A record purchase made on a whim and a coincidental sequence of posts on social media have sent me down a rabbit warren of On U Sound recently. The record purchase was On U Sound's Pay It All back Volume 7, a budget price double album of recent releases from Adrian Sherwood's dub stable. Not long after someone posted Human Nature, the 1991 single by Gary Clail, produced by Sherwood, a massive club and chart hit in 91 and inescapable for a while. Weirdly I do not own Human Nature in any format- vinyl, cassette, CD or mp3. I have plenty of On U Sound, several mp3s of Gary Clail tracks and Beef on 7" but no Human Nature. Here's the video...
Clail's impassioned vocal over the dub/ indie- dance rhythm track and that keyboard riff, the piano part and Lana Pellay's 'let the carnival begin...' chorus are all obvious highlights, much of the music being David Harrow's musical handiwork (the keyboard riff, as I'm sure you all know, was used on the titles Snub TV, the much loved BBC 2 music programme). This being 1991 there were remixes and the Steve Osbourne Perfecto mix is a banger.
Originally the song included a Reverend Billy Graham vocal sample which couldn't be cleared for release and Clail recorded the part it himself. Some promo copies of the single made it into record shops though. You can hear it here courtesy of blogging legend stx.
In 1989 Gary Clail released an album called End Of The Century Party produced by Sherwood and featuring an all star cast- members of Tackhead, David Harrow, Bim Sherman, Jah Wobble and Keith Levene. This one is a dubby affair with Bim on vox alongside Clail and is infectious like flu.
Two Thieves And A Liar
3 comments:
That's a great Billy Graham version.
Love On U sound label,so many great acts. Two Thieves And A Liar is a great choice,love Bim Sherman's vocals
Great record, which I have in many formats
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