Triple team takes on 'Twist and Shout'
Published: Sunday | March 22, 2009
File photos
Singing duo Chakademus (left) and Pliers, Jack Radics (centre) and Toots.
Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer
Much as Jamaican entertainers always have a penchant for 'foreign' music, they have always had a penchant for cover versions, putting the 'yard' touch on songs from abroad.
And sometimes, just sometimes, the Jamaican interpretation goes back to foreign shores to hit big.
One of those 'sometimes' happened in January 1994, when the voices of Jack Radics, Chakademus and Pliers in a Sly and Robbie and the Taxi Gang rhythm took Twist and Shout to the top of the United Kingdom charts.
Like many popular songs, Twist and Shout has been recorded by several performers after being first done by the Top Notes, among them the Isley Bothers, Chuck Berry, the Mamas and Papas, and the Beatles.
But although the Jamaican version of Twist and Shout ended up being done by three persons, that was not how it started out, as they came on one by one.
"It was Jack Radics' idea," Pliers told The Sunday Gleaner. "He took the idea to Sly and him and Gitsie and Robbie make the song."
That was one voice. The producers said they liked the song, and called in Chakademus to add a deejay section, which he did.
Chakademus and Pliers were by then an established duo, with Murder She Wrote a huge hit. But Pliers' presence was not requested.
After adding his part, "Chakademus bring it to my gate one day and play it. Me say is a big tune, it bad".
Still, Pliers did not ask to be included, but the power of the duo's popularity was not to be denied. Pliers told The Sunday Gleaner that "Before them put it out, them realise how great we a go on out a road and we sign to the same company (Island Records). Sly call me one day and say you have to go on the tune."
So Pliers went to the Mixing Lab Studio one day without any lyrics prepared, relying on the energy of the song to inspire him.
And it did, Pliers crooning "I don't want to wait in vain" to The Sunday Gleaner. "That is my little spice," he said.
The spice of all involved made Twist and Shout a huge hit, the entire team performing it on the 'Top of the Pops' show in England.
However, Jack Radics, Chakademus and Pliers have never performed Twist and Shout live in Jamaica, even though they have toured together. Chakademus and Pliers still have Twist and Shout as an integral part of their set.
"It connect everywhere, all the time," Pliers said.
And it made a special connection when it was released. "That was the song that got me and Chakademus and Jack Radics into the Guinness Book of World Records. In two to three weeks, we sold 1.8 million copies," Pliers told The Sunday Gleaner.
Pliers claims a record of quick sales for the Jamaican version of Twist and Shout and the country has long been tabbed as having the highest output of songs per capita in the world.
There is another record, though, that defied the techno-logical limits of the era it was set in. On September 29, 1980, Toots and the Maytals did a concert at the Hammersmith Palais in London, England.
The people who attended could not lay claim to having been part of the select few from the many Toots and the Maytals fans to have heard the band play that night.
Fastest live album
In less than 24 hours, not only had the recording of the concert been made into an album, but it was also on sale in record stores across Britain.
That made it the fastest live album in recording history and was testament to the band's pulling power. It was not, by today's CD standards, packed with songs, although the eight songs it contained were on par with the albums of the day.
In the pre-digital technology era it was not as simple as popping in a CD of the live recording, doing some quick editing and then sending the record out.
The recording had to be mixed, mastered, pressed and then distributed, all in 24 hours of the concert's final note.
Songs on Toots Live at the Hammersmith Palais are Pressure Drop, Sweet 'N' Dandy, Monkey Man, Get Up Stand Up, Hallelujah, Funky Kingston, 54-46 That's My Number and Time Tough.
In 2004, Island Records did a remaster of the original recording and released it with the additional songs I Love You So and Reggae Got Soul, the latter closing the set with a 10-minute run.
While Toots Hibbert is naturally up front as the energetic showman, a crack cast of musicians made it all come together.
Jackie Jackson (bass), Winston Wright and Harold Butler (keyboards), Carl Harvey and Hux Brown (guitar) and Paul Douglas (drums) are all credited on the set.
- Mel Cooke
