• 24 tracks new to CD. • First serious collection of 60s British ska. • The very best of Dandy’s early recordings. Long before joining the ranks of Trojan Records and achieving international success, Robert Thompson AKA Dandy was a rookie singer-songwriter recording for Carnival, a subsidiary of Crossbow Records, a small independent London-based company owned by Allan Crawford. Keen to take advantage of the ska craze, sparked by Millie Small’s international smash ‘My Boy Lollipop’, the Australian music entrepreneur signed the young Jamaican-born singer-songwriter with the intention of pairing him with another vocalist, although it was not until after Dandy had cut a number of singles on which his voice had been double-tracked that Keith Foster filled the role of ‘Sugar’. Throughout the second half of 1964 and into the following year, Sugar & Dandy featured on a series of popular singles, followed by the release of the LP, ‘The Ska’s The Limit’, on which they were presented as the headline act. Dandy subsequently cut solo material for Carnival, but after the label was wound up in the summer of 65, he moved on to record for Jamaican music specialists, Melodisc and R&B before making his home at the newly created Trojan Records in 1968. This collection focuses on Dandy’s formative years as a performer, featuring significant best-sellers, such as ‘What A Life!’, ‘Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be’, ‘I’m Not Crying Now’ and ‘Let’s Ska’, along with numerous obscurities that have remained unavailable on any format for six decades. As with the companion Doctor Bird volume, ‘Rock Steady With Dandy’, all recordings have been officially licensed from the singer himself, and with 24 of the 28 tracks new to CD this is a must-have acquisition for fans of the singer and the timeless sound of ska!
1. What a Life!
2. Time and Tide
3. One Man Went To Mow
4. I M Not Crying Now
5. Cryin
6. Oh Dear
7. Vipers
8. Let S Ska!
9. Blues Got a Hold On Me
10. Tra
11. Think of the Good Times
12. Only Heaven Knows
13. I M Into Something Good
14. I Want To Be Your Lover
15. Crazy For You
16. I Don T Know What I M Gonna Do Now
17. Girl Come See
18. Without Love
19. To Love You
20. You Got To Pray
21. I M Looking For Love
22. I Know
23. It S Just Got To Be
24. So Long Baby
25. My Babe
26. Now I Have You
27. I M Gonna Stop Loving You
28. Hey Boy! Hey Girl!
