regabilly hill
Posted: November 8, 2006 1:02 pm
O.K. experts.......significance of this song, or just good music?
From The BN transcript of Jimmy on RM introducing the new Take the Weather With You album
8. Reggabilly Hill:
Steve: We're up to Reggabilly Hill
Jimmy: Up Reggabilly Hill, now there's one, I mean this one, I got a great note, I wish I could remember the story-- this email I got from the writer, but this came as like a demo through, gosh I'm trying to think of uh Russ Titelman who I'd worked with before had done an album on (Steve: Jared Tyler) Jared Tyler? thank you very much, Mr Know It All (Steve: That's where I first heard the song, yeah). You're like Mr "remember on Rocky and Bullwinkle, there was Mr Know It All" (Steve: I do remember that) that's kinda like... You're gonna be my Mr. Know It all.
Steve: Well, Russ Titelman is a great fellow and produced with you, Far Side of the World, and that was his next project after Far Side of the World, so with both, it caught each our ???
Jimmy: He came to me looking for a deal on Jared Tyler, that's what it was, and I heard the record and I loved the record, but I really loved that song and it, that was one I knew I was gonna do.
Steve: That's why we've always played Jared Tyler's version (Jimmy: yeah) on Radio Margaritaville. (Jimmy: it was such a) And it was in your back pocket.
Jimmy: Well, I knew it was such a Jamaican thing and, you know, I got a little contact in Jamaica and I had been down to, a friend of mine had a 60th Birthday Party at Goldeneye and I was with Chris Blackwell and he had a band playing and I said "Who's that band?" And he said, "Well that?s Ernie Ranglin" and Ernest Ranglin is a legendary guitar player, for those who don't know who was on all of the initial Bob Marley stuff, going back to Millie Small on My Boy Lollipop and Ernie is just a classic gentleman... a player and I said I want that original, the original reggae chinka chinka chinka... that's Ernie Ranglin.
So we took him to London and he's on this-- he's on this and he's on Silver Wings, and so Ernest is on this record too. (Steve: That's fabulous)
And I wanted him on Reggabilly Hill because this is for some, this and me, this is my second favorite song on the record. I don't know why, but it just speaks to me. I just like the story and I like what it says and I love that groove and it's another one of those you can hear that double bass and then there's Ernie Rangel in there and it's just, and it's pretty straight ahead. I mean it was the?
Steve: you can hear the Coral Reeferettes singing on it too.
Jimmy: Well, when you think about it, you know, most reggae was basically... it came about from country radio being broadcast on those old huge AM stations and that's all they could get in Jamaica back in the 50's and then the Jamaicans took that and made reggae out of it, so it's pretty, you know, it's pretty connected and if you go into the country of Jamaica now or any of the Caribbean islands where I go all the time, ya know, country music still is really big and I think it comes from those days when it was only those high powered radio stations broadcasting... that's all they can pick up. And it left, uh, and then, you know from soca to ska to everything else you listen to a lot of the, you know, and calypso, it's connected and I think that what Reggabilly Hill kinda says.
