Millie Small My Boy Lollipop
'She's Millie Small, vivacious, bubbling, singing sensation from the land of sunshine and calypso,' the sleeve notes explain. Not that there was really any need for an introduction, for indeed the tiny, vivacious Jamaican singer had taken Britain by storm, launching the Blue Beat boom and rocketing ska into the U.K. Chart with her debut U.K. Single 'My Boy Lollipop.' An album was the obvious next step, and Small set about recording with all the excitement of a child set loose in a candy store. And, in a way, that's exactly what the 16-year-old was.
Her exuberance positively bleeds from the grooves, you can just about hear her grinning. Across ten covers and two co-written numbers, Small belts out the songs, with the backing sessionmen blending in big band sounds all set to an insistent jumped-up beat. And that was what it was really all about. So whether she's covering Fats Domino's 'I'm in Love Again,' Neil Sedaka's 'Since You've Been Gone,' or the old folk song 'Tom Hark,' it's all ska, pure and simple, and the album never flags. Most of the songs are suitably fluffy, and generally about boys, of course, from 'Blue Louey' to 'Sweet William,' and on to 'Sugar Dandy,' where Small reaches unimaginable heights of ecstatic shrillness. And while that shrill, adenoidal voice was charming on a single, it can become a little wearing across an entire album.
Watch the video, get the download or listen to Millie – My Boy Lollipop for free. My Boy Lollipop appears on the album Island Life: 50 Years of Island Records. My Boy Lollipop' (originally 'My Girl Lollypop'). 'My Boy Lollipop' Single by Millie Small; from the album My Boy Lollipop; B-side 'Something's Gotta Be.
However, the Blue Beat Girl, as she was known, is working so hard to make us like her - it seems cruel to complain - and for fans this was a sheer firecracker of a record.
'My Boy Lollipop' was one of the most unusual hits of the British Invasion, and a historic recording in a way that few realized at the time. For 'My Boy Lollipop' was really the first song that could be called 'reggae' to become a big international hit, even though it's really ska, reggae's predecessor, and was called 'bluebeat' in the UK at the time. To Americans, it was just eccentric, with its irregular shuffle beat and ultra-high-voiced shaky lead vocal, by a woman who sounded like an off-key baby to those unaccustomed to Jamaican accents.
It was, however, huge, making #2 in both the UK and US in 1964. Although Millie Small's vocal is indeed odd, it was memorable and unlike anything else on the hit parade at the time. 'My Boy Lollipop' is a childish but maddeningly infectious tune, given a lot of oomph by the pounding, steadily galloping backing, particularly with its responsive brass riffs after Small's vocal lines.
Detroit diesel diagnostic link 6.4 crack. It's also neat how the instrumentation drops out briefly to let her really wail about never letting Lollipop go at the end of the bridge. A surprise element comes into play in the instrumental break, where Small steps aside not for horns or guitar, but for an extended R&B harmonica solo. For decades, it has been rumored that the harmonica solo was the work of a young Rod Stewart, then a struggling R&B musician whose solo recording career hadn't begun.
Stewart cleared up the matter directly in a 2003 Record Collector interview, noting that hadn't played on the record, though he mistakenly attributed it to Junior Wood; it was in fact played by Pete Hogman, who had just replaced Stewart in the obscure British R&B band Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions. Though 'My Boy Lollipop' was a genuine ska song (albeit with some pop-rock overtones), it was recorded in Britain, not Jamaica, though it was arranged by noted Jamaican guitarist Ernie Ranglin. It's not well known that 'My Boy Lollipop' is a cover of an obscure 1956 rock'n'roll single by Barbie Gaye.
Millie Small My Boy Lollipop
Although Gaye's original isn't as powerful as Small's and lacks the brass parts, it's actually fairly similar to the cover in most respects. To clear up yet more mysteries about the song, Barbie Gaye, 16 years old at the time, is not a pseudonym for Ellie Greenwich, who began her recording career under the pseudonym Ellie Gaye. Also, the songwriting credits for the tune have varied over the years, usually comprising some combination of the names Robert Spencer (of the early doo wop group the Cadillacs), Johnnie Roberts (manager of several doo wop groups), and Morris Levy (head of Roulette Records). It's been written that Levy replaced Roberts's name with his own after Roberts was murdered in 1958.
My Boy Lollipop Millie Small Youtube
Appears On 1964.