We might still be waiting for the weather, but at least we have the soundtrack for this summer all lined up. For the last week or two I have been listening to a CD called Man Like I by a chap called Natty and its a cracker. I got it through the Amazon Vine programme without knowing anything about it except that it was reggae. It turns out to have a lot of variety for a reggae album – many of them are all in the same style and tempo all the way through but this goes from slow acoustic songs right up to fast bouncy ones with a rhythm almost frantic enough to be jungle.
The first track on the album is July, to be released as a single later in the month. Keep an eye and ear out for it because it could well be everywhere. I left this in the car for a while playing it right through several times and never got bored with it, and never skipped a tune. For me there really isn’t a duff track on it.
I have been spectacularly wrong with predictions so far this year when it comes to football and elections, so I’m reluctant to jinx Natty’s career, but I do think this album could have the sort of ubiquity that Sean Paul’s Dutty Rock did a few summers back.
here are a couple of clips from YouTube: the video for the July single and a live version of the track Badman. Is it only me that is reminded of Finlay Quaye by the song July?
At what age do you go from being rebellious punk lover to chilled out Finlay Quaye fan 😉
Who were your friends in Laindon… I just posted somewhere else on here, found your site this evening and posted that I have just moved here from all my life in Basildon area
It may be a bit of a cop-out, but I think there is room for both in life. Even in the middle of the punk explosion I was still attached to all sorts of other music.
Very topical though – Finlay Quaye is playing in Croydon today (Saturday) at a free festival, though it is unlikely to be sunny. We planned to go but now we might not due to the weather and a pile of other things to do.
Friends in Laindon? Mostly they were in the town – thought there are still some bits of family in Laindon. Having been away at boarding school most friends from that long ago were spread out across the county.
Even fellow students from Basildon College during my time there have also fled the town, in one case moving all the way to Oz.
I can vouch for the variety of my brother’s musical tastes. I’m fairly sure we only had one player for any form of music (apart from radio) in the house so we all shared the music – an interesting mix of Stranglers, Queen (maybe a guilty pleasure by this point), Pink Floyd and Genesis. Since prog rock was one of the main things that punk was a reaction against I’d call this quite an achievement. (And now I still listen to them all plus folk-rock and mainstream pop – my new guilty pleasure…)