Ghost Town

508. Musical Youth – Pass the Dutchie (1982)

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The Intro

As a young boy in the early 80s, I considered Birmingham reggae group Musical Youth incredibly cool. A bunch of schoolchildren singing an incredibly catchy tune about… well, I didn’t know as I was very young. It didn’t matter though, because I loved Pass the Dutchie regardless of the subject matter.

Before

Musical Youth were formed in 1979 by the fathers of Kelvin and Michael Grant, and Frederick (known as Junior) and Patrick Waite, respectively. Frederick Waite Sr had been a member of Jamaican reggae group The Techniques and he was the original lead vocalist. Junior was their drummer and backing vocalist, while Patrick played bass. Michael Grant played keyboard while Kelvin was guitarist, with both also providing backing vocals. When they formed, the members ages ranged from seven to 15, with Kelvin the youngest.

Despite all attending Duddeston Manor School, Musical Youth gained live dates in West Indian working men’s clubs around Birmingham. Wearing their influences on their sleeves – which included Aswad, Sugar Minott and Gregory Isaacs – they released a double A-side single in 1981. Generals/Political was issued on local label 021 Records (021 being the Birmingham area code at the time.

In 1982, following an appearance on BBC Radio One’s The John Peel Show, Musical Youth were signed to MCA Records, who convinced Waite Sr to relinquish the lead singer role to the boys’ school friend Dennis Seaton. While supporting Culture Club at Heaven in London, the crowd went wild to their cover of The Mighty Diamonds’ Pass the Kouchie.

The Jamaican act had released their ode to smoking cannabis (based on 1968 instrumental Full Up by Leroy Sibbles) a year previous, and despite it being banned by their government, it raised their profile in the reggae scene.

There was no way MCA would let schoolboys release a song about a kouchie, which was a big marijuana bong. But there was also no doubt the song was infectious. So what could they do?

Co-producer Toney Owens hit upon an idea after getting home late one night on an empty stomach. What about changing ‘kouchie’ to ‘dutchie’ which was a patois term for a Dutch oven cooking pot? Once agreed, it was easy to change the other dodgy lyric – The ‘How does it feel when you got no herb’ refrain substituted the last word to ‘food’. The spoken word intro was inspired by the opening to U-Roy’s Rule the Nation.

It’s worth noting that Pass the Dutchie was also produced by the team of Peter Collins and Pete Waterman, who had been working together since 1980. Collins went on to produce many big acts in the 80s – and Waterman will of course become a fixture on this blog as the 80s progress.

Review

It’s not just nostalgia for my musical youth that makes me love Pass the Dutchie. It’s very refreshing to hear some reggae in this blog for the first time in a while. Yes, it’s lacking the deep bass of the original, and by transforming it from a cannabis anthem to a pop song about being a hungry school boy, it veers into novelty hit territory. But it’s better than that. The intro may also not be original, but it’s an inspired introduction and must have felt like a call to arms for black schoolboys – only a year on from the awful race riots that helped inspire Ghost Town.

Speeding the tempo up a notch from Pass the Kouchie was also a great choice, making it more palatable for the pop audience of 1982. In fact, Pass the Dutchie gets the balance just right – it’s pop-friendly, without feeling lightweight. It still feels like authentic reggae. It’s hard to believe Waterman is involved in the production duties, when you consider what he would later become known for.

Also adding to its reggae credentials was the enlisting of Don Letts as the director of the music video. Letts had ran the London clothing store Acme Attractions, which was frequented by Bob Marley, Debbie Harry, the Sex Pistols, Chrissie Hynde and The Clash. He went on to DJ at The Roxy in Covent Garden, and helped introduce punks to dub and reggae.

Letts’ video features Musical Youth performing on the south bank of the River Thames in London, by Lambeth Bridge. All too aware of racial tensions in the UK, he does a great job of keeping things light, portraying the band as fun-loving kids just wanting to have fun. A school official appears to arrest them, but he falls and hurts himself. The video is interspersed with Musical Youth standing trial, but they’re cleared and the video ends with everyone having a great time in the courtroom, like a scene from a bad musical.

This video not only helped Musical Youth appeal to the masses – it made them the first black artists to be played on the fledgling MTV. This was months before Billie Jean – despite what the new Michael Jackson biopic Michael (2026) would have you believe.

After

Within a month of its release, Musical Youth were a fledgling sensation. Pass the Dutchie rocketed to number 1 in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia. Thanks to MTV airplay, it also soared to 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. They hung out with Jackson and met Bubbles.

Debut LP The Youth of Today swiftly followed and also performed well, as did two singles it spawned – Youth of Today peaked at 13 and Never Gonna Give You Up (not the Rick Astley song) climbed to six in 1983. Follow-up Heartbreaker couldn’t break the top 40.

However, it began to look like Musical Youth may be a flash in the pan when their second album Different Style! performed noticeably less well. A cover of John Holt’s Tell Me Why only went to 33, 007 climbed to 26 and She’s Trouble failed to chart. Although business had briefly picked up when they featured on Donna Summer’s Unconditional Love, which was a number 14 hit, the end was already in sight. Sixteen, featuring Jody Watley, was their last charting single, reaching 23 in 1984. Maybe the public saw them as a novelty, after all.

Tragically, this group of schoolchildren then found themselves old before their time due to financial troubles, legal issues and personal problems. Seaton left the band in 1985, releasing a solo album, Imagine That…, which sank without trace in 1989. A reunion was planned in 1993, but was cut short when Patrick, who was awaiting a court appearance after a robbery, died suddenly after collapsing due to a hereditary heart condition, aged only 24. Remixes of Pass the Dutchie were released in 1994, but failed to chart.

Michael and Seaton tried to stay in the music business, setting up a production company and a band respectively, but didn’t make much of a mark. In 2001 they announced they were reforming Musical Youth as a duo – Junior, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, would not be taking part. They toured the nostalgia circuit, and featured on Pato Banton’s 2004 single, Pretty Woman. The duo also released a new version of Pass the Dutchie in 2008. Michael’s brother Kelvin began a solo career but failed to get noticed. Junior died in a mental health unit in 2022, aged 55.

The Outro

That same year, Pass the Dutchie gained a new lease of life after appearing in the Netflix series Stranger Things.

The Info

Written by

Jackie Mittoo, Fitzroy “Bunny” Simpson & Lloyd ‘Judge’ Ferguson

Producers

Toney Owens, Pete Waterman & Peter Collins

Weeks at number 1

3 (2-22 October)

Trivia

Births

4 October: Jazz saxophonist YolanDa Brown
7 October: Footballer Jermain Defoe
10 October: Actor Dan Stevens

Deaths

3 October: Actress Vivien Merchant
6 October: Composer Philip Green
8 October: Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker/Musician Erik Routley
16 October: Artist Rory McEwen
18 October: Conductor Leslie Jones
20 October: Scottish footballer Jimmy McGrory

Meanwhile…

11 October: The Mary Rose, which sank in 1545, was raised from the Solent.

12 October: The London Victory Parade of 1982 was held to mark the end of the Falkands War.

15 October : The Ford Sierra was launched as the replacement for the Cortina.

21 October: Sinn Féin won their first seats on the Northern Ireland Assembly. Gerry Adams won the Belfast West seat.  

483. Shakin’ Stevens – Green Door (1981)

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The Intro

Ghost Town had spent three weeks at number 1, soundtracking the country’s dissent over rising unemployment. What did it take to reunite the country? It took the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles II and Lady Diana Spencer, and the retro rock’n’roll of Shakin’ Stevens, who was at the peak of his fame with Green Door.

Before

Shaky-mania was a very real thing back then. Grandparents and parents loved the Welsh pop star, who had filled in the sizeable gap left by the death of Elvis Presley, boys thought he was cool, and girls swooned.

Stevens’ cover of This Ole House had topped the hit parade in the spring, and so it was a case of striking while the iron was hot. Work began on his fourth album, the imaginatively titled Shaky. Adopting the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ methodology, it featured a mix of self-penned Stevens numbers and covers of 50s rock’n’roll tunes. The first fruits of Shaky to see the light of day was the original track You Drive Me Crazy, which was a strong track and rushed out hot on the heels of This Ole House. It was brand new, but could easily have been mistaken for a 50s or 60s hit. It very nearly became Shaky’s second number 1, but it was kept off the top spot by Stand and Deliver!, by the UK’s other hottest pop star of 1981.

Perhaps sensing that Stevens could repeat the success of his last number 1 by releasing a song the old folks would remember from their youth, Philips Records released his cover of Green Door.

Green Door had been written by US orchestra leader Bob ‘Hutch’ Davie, with lyrics by Marvin J Moore, in 1956. The original version was recorded by Jim Lowe, a singer-songwriter and radio presenter. The green door in question refers to the entrance to a private club, that Lowe is desperate to enter. He can hear laughter, an old piano which is being played ‘hot’, and can see smoke coming through the keyhole. Lowe’s recording, which became number 1 in the US and eight in the UK, is an interesting production, on which Davie played piano, that he sped up to give it a honky tonk sound.

In the UK, Lowe’s version was eclipsed by Frankie Vaughan’s, which reached number two. Vaughan, known as ‘Mr Moonlight’, was hugely popular in the UK, and in time he would have two number 1s. However, Lowe’s version is the superior one.

Review

I don’t know if it’s age or nostalgia, but here I am bigging up Shaky, whose version of Green Door is better than Lowe’s and Laine’s. It is very similar to the latter, but where normally I’d prefer an authentic primitive 50s production over a glossy 80s take, that isn’t the case here.

Producer Stuart Colman gives it sheen but also some oomph. It’s catchy as hell and to be fair, the country must have been ready for a party after all the civil unrest that had been going down that summer. And yet, it’s only a few months since I reviewed This Ole House, and I marked that down considerably, despite both singles being very, very similar. Perhaps Stevens caught me on a good day, this time.

Or perhaps it was the silliness of the video that made me warm to Green Door. Shaky’s videos are always good for an easy laugh, and this is no exception. Just like This Ole House, the director is taking things very literally (possibly the same director?). Stevens jumps around in front of some, yes, green doors in much the same way he jumped off the old house (yes, really). There are repeated shots of an eye looking through a keyhole, a piano… you get the message. Then he finally gets inside the club and gets the chance to do some Elvis-style gyrations on the piano. It’s ridiculous, but in a good way, and I can totally see why he must have seemed so cool to me as a little lad.

After

After spending nearly all of August 1981 at the top of the singles chart, the parent album Shaky was released, and went on to be his most successful LP ever, also reaching number 1. It’s Raining, also from the album, peaked at 10, but he would soon be back at pole position.

The Outro

Green Door is obviously squeaky clean and upbeat. But it also took on a more sinister meaning for me, thanks to its reworking for a 1976 public information film, that continued to be shown well into the 80s. Looking at it now, it’s really not scary, but it did its job when I was a boy, as after seeing it I’d be too scared to answer the door to anyone. Cheers, Central Office of Information!

The Info

Written by

Bob Davie & Marvin J Moore

Producer

Stuart Colman

Weeks at number 1

4 (1-28 August)

Trivia

Births

8 August: S Club 7 singer Bradley McIntosh
11 August: Scottish singer-songwriter Sandi Thom
17 August: Conservative Party MP Johnny Mercer/Actor Chris New
20 August: Ben Barnes
27 August: Comedian Olivia Lee
28 August: Scottish Labour Party leader Kezia Dugdale

Deaths

5 August: Poet Molly Holden/Clarinettist Reginald Kell
9 August: Landowner Ralph Bankes
10 August: Civil servant Sir Alan Lascelles/Anglican clergyman James Parkes
12 August: Royal Navy captain Howard Bone
15 August: Lawyer Sir Humphrey Waldock
16 August: Cinematographer Denys Coop
18 August: Second World War pilot Athol Forbes
19 August: Actress Jessie Matthews
21 August: Journalist JRL Anderson
22 August: First World War nurse Mairi Chisholm
24 August: Physician Margery Blackie
26 August: Television producer Peter Eckersley
28 August: Record producer Guy Stevens

Meanwhile…

1 August: Kevin Lynch became the seventh IRA hunger striker to die.

2 August: Less than 24 hours later, Kevin Lynch became the eighth.

8 August: Thomas McElwee became the ninth.

9 August: Broadmoor Hospital is criticised when double murderer Alan Reeve became the second prisoner to escape there in three weeks. 

17 August: An inquiry opened for the Moss Side riots.

20 August: Michael Devine was the 10th IRA hunger striker to die in prison.
Also on this day, Minimum Lending Rate ceased to be set by the Bank of England.

25 August: Britain’s largest Enterprise Zone was launched in Tyneside.

27 August: 31-year-old Moira Stuart was appointed to be the first black newsreader on the BBC. 

450. The Special A.K.A. Featuring Rico – Too Much Too Young – The Special A.K.A. Live! (EP) (1980)

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The Intro

The Specials/The Special AKA quickly grew into one of the most beloved bands of the early 80s. Their state-of-the-nation address Ghost Town is one of the greatest singles of the decade, but before that, the Coventry-based ska revival legends became the first act since Demis Roussos in 1976 to reach number 1 with an EP. It was also the first ska number 1 since Double Barrel in 1971, and the first live recording to be a chart-topper since Billy Connolly’s D.I.V.O.R.C.E. in 1975. And The Specials are among my earliest memories – I can remember being struck by the 2-Tone record label, watching the black and white man in the suit spinning on our record player, as my big brother was a huge fan.

Before

The Special AKA formed in 1977 and were known as The Automatics, then The Coventry Automatics. They consisted of songwriter and keyboardist Jerry Dammers, vocalist Tim Strickland, drummer Silverton Hutchinson and bassist/vocalist Horace Panter, aka Sir Horace Gentleman. Terry Hall replaced Strickland very soon after. They were joined in 1978 by vocalist Neville Staple and guitarist Roddy Byers, aka Roddy Radiation. Dammers hoped his band could unite black and white music lovers, coinciding with the Rock Against Racism movement. And they were given a huge leg-up in exposure when Joe Strummer invited the band to support The Clash.

As 1979 rolled around, Hutchinson left and was replaced behind the drumkit by John Bradbury. Dammers launched the 2 Tone Records label and released The Special AKA’s debut single, Gangsters, which was a reworking of Jamaican singer-songwriter Prince Buster’s Al Capone, which shot to number six – impressive for a debut. They changed their name to The Specials and began recording their eponymous debut album, produced by hip new wave star Elvis Costello and also featuring horn players Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez.

The ska seven-piece stood out thanks to their Mod stylings and two-tone suits, but the material they released was as strong as their image. The Specials, released that October, featured a heady mix of original material and covers of ska classics. The first fruits of this, A Message to You, Rudy, was a cover of Dandy Livingstone’s Rudy, a Message to You, and it peaked at 10.

As great as the album was, it didn’t capture the energy of their live shows. So it was a very wise move to release a live EP in January 1980. As we know through this blog, the first month of the year can bring up many surprising chart-toppers. Credited to The Special AKA Featuring Rico (although the vinyl also, confusingly, billed them as The Specials), Too Much Too Young – The Special A.K.A. Live! EP was a five-track showcase of the group on stage in 1979. Side A featured two tracks from the Lyceum in London, and Side B was a three-track medley – billed as Skinhead Symphony – from Tiffany’s, in their hometown.

Review

The title track is of course one of the most beloved by The Special AKA. Loosely based on the 1969 song Birth Control by reggae singer and producer Lloyd Charmers, Too Much Too Young was originally recorded and released on The Specials.

Inspired by Dammers considering a relationship with a married woman who had a child, Too Much Too Young may be a great tune, but it’s lyrics are somewhat divisive. You could argue the band are railing against wasted youth caused by teenage pregnancies, and are calling for better sex education and knowledge of contraception. This is most likely, considering The Specials’ usual left-wing leanings. But critics have a point when they say Dammers and co come across as preachy and patronising – even somewhat right-wing – by criticising a poor young mum, just because the narrator wants a good time with her, ultimately.

Far more clearcut is just how good this live cut is. It’s the definitive version, and much better than the Costello-produced album version, which is overlong and plodding by comparison. At 2:04, this incendiary version of Too Much Too Young is the shortest number 1 track of the 80s. But it packs in so much in such a short time, it’s easily the best song on this EP, which is no mean feat when it’s up against four classics of the genre. Most noteworthy are Hall’s passionate performance, Gentleman’s bass and Golding and Radiation’s guitar.

Guns of Navarone, the other Lyceum track, is a straightforward cover of The Skatalite’s skanking 1965 version of the theme tune to the 1961 film of the same name. Staple provides great toasting, accompanying expert trombone skills by Rico.

Skinhead Symphony on Side B is a jubilant, celebratory six-minute-plus medley of more 60s ska greats. Opening with a bugle call by Rico, Longshot Kick the Bucket is a faithful rendition of Longshot Kick de Bucket by The Pioneers, originally recorded in 1969. Long Shot was a real horse, that dropped dead mid-race, who the Jamaican group had sung about before. The Liquidator is the only track that doesn’t really live up to the original. Part of The Harry J All Stars 1969 original’s charm is the wonky feel of the primitive recording, which disappears in this sprightly run-through. The symphony closes with a version of 1969 rude boy anthem Skinhead Moonstomp by British ska band Symarip. This was based on Moon Hop, released earlier that year by rocksteady great Derrick Morgan, in honour of the Moon landing that July. It’s the perfect way to cap off a collection of great live recordings. In spite of the rather basic production, the atmosphere is palpable and you can only listen in envy at the fans chanting ‘Specials’ at the end.

In true ska fashion, it’s worth noting there are many credit errors on the original EP. Guns of Navarone songwriter Dimitri Tiomkin’s surname was spelled ‘Thompkin’. The mysterious ‘Gordon’ credited on Longshot Kick the Bucket was George Agard, and Sydney Cook, should be ‘Crooks’. And Symarip’s Monty Naismith should say ‘Naysmith’. Things like this matter!

After

The Special AKA reverted to calling themselves The Specials and continued to score hits throughout 1980 and 81, leading up to their masterpiece, Ghost Town.

The Outro

It’s worth noting that this EP knocked the Pretenders’ Brass in Pocket off the top spot. Singer Chrissie Hynde had provided backing vocals on The Specials, and the video to their number 1 had two band members miming ‘Special!’ in the video. Tenuous, perhaps, but I’m pointing it out anyway.

The Info

Written by

Too Much Too Young: Jerry Dammers & Lloyd Chambers/Guns of Navarone: Dimitri Thompkin & Paul Francis Webster/Longshot Kick the Bucket: Gordon, Sidney Cook & Jackie Robinson/The Liquidator: Harry Johnson/Skinhead Moonstomp: Roy Ellis & Monty Naismith

Producers

Jerry Dammers & Dave Jordan

Weeks at number 1

2 (2-15 February)

Trivia

Births

5 February: Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson
10 February: Photographer Matt Irwin/Actor Ralf Little/Footballer Steve Tully

Deaths

4 February: Labour MP Edith Summerskill
9 February: Journalist Tom Macdonald

Meanwhile…

14 February: The ever-loving Margaret Thatcher celebrates Valentine’s Day by halving state benefit to strikers.

14-23 February: Great Britain and Northern Ireland take part in the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. But they only win one gold medal, thanks to figure skater Robin Cousins.