The creation of UB40’s ” Signing Off” album – by Dadaman
Read Dadamans’s review of the unusual start of the band’s work and the circumstances under which the album was shot:
The debut album “Signing Of” of the British reggae band UB40 is, in the opinion of many fans and critics, their best work. The album was released on August 29. 1980, as an independent publishing house Graduate Records . The cover of the album is the UK Unemployment benefit card, according to which the band got its name.
The band was founded in 1978 by brothers Alister and Robin Campbell. They bought the instruments with the money Alister received in a pub during a celebration of his 17th birthday. The band spent the next year in everyday learning of playing instruments and creating their own music. At the first performance at the local pub, the band played only songs that were later on their first album because they did not know anything else to play.
The “Signing Of” album, due to a lack of money for a real studio, was filmed in an improvised studio in the house of local musician Bob Lamb. Bob was the only person with experience in recording music that the guys from the band knew. The recording of the album, with a lot of improvements, (the saxophone was filmed in the kitchen and percussion in the yard of the house) lasted from December 1979 to July 1980.
There are 13 songs on the album, of which four are instrumental (“Adella”, “25%”, “Signing Off” and “Reefer Madness”) as well as two editions (“I Think It’s Going to Rain Today and” Strange Fruit” ). The rest of the album consists of socially and politically engaged songs full of criticism of the situation in the country and the world.
As far as the musical opus of the band UB40 is concerned, in my opinion, worth listening is the second album “Present Arms” and its dub “Present Arms in dub”.
Prepared by: Dadaman
Source: Radio Bruskin
Post comments (0)