Will Ferrell’s inspired sketch idea as a cowbell-wielding member of Blue Oyster Cult named Gene Frenkle may have lost some of its freshness, however Ferrell deserves credit for galvanizing interest in this long-neglected member of the percussion family. Five years after that Saturday Night Live sketch originally aired, Paul Farhi revealed in The Washington Post‘s January 29, 2005 edition that Frenkle was, indeed, a fiction. Furthermore —
According to former BOC bassist Joe Bouchard, an unnamed producer asked his brother, drummer Albert Bouchard, to play the cowbell after the fact. ‘Albert thought he was crazy,’ Bouchard told the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press in 2000. ‘But he put all this tape around a cowbell and played it. It really pulled the track together.’
How interesting, then, to discover the existence of a cowbell Golden Age just eight years before the release of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in a parallel musical universe located within the Western Hemisphere – and yet not actually of it. That’s right, 1968 was a peak moment for the cowbell on Jamaica’s radio airwaves and in their dancehalls — but for most of us here in the States, that fact would only come to light 3 decades after the fact, when CD reissues of reggae and its predecessor, rocksteady, began to appear here.
Today’s piece, therefore, salutes the cowbell in rocksteady’s magical-but-oh-so-brief moment in history. Zero to 180 welcomes your suggestions to this (incomplete) list:
R o c k s t e a d y & E a r l y R e g g a e :
C o w b e l l C l a s s i c s
Lyn Taitt & the Jets “Mr. Dooby” 1967 [Merritone]
Alfred Brown “One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer” 1968 [?]
Alton Ellis “Bye Bye Love” 1968 [Clifton Bough]
Errol Dunkley “I’m Going Home” 1968 [Gibbs]
The Dynamics w/ Lyn Taitt’s Jets “My Friends” 1968 [Gibbs]
The Pioneers w/ Lyn Taitt’s Jets “Give It to Me” 1968 [Gibbs]
Stranger & Gladdy “Just Like a River” 1968 [Gibbs]
Shorty Perry & Ken Boothe “Can’t You See” 1968 [Links]
Untouchables “Wall Flower” 1968 [Enos McLeod]
Desmond Dekker & the Aces “Mother Pepper” 1968 [Kong]
The Ethiopians w/ Taitt’s Jets “Train to Glory” 1968 [Pottinger]
The Gaylads “It’s Hard to Confess” 1968 [Pottinger]
The Melodians “Swing and Dine” 1968 [Pottinger]
The Jamaican Coasters “Stoney Hill” 1968 [Daley]
Black Brothers w/ Taitt’s Jets “Give Me Loving” 1968 [Morgan]
Cliff & the Diamonds “Mother Benge” 1968 [Abrahams]
The Pioneers w/ Taitt’s Jets “This Is Soul” 1968 [Gibbs]
The Overtakers with Lyn Taitt’s Jets
“Girl You Ruff” 1968 [Gibbs]
“Girl You Ruff” –
White label issue in JA vs. “proper” release in the UK
Related Trivia
“Just Like a River” instrumentally related to “El Casino Royale” & “Last Flight to Reggae City“
Ken Boothe’s “Can’t You See” (esp. ‘blanks’) can easily sell for hundreds of dollars.
In 2011, someone paid $255 for a blank (Amalgamated) copy of “Girl You Ruff“
Lyn(n) Taitt Figures Prominently in JA Cowbell Lore
