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The incidence of Jamaican recordings reaching the United Kingdom charts and impacting British culture has become commonplace.
Millie Small’s 1964 remake of Barbie Gaye’s 1957 R&B hit, My Boy Lollipop set the trend when it climbed to No. 2 on the British charts.
It effectively opened the floodgates for a deluge of Jamaican recordings to flow incessantly onto the British charts.
Earlier, others like Laurel Aitken and Dandy Livingstone created an initial impact, with Aitken’s Boogie in My Bones and Little Sheila in 1957 becoming the first Jamaican-made recordings to be distributed in England.

A couple years after Millie Small’s hit, ska legend Prince Buster burst onto the UK music scene with the ultimate rude-boy song, Al capone Guns Don’t Argue, which established his career in Britain.

The year 1967 saw the biggest Jamaica-UK hit of that period, when Desmond Dekker’s 007 (Shanty Town) found its way to the No. 14 slot on the charts.

Dekker, who had ushered in a more conscious form of Jamaican rocksteady, revealed to the outside world, through the recording, the condition of ghetto dwellers and gun-toting hoodlums in a society going through a transition:

Two years later, Dekker and the Aces would return to register Jamaica’s greatest impact on the UK charts and the first Jamaican record to hit the No. 1 spot there — Israelites.

Although few could understand its lyrics, it became a timeless masterpiece, merely on the strength of its intense reggae beat, reaching the top in April 1969.

Charting worldwide
Israelites also reached the United States top ten and hit No. 1 in Canada and several European countries. It may seem strange, but the curiosity and thrill associated with deciphering the song’s unintelligible lyrics may have been one of the biggest attractions to the track.
‘Get up in the morning, same thing for breakfast’, or ‘baked beans for breakfast’, some would sing, only to be corrected with “Get up in the morning, slaving for bread sir, so that every mouth can be fed, poor me Israelite”.

It’s the age-old unending lament of the poor and underprivileged, struggling to stay alive with meagre resources.
“Shirt dem a tear up, pants dem a go, I don’t want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde”, the lines continue, further lamenting the plight of the poor.

Later that year (1969), Dekker again made his presence felt on the UK charts with A It Mek, which peaked at No. 7.
Jamaica’s next sojourn to the No. 1 position on the UK charts was in May 1971, when Dave Barker, a session vocalist, and Ansel Collins, a keyboardist, combined to give the world an early taste of dancehall on the instrument-driven Double Barrel. The song also topped the Jamaican charts and became one of the first recordings that featured the drum play of Sly Dunbar.

Its follow-up, Monkey Spanner, also in the instrumental vein, made it to No. 7.
In the meantime, two other Jamaican instrumentals, Return of Django by The Upsetters and Liquidator by The Harry J. All Stars, reached the UK top ten in 1969, while Boris Gardiner’s Elizabeth Reggae narrowly missed. For a small island like Jamaica to place five recordings at No. 1 on the British charts in roughly a decade and a half, is no ordinary achievement. Additionally, between 1968 and 1971, more than 20 Jamaican singles reached UK charts.

Ken Boothe was next to occupy the coveted UK No. 1 spot in 1974 with the intensely romantic David Gates composition, Everything I own.
According to Boothe, in an interview I had with him, “The song started with Paul Buchanan from the housing business. He gave me the song and suggested I record it. I was doing an album at the time with Lloyd Charmers. We had nine songs and wanted one more and included it.

Released in the UK, the single entered the charts, and I was called to England to do some Top of the Pops shows, and it gradually climbed to No. 1,” said Boothe, pointing out that that an artiste’s performance at these shows determined, to a large extent, chart success.

Strong performances
“You have to work hard to keep the song on the charts,” Boothe said.
The Joe Gibbs-produced Uptown Top Ranking by Althea Forrest and Donna Reid in 1977, reached No. 1 on the UK charts in February 1978, spending just one week.

The singing duo, still schoolgirls at the time, not only created the greatest UK No. 1 chart surprise, but created history by becoming the youngest female duo to occupy that position.

Written by the duo and released in England on Lightning Records, the song rode the rhythm to the immortal Alton Ellis track I’m Still in Love and received immense endorsements from a BBC Radio disc jock.

Boris Gardiner joined that elite band of Jamaican performers who reached the No. 1 spot on the UK charts with the Ben Peter’s composition, I Wanna Wake Up with You, in 1986. It was after a short break, due to a fire in his Houston, Texas hotel room, that Gardiner was motivated by producer Willie Lindo to record a couple of songs, one of which was I Wanna Wake Up with You.

“It came in the midst of the popular ‘Boops’ craze. Released in Jamaica and on the Ethnic market in New York, it held its own and reached No. 1 on the Ethnic Music charts. A guy named Matthias, living in England, approached Lindo for permission to release it in England, but Lindo never thought it would hit there.

“However, Matthias acquired two 12-inch (acetates) from Jamaica, edited and remastered them to produce about 500 45rpm records, and in a couple of days, they were sold off.

“A further 1000 45rpm suffered the same fate. Realising he had a hit on his hands, he took it to Creole Records in England.
“It went into the charts at No. 96 and rapidly reached the No. 1 position,” Gardiner said. — Jamaica Gleaner.