Probably the strangest rhythm has got to be “A Get A Lick” from Bumps Oakley. Strange because one of the main reasons why rhythms get recut is that people like the first cut so much – people including producers. And with all the good will in the world, it’s very hard to get worked up about this particular Studio One production.
For starters the rhythm is anything but Rock Steady. At any certain points in the tune the rhythm tends to change its pace and then there are the awkward chord changes towards the end. Bumps does not have a bad voice, but the lyrics are a bit of a baffle. Overall this would be a very hard tune to draw inspiration from. The only other Studio One cut of the rhythm is by the Soul Brothers called “Take Ten”. Having never heard this cut, it’s only possible to conclude that it is an instrumental of superior quality, for inspiration was drawn from Bumps Oakley’s tune/rhythm.
In 1981 Ranking Joe, in combination with Jah Screw and the Roots Radics, took the rhythm and rebuilt it from its foundation. When they were finished they had a rhythm as solid as a rock. All that was left to do was for Joe to chat some lyrics over the top and title it. “Western Kingston Style” is one of Joe’s great works. Sadly at the time deejay music was in one of its recessions when people lose interest in it. It wasn’t until Yellowman came along that it picked up again, and by that time the “Disco Skate” album, which contained “Western Kingston Style”, was all but forgotten.
Over the next couple of years nothing more was heard of the “A Get A Lick Rhythm” on vinyl – on sound tapes and in the dances it was different. Occasionally on sounds like Kilimanjaro, Volcano and Gemini (it’s very hard to be more precise about this) the selector would drop a raw rhythm machine driven version of it, that sounded like it was cut at one of those sessions when Lee Perry recorded Bob Marley singing “Rainbow Country” etc. Whenever this dubplate was played, the crowd would go wild. It had to be released and in 1984 it was.
Shinehead’s double sided disco 45 “Billie Jean” and “Mama Used To Say” was a massive hit. To get Shinehead, a virtually unknown singer/deejay from New York with a very sweet voice, to sing two big soul hits over this rough rhythm was well inspired. To top it off, the disco 45 also included two horn cuts of the rhythm, one of which used the melody line from one of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns. The big mystery with this cut of “A Get A Lick” is how it ended up in New York in the hands of C. Evans and African Love Records. And is this the same African Love who run the sound system? Whatever, Shinehead and his cut of “A Get A Lick” was the first sign of the big changes coming up in the music at the time.
(Source: Ray Hurford & Jean Scrivener’s “Rhythm Wise One & Two”)