Great Drinking Songs (29)

My blog-friend JES first introduced me to The Jolly Boys a year or so ago, and recently reminded me of them again by posting their superb version of Iggy Pop's The Passenger. They are often described as a Jamaican equivalent of Cuba's 'Buena Vista Social Club' musicians: the core members of the group are now all in their 70s or 80s, and have been playing together since the early 1950s (their name is said to have been given to them by legendary Hollywood rake Errol Flynn, who made his home in Jamaica for much of the last decade of his life). They are exponents of mento, a Jamaican dancehall style of music which originated in the 1940s and 1950s, a precursor to the better-known ska and reggae genres which began to blossom from the 1960s onwards. Although they had apparently gained some international recognition in the 'world music' community during the 1990s, they have suddenly achieved massive worldwide attention with the release of their 2010 album Great Expectation, a collection of brilliant cover versions of classic rock and pop hits (find out more about the creation of this marvellous record on the band's own website): their interpretations of Blue Monday, I Fought The Law, Riders On The Storm, and Hanging On The Telephone (imaginatively teamed with the cartoon magpies, Heckle and Jeckle!) are not to be missed. But.... for a 'Drinking Song' selection, I think I have to go with this gently swinging rendition of Amy Winehouse's signature hit, Rehab.

For more cool old geezer goodness, check them out performing this live last September on the long-running BBC music show Later... with Jools Holland. We would all wish to be as agile (and as charismatic!) as their frontman Albert Minott at the age of... erm, 40-something, never mind 78!!  (I would love to see them play live one day on their home turf - apparently, they are still the 'house band' at GeeJam, a hotel bar in Port Antonio, a picturesque little town on the north-east coast of Jamaica.)

There's also this great video introduction to the band (including some snatches of their more traditional material) on their YouTube channel. [Warning: you could easily spend half a day on this!]