TIME MACHINE
OCTOBER 1982 …Musical Youth Pass The Dutchie
Yard act: Musical Youth in 1982 (from left) Michael Grant, Junior Waite, Kelvin Grant, Dennis Seaton, Patrick Waite.
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OCTOBER 2
In 1981, The Mighty
Diamonds released Pass The Kouchie, a catchy Rasta salute to smoking a cannabis pipe. Despite being condemned by the Jamaican government, it became a hit. The following year, Birmingham reggae young team Musical Youth re-recorded it as Pass The Dutchie. Which, this autumn week, was an ebullient UK pop-reggae Number 1.
Musical Youth’s story began in 1979 at Duddeston Manor School in Nechells, central Birmingham. Jamaican friends George Grant and Freddie Waite, a music teacher and former member of ’60s vocal outfit The Techniques, both had musically inclined sons. By 1979, Grant brothers Kelvin (guitar) and Michael (keyboards), plus Patrick (bass) and Freddie ‘Junior’ Waite (drums) were playing together in all-singing reggae band Musical Youth – with Waite Sr as vocalist. In early 1981 they released hard-hitting roots single Political/Generals, which earned them a John Peel session. As all the band were aged 11 to 15, the MCA label suggested they engage a singer their own age. With local lad Dennis Seaton the only auditionee, the question was: how to relaunch the new, non-trades-descrip-tions-act-contravening Musical Youth?