yardie's reggae collection
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WINSTON GROOVY PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME CRY - THE BEST OF WINSTON GROOVY * * *
Winston Groovy is considered one of the founding
fathers of Reggae in the UK. Winston Tucker was born in 1946 in Kingston,
Jamaica. While growing up he listened to the Sound System of Duke
Reid, Coxsone Dodd and King Edwards, along with the American R&B.
His debut was cut for Edwards, but it was not released and only used
for the Sound System. In 1961 Winston reached his father in Birmingham,
UK. Once in town he begun studying electrical engineering but the
music was since then the first call. His first group was The Ebonites.
After this experience he moved to London were he met the great Ska
artist Laurel Aitken and recorded with him a track called "Island
In The Sun". He changed his name to Winston Groovy. The artistic
relationship with Aitken brought a lot of singles for the Palmer Brothers
label Pama. A hit from 1970 was "Please Don't Make Me Cry",
cut for Lloyd Briscoe' Hot Rod label. In 1971 Winston started to produce
his own material. His first production, "I Want To Be Loved"
(which is available here) was released in Jamaica too and it was well
acclaimed. The hits in Britain followed one after another and in the
meantime Winston had a large success in the venues too. During these
years Winston worked regularly in Trojan's Muzik City record shop
in Lewisham and Pama's record shop in Peckham Rye too. In 1974 Winston
signed with Trojan Records were he was produced by Webster Shrowder
and Sidney Crooks. During the 70's he produced himself. During the
80's he kept recording even if at lesser extent. This twentyfive tracks
compilation basecally covers his golden age with twentyone songs from
1969 to the late 70's, plus four songs from the 80's. The most interesting
songs are those from the beginning to the early 70's were there is
still the simple Jamaican flavour in the compositions. The other tracks
fail on being too much 70's Pop oriented. And maybe it is not coincidence
that later UB40 will pick a lot of material from Groovy.
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1969-1985 -
Trojan - studio - discs:1