the '80s seems kinda mainstream but either way i couldn't care less about this gay ass argument.