Record of 1992, selected by Geoff Parker

Love Her Again

Little Meekie & Daddy Meekie

1992 was the year that Sly & Robbie broke the musical mould by releasing a reggae tune without a bass line. The massively popular Murder She Wrote from Chakademus & Pliers was the best known of a string of records dubbed "bhangra beat" that no other producers would even have conceived of, let alone risked committing to vinyl.

Love Her Again is one of those records. Although not on the Taxi label itself it has the fingerprints of the Taxi Gang all over it. Instrumental credits go to Sly Dunbar and long time Taxi Gang collaborator guitarist Lloyd "Gitsy" Willis. R. Allen who is given credit on the label as arranger, also appears on the credits this very month on the Taxi label with the Innocent Crew's Woof-Woof. Over the light, fluent Pitch rhythm, entirely bass-less except for the insistent, anchoring beat of the foot-drum, Little Meekie & Daddy Meekie exchange observations on the joys of the young ladies they know and their prowess with them. There's a youthful and exuberant quality to this record that makes this endlessly pleasurable to listen to, no matter how often you play it.

Three other cuts of the Pitch rhythm came out at the same time, Attractiveness from General Pecos, Gone Clear from Poison Chang, and Cute Face from Mackie Ranks. All four are great, with General Pecos' contribution perhaps the most raw, high-octane offering of the four. Put together as an extended 12" mix, they proved a big hit for Greensleeves in the UK marketplace. Champagne Body, a cut later that year in the fast style DJ idiom from General Levy, also proved a big hit in the UK. To the best of my knowledge only these five records ever came out on the Montana B label.

Cutty Ranks used it, wickedly cut into another, more bass-heavy rhythm, with A Who Seh Me Dun for Roof International that same year and the rhythm was effectively given a retread last year with General Degree's massive Traffic Blocking on Juvenile. So "bhangra beat" lives on and in the meantime Sly & Robbie have moved on, as they always do, to new musical pastures where other reggae producers fear to tread.