Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Big Mountain Band, Euro Tec Music Group 2021.
Reggae always reminds me of the year I spent living in Bristol in the UK in the mid-1980s.
Bristol has a large Jamaican population and that year the sound of steel drums and reggae wafted on the warm summer breeze.
1984 was unusually warm for the UK, during summer temperatures hovered in the high 20s and occasionally climbed into the 30s.
At one point there was no rain for about a month and everyone was talking about a drought.
It was a carefree period of joy and exploration accompanied by the happy soundtrack of bands like Madness, The Specials, Bob Marley &The wailers and UB40.
It’s been some time since we’ve heard reggae on the airwaves but Big Mountain Band are reviving it.
Not that it ever really went away.
They’ve released two singles from their up-coming album and they’re both excellent.
Big Mountain Band is an American reggae outfit best known for their cover of Peter Frampton’s hit Baby I Love Your Way which became a Top 10 hit in the US in 1994.
It reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100, number one in the Mainstream Top 40 and number two in the UK, achieving an Ivor Novello Award and an MTV Europe Music Award along the way.
And then they disappeared from the radio until the release of these two singles.
However, although they were no longer gaining radio plays in Australia, they were still plying their trade on the live music circuit and they kept cutting albums, eleven to be precise.
Reggae Inna Summertime and Touch My Light are classic tracks that embody all the fun and energy of the genre.
It’s goodtime music, made for beach parties, dancing and all the joys of warm summer days and nights.
The sorts of activities that may seem a long way away in the midst of a cold, wet, winter that’s further constrained by lockdowns and closures.
Given the speed of the vaccine roll out we could be excused for taking on a siege mentality so, if you’re looking for something to perk you up, think summer thoughts and put on some reggae.
