Archive for the ‘The Fun Boy Three’ Category

The Fun Boy Three / Bananarama

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

Listen: It Ain’t What You Do… / The Fun Boy Three & Bananarama
It Ain't What You Do... / The Fun Boy Three & Bananarama

Maybe this parallel is way off base, but The Fun Boy Three were always what Big Audio Dynamite claimed to be, as I recall it at least. Their whole idea seemed to focus more on marketing themselves as a politically correct, multi cultural amalgamation than actually sounding like one. Unfortunately Don Letts’ worthy musical taste as a dj/radio presenter never spilled into Big Audio Dynamite’s music nearly enough, despite being a member.

Meanwhile, The Fun Boy Three jungled along, actually basing their sound around a consistent tribal rhythm. Even when dragging the overkill fashion conscience vocal church mice, aka Bananarama, into the mix, they still managed to pull it off.

Covering Ella Fitzgerald’s 1939 calypso based hit, ‘It Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It’, proved an educated song choice and an astute career chess play, providing them with their biggest UK chart placing ever, #4 in ’82. It continued the band’s authenticity, first started via their debut single ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’.

The Fun Boy Three

Monday, June 29th, 2009

fb3lunaticsps1, The Specials, The Fun Boy Three, Chrysalis

Listen: The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum / The Fun Boy Three FB3Lunatics.mp3

I never bought into Terry Hall’s vocals with The Specials. He may have been sincere, but his pouty photos were a put off, plus I preferred the ska originators over the revivalists.

This all may have been a bit harsh on my part looking back. Even at the time, it only took one listen to ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum’ and my whole view did an about face. In fact, that first play, coming out of Radio 1 early one rainy morning in Howard’s Hammersmith flat on Agate Road, set the perfect scenario.

I remember it vividly. Hot tea in hand, I just stood there until the record finished. It sounded so different, maybe even groundbreaking as they say, a bit like The Dixie Cups ‘Iko Iko’ mashed up with David Essex’s ‘Rock On’, although I doubt either played any part in it’s creation. I dare say it still stands out today.