‘BLUEBERRY HILL’ takes Yellowman into singing zone
EARLIER THIS month, deejay Winston ‘Yellowman’ Foster was awarded the Order of Distinction in the Class of Officer by the Jamaican Government. It is a good time to revisit a song that went a far way to introducing Yellowman to an audience wider than which cheered along to Ova Me and Mr Chin.
Yellowman’s 1986 take on Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill was a musical shocker. The deejay had long been known for his melodic style – plus, he sang a snatch of Sam Cooke’s Bring It on Home To Me in his 1982 landmark hit I’m Getting Married – but he was also known for his delight in matters of the flesh. Some called it ‘slackness’. but Yellowman simply terms it entertainment.
So Blueberry Hill was definitely out of the box for the dancehall king. And, as he tells The Sunday Gleaner: “When mi do Blueberry Hill, the whole Jamaica shock. Nobody could believe a me. People a buy the record and see the name and know a me. Is not me deejay voice.”
The connection to dancehall was unmistakable as the song hit home in an arena where soul songs have always had a place, going back to R&B roots of the sound system. And even in the creation of the record, dancehall loomed large. Recorded for the Kangol label at the legendary Tuff Gong Studios on Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston, Blueberry Hill was laid down after Yellowman’s voice had been properly warmed up – deejay style.
“When me do it, me leave a dance and do it. Me do it early in the morning, about 3 – 4 o’clock,” Yellowman said. In the tried and proven approach to testing material in an era where live performances were a major part of the sound system experience, Yellowman had also been doing Blueberry Hill in dances before committing it to record.
And his singing voice had been put into action in spaces where there were no microphones and amplifiers. “Mi used to sing before. Mi used to sing on the street,” he told The Sunday Gleaner. “When mi go Alpha, mi did inna it. Sister Ignatius used to have a sound system, and mi sing on it, too,” he said.
Blueberry Hill, for which the music was done like the original song, duly hit the top of the charts, but Yellowman was not finished with the R&B side of life. He quickly followed with another Fats Domino song, Three Nights a Week, also a number-one track. “When you do certain tune, you better do a follow-up,” Yellowman said, referring to the famed Buju Banton pair of Browning and Black Woman.