Episode 5: Miss Reenie Comes to Stay

Writer Danny Robins talks about the music featured in episode 5 of Rudy's Rare Records

Rudy meets his match this week as his formidable big sister Reenie comes to stay – throwing everyone in the shop into a state of panic: we kick off our tunes this episode with Sweet Jamaica by another Caribbean visitor to the UK, Lord Kitchener. ‘Kitch’, (real name Aldwyn Roberts), was a Trinidadian who came over to Britain on the famous Windrush, the boat that brought the first large group of West Indian immigrants after World War II (NB, Rudy often claims to have arrived on this boat though he is too young for this to have been true). Kitch became one of the most celebrated of the new wave of ‘Calypsonians’ in the 1950s, chronicling the immigrant experience in a series of songs, which were often funny and touched a chord with his fellow Carribean ex-pats, bringing him fame in his new country. If you’re interested in hearing more, there’s a wonderful album called 'London Is The Place For Me', a collection of work from Lord Kitchener and other Trinidadian calypso artists living in the UK in the early fifties (many of whom seem to have taken the title ‘Lord’ for some reason). It’s well worth a listen.

Sweet Jamaica isn’t the only Calypso track featured this week. We also have Not Me, a standard recorded by none other than the great Hollywood actor Robert Mitchum. This is taken from ‘Robert Mitchum – Calypso is Like So...’, a deeply odd album that was reissued in the 90s and became something of an ironic lounge classic. On it, Mitchum affects a West Indian accent to sing his way through a selection of songs he picked up whilst filming two movies in the Caribbean. This was at a time when Rock ‘n’ Roll had only just appeared on the scene and many a music exec thought Calypso was the genre that would prove triumphant. Your first instinct on hearing Mitchum singing these songs is that this is a deeply misjudged enterprise, but ultimately his obvious warmth for the music shines through and it ends up feeling sweet and only considerably misjudged as opposed to deeply.

Moving away from Calypso, we have another song from Aswad this week after former lead singer Brinsley Forde’s brilliant cameo in last week episode. Here they warn of the danger that Auntie Reenie has lurking in her eyes - well it wasn’t actually written about her but it fits nicely...

There are a couple of songs in this programme that fit into the group I like best; songs I didn’t know before writing the series but discovered and now can’t get out of my head. Lord a Massie Massie by Danny D and the Shadows and Alton Ellis’s Girl I’ve Got a Date both fit perfectly into this episode, so much so that they could have been written for it. Both of them make my heart leap a little bit when I hear them as they contain that vibrant infectious quality that has kept Rudy young and his shop in business for the last few decades.

If you watch the videos on this website of Lenny and me chatting about his musical experiences growing up, you’ll see a funny clip of him talking about his Dad’s love of (and inability to correctly sing) Fats Domino. Here the mighty Fats pops up with one of his best songs with that immortal first line – “Yes, it’s me and I’m in Love Again”.

Black Woman is a great track by the politically conscious and feminist reggae star Sister Carol – the coolest famous person called ‘Sister’ since Wendy.

Which just leaves me to mention the legend that is Yellowman, (who I talked about a couple of weeks back so won’t again now), but his take on Old Macdonald Had a Farm makes me smile and seemed appropriate in light of one of Auntie Reenie’s stranger gifts to the household.

I hope you enjoy the music in the episode and if you want to hear the songs in full click on the YouTube links below or listen to the Spotify playlist I have made for the episode here.

Episode 5 playlist

Miss Jamaica – Jimmy Cliff

Sweet Jamaica – Lord Kitchener

Danger in Your Eyes – Aswad

Lord a Massie Massie – Danny D and the Shadows (not available on YouTube)

Not Me – Robert Mitchum

Girl I’ve Got A Date – Alton Ellis

I’m in Love Again – Fats Domino

Black Woman – Sister Carol

Top Form/Old MacDonald – Yellowman