LABEL: Secret Records
CAT NO: BSRLP957
BARCODE: 5036436128624
Tracklisting:
Side 1
- Blinded By Love (3.04)
- I Need Someone (3.16)
- Darling You Sent Me (3.28)
- Gonna Take A Miracle (2.25)
- My Sweet Baby (2.50)
Side 2
- Can’t Hide My Love (2.58)
- I Didn’t Know (3.04)
- Just Enough (3.16)
- Whenever You Need Me (2.49)
- The Judgement Come (3.25)
CORNELL CAMPBELL – Sweet Baby
LP – 180g Vinyl
(With extensive sleeve notes)
Cornell Campbell is one of an elite group of Jamaican reggae singers who’ve weathered the changes throughout the music’s development – in his case, from the ska era to right up to date – whilst retaining their relevance. Witness his recent alliance with UK Afrobeat / reggae band The Soothsayers or Jazmine Sullivan’s R & B hit Need U Bad, which sampled his classic ‘Queen Of The Minstrel’ – a song that still sounds fresh more than thirty years later.
Sweet Baby was pressed on bright red vinyl, which only added to the excitement when you saw the selector position it carefully on the deck.
On the LP cover was a painting of Cornell wearing an emerald green shirt and framed by a lurid sky, which might have left some people wondering if it was a soul album. It wasn’t, although there’s certainly soul in the grooves, and especially on R & B covers like Gonna Take A Miracle – first recorded by the Royalettes – and Darling You Send Me, which Sam Cooke had introduced to the US Billboard charts some twenty years earlier. Both are among the highlights but then the whole album’s good in truth, and a heartfelt I Need Somebody and My Sweet Baby, plus the two-step favourite Just Enough were regularly played on sound system. Blinded By Love, I Didn’t Know and Can’t Hide My Love are tinged with melancholy and like the seductive Whenever You Need Me, display all the hallmarks of a classic Cornell Campbell side – swooping vocals, a driving rhythm and seductive lyrics included.
Nearly forty years later and it’s gratifying to know there’s still no mistaking him when his records are played in a dance. That relaxed vocal style draws you in but it’s his falsetto, quivering with understated emotion that hooks you and turns you into a lifelong fan.
Personnel:
Bass: Robbie Shakespeare
Bongos: Skully
Drums: Sly Dunbar
Organ: Ossie Hibbert
Percussion: Sky Juice
Piano: Winston Wright
Producer: Linval Thompson