DATE SATURDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER 2011
VENUE Teach Na Teamhrach, Trim Rd, Navan, Co. Meath
PRICE €48
DOORS 7pm
WITH: HENRIETTA GAME
TICKETS Available from E2 Music, Navan & Mullingar or Online Here
VIDEO
BIOG Masters of the reggae love song, UB40 have taken reggae classics like Red Red Wine, Cherry Oh Baby, Kingston Town, Please Don’t Make Me Cry and Breakfast In Bed to mainstream audiences the world over. Someone once claimed UB40 are to reggae what the Beatles and Rolling Stones were to American rhythm and blues and as they release the latest installment of their best-selling Labour Of Love series, the truth of this statement is undeniable. Like it or not, they are the ultimate gateway reggae band. Literally millions of people from across the globe have developed a love for Jamaican music after hearing UB40, and the band’s commitment to their early influences is strong as ever.

They’d asked to release an album of reggae covers from the very beginning, but their record company considered it a terrible idea. Reggae meant Rasta and Bob Marley at the time, but UB40 wanted to pay tribute to the music that had inspired them to start a band in the first place –mainly Jamaican rocksteady, mixed with a little early American soul recorded as ska began to fade and the Caribbean’s great love affair with ghetto balladeers and group harmonies began. That’s how the Labour Of Love series was born. It was no fancy marketing concept, and the shared passion that drives it remains central to the group’s ambitions even more than thirty years later.

It was 1983 before the first Labour Of Love appeared. The band had their own studio by then, and were able to demand more creative freedom after making essential contributions to the soundtrack of the early Thatcher years, when riots and widespread disenchantment swept through Britain’s inner cities. The group who’d written powerful social commentaries such as One In Ten and Food For Thought weren’t recording covers due to any lack of material you understand, but because they wanted the world to know how gloriously talented those early Jamaican pioneers were.

The first Labour Of Love went Top 10 in England and America, and yielded UB40’s first-ever No. 1 hit, Red Red Wine. The second included Kingston Town, which not only gifted a great, but previously obscure song with global recognition, but radically changed the life of Lord Creator, who was able to pay urgent medical bills and take his family out of poverty with the royalties it earnt for him. We’ve heard similar stories repeated within the ranks of Jamaica’s veteran singers with each successive volume of Labour Of Love, which is just one of the reasons why UB40 are so highly regarded in the Caribbean. Another of course, is the actual quality of their interpretations, which means that UB40 have been able to introduce such songs to more people than the original artists ever thought possible, since their audiences are drawn from all walks of life, and comprised of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities. That’s because UB40’s music – whether written by themselves or not – is delivered from the heart and wholly without artifice, which is a rare commodity. They’re “roots people,” as Jamaicans would say, and it shows in everything they do.

Britain’s first successful, multi-racial reggae band had fallen under the spell of Jamaican music whilst growing up in Birmingham – a cultural melting-pot then as now, and where ska, rocksteady and early reggae formed an intrinsic part of the Birmingham nightlife on offer in areas like Balsall Heath, where Robin Campbell would venture as a youngster in search of the latest sounds.

“I would hear ska in the coffee bars and walking down the streets as it came out of people’s windows but then at thirteen, I started going to blues parties,” he recalls. “The first few I went to, it was still ska, but then in the summer of 1967 it all slowed down. That’s when the rocksteady stuff happened which had such gorgeous harmonies. That was the thing I fell in love with really. You had vocal groups like the Melodians and the Paragons, and that’s also why there’s so much of it on the Labour Of Love albums, because so many of the tracks I tend to bring to the band are from that era.”

Robin, with help from other band members, had compiled a list of around two hundred songs for them to choose from when recording the first Labour Of Love, and they’re still referring to that same list now. Hits by the groups Robin mentions, as well as Delroy Wilson and John Holt (including the sublime I Don’t Want To See You Cry) bestow this new album with such an infectious sense of joy, it’s hard to believe it’s the fourth in the series and not the first. Again, that’s because authenticity resides at the very heart of their mission. UB40, just like other dedicated reggae fans, fervently want such artists – together with Theo Beckford, Errol Dunkley, Ken Parker and Hopeton Lewis, who also contribute songs to Labour Of Love IV – to receive more recognition, and there’s now every chance of that happening with these mesmerising new versions.

American soul stars Smokey Robinson (Tracks Of My Tears), Sam Cooke (Bring It On Home To Me) and Johnny Nash need no introduction here, except these songs were hugely popular within Caribbean communities, and had a lasting impact upon UB40 themselves. Johnny Nash was the first overseas’ act to cover a Bob Marley song and his Cream Puff is a little-known gem from the very early seventies, when the Texan singer was being billed as “the King Of Reggae” in England. Robin saw him perform back then and says the band had wanted to cover Cream Puff for years.

Fortunately, it’s now a new era, and Labour Of Love IV is the first to feature another talented Campbell brother, Duncan, on lead vocals. Duncan would have been UB40’s frontman right from the start had he not turned them down to pursue adventures in Barbados, Western Australia and Jamaica, among other such exotic places. Usually, when a world-famous band changes their lead singer, the transition isn’t exactly seamless. Duncan was a natural choice however – not only because he’s family but also because he sings with such feeling, like a man who’s come to claim his rightful legacy. Robin, Astro, Norman and Earl also feature on songs from the new album, and such versatility – twinned with UB40’s remarkable consistency – make it another wonderful addition to the series.