Walk Away From Love

Bitty McLean (Peckings UK)

A one off recorded in the UK, Walk Away From Love is an easy record to miss, but don't let it slip by you. Walk Away From Love uses Alton Ellis' Get Ready Rocksteady rhythm, cut for Treasure Isle at the height of the rocksteady era, while Bitty McLean himself was vocalist for Treasure Isle group The Three Tops who cut the superb Do It Right and It's Raining for Duke Reid round about that time.

If this is not sufficient pedigree, then Peckings is of course London's famous Studio One outlet in Goldhawk Road and producer Chris Peckings is the son of lately deceased proprietor Daddy Peckings. His digital recut of the original is note for note faithful but with a chunkier, slightly more bass-heavy feel.

It also boasts an old school intro in the style of Dennis Alcapone, telling all listeners 'Now clap your hands and stamp your feet, this happens to be the Treasure Isle treat.' An infernally catchy organ lick, which sounds as though it were recorded 37 years ago right there on Bond Street but in fact is not present on the Alton Ellis original, then ushers in the voice of Bitty McLean. Drenched in reverb, the organ line is much to the fore on the dubwise flip.

The song itself is a sixties Motown classic which Bitty McLean invests with all the heartbreak and yearning of the original, giving to the studied languor of the Alton Ellis classic a sharper, more uptown feel. Walk Away From Love is more, much more, than a revival exercise. This is a contemporary classic.