"Liquidator" | |
---|---|
Song by The Harry J Allstars | |
B-side | "La La Always Stay – Glen and Dave" |
Released | 1969 |
Genre | Ska, reggae |
Label | Harry J |
Songwriter(s) | Harry Johnson |
Producer(s) | Harry Johnson |
Audio | |
"Liquidator" on YouTube |
"Liquidator" is a reggae instrumental by Jamaican band Harry J Allstars. It reached number nine on the UK Singles Chart in November 1969 and was certified silver in the UK in April 2022. [1] [2]
Carlton "Carly" Barrett has said that the instrumental was originally for a song by Tony Scott, "What Am I to Do". Harry Johnson bought the rights from Scott, licensed the track to Trojan and credited it to the Harry J Allstars. But Alton Ellis has said that the core of the song was a lift from his rocksteady hit "Girl I've Got a Date". [3]
Musicians involved in the recording included the core of The Hippy Boys: bassist 'Family Man' Aston Barrett, drummer Carlton Barrett and guitarist Alva Lewis. They later formed the core of The Upsetters and The Wailers. The organ was played by Winston Wright [4] who, as a member of Tommy McCook's Supersonics, was acknowledged as Jamaica's master of the Hammond organ. Wright featured on other Harry Johnson hits, including The Beltones' "No More Heartaches" and on Boris Gardiner's "Elizabethan Reggae". [5]
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom (BPI) [6] | Silver | 200,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
A variation was recorded featuring the sax of Val Bennett (entitled "Tons of Gold"), but the Hippy Boys' original instrumental had the most success. [3]
The Staple Singers used the bass line and introduction from "Liquidator" for their 1972 hit "I'll Take You There". [7]
The Specials covered "Liquidator" as part of the ska covers medley "Skinhead Symphony" on their live EP The Special A.K.A. Live! which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in January 1980. The renewed interest in the song led to Trojan Records reissuing the Harry J Allstars version as a double A-side with the original version of another song featured in the medley, "Long Shot Kick De Bucket" by The Pioneers, in March 1980. The reissue reached number 42 in the UK Singles Chart.
The 90’s saw a version by youth group TCO titled ‘Big It Up’ released on Virgin Records and was produced by Suggs from Madness. Contributors included K-Gee It featured prominent reggae players with contributions from young north London rappers and singers. The record also contained interpolations from The Staple Singers ‘I’ll Take You There’. The single featured a product tie-in with 7-up and video game Cool Spot and was featured in the then current 7-up TV advert campaign. Discogs
"Liquidator" is a popular tune to play as UK football teams run out: Northampton Town, Chelsea, Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, and St Johnstone all have claims to have been the first club to use it.[ citation needed ]
Chelsea's claims to be first to play it are supported by the first paragraph of the liner notes for Liquidator – The Best of the Harry J All Stars, which says: "Way back in 1969, supporters of the Chelsea football team revered players such as Bonetti, Osgood and Hollins. The boys performed under the watchful eye of manager Dave Sexton to the tune of 'Liquidator'. The track is played by Chelsea before home games, whilst fans clap the players onto the pitch." [8]
"Liquidator" was stopped[ when? ] at the home games of West Bromwich Albion and Wolves at the request of West Midlands Police due to some fans using the tune to chant abuse and obscenities about their rivals, although it was played by West Brom before the start of their match against Cardiff City towards the end of the 2013–14 season. [8] As of 2024 [update] the ban remains in force at Wolverhampton's ground, though it is now played at West Bromwich, and was played when the two teams played in the 2023–24 FA Cup fourth round match between the two sides at WBA's Hawthorns ground on 28 January 2024.
Yeovil Town adopted the song in 2003. [9]
The track was played as part of the soundtrack to the football-themed film Fever Pitch .
Exodus is the ninth studio album by Jamaican reggae band Bob Marley and the Wailers, first released in June 1977 through Island Records, following Rastaman Vibration (1976). The album's production has been characterized as laid-back with pulsating bass beats and an emphasis on piano, trumpet and guitar. Unlike previous albums from the band, Exodus thematically moves away from cryptic story-telling; instead it revolves around themes of change, religious politics, and sexuality. The album is split into two halves: the first half revolves around religious politics, while the second half is focused on themes of making love and keeping faith.
Catch a Fire is the fifth studio album by the reggae band The Wailers, released in April 1973. It was their first album released by Island Records. After finishing a UK tour with Johnny Nash, they had started laying down tracks for JAD Records when a disputed CBS contract with Danny Sims created tensions. The band did not have enough money to return to Jamaica, so their road manager Brent Clarke approached producer Chris Blackwell, who agreed to advance The Wailers money for an album. They instead used this money to pay their fares back home, where they completed the recordings that constitute Catch a Fire. The album has nine songs, two of which were written and composed by Peter Tosh; the remaining seven were by Bob Marley. While Bunny Wailer is not credited as a writer, the group's writing style was a collective process. For the immediate follow-up album, Burnin', also released in 1973, he contributed four songs. After Marley returned with the tapes to London, Blackwell reworked the tracks at Island Studios, with contributions by Muscle Shoals session musician Wayne Perkins, who played guitar on three overdubbed tracks. The album had a limited original release under the name The Wailers in a sleeve depicting a Zippo lighter, designed by graphic artists Rod Dyer and Bob Weiner; subsequent releases had an alternative cover designed by John Bonis, featuring an Esther Anderson portrait of Marley smoking a "spliff", and crediting the band as Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Alton Nehemiah Ellis was a Jamaican singer-songwriter. One of the innovators of rocksteady, he was given the informal title "Godfather of Rocksteady". In 2006, he was inducted into the International Reggae And World Music Awards Hall Of Fame.
Bob Marley and the Wailers were a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae band. The founding members, in 1963, were Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer.
The Upsetters was the name given to the house band for Jamaican reggae producer Lee "Scratch" Perry. The name of the band comes from Perry's nickname of Upsetter, after his song "I Am the Upsetter", a musical dismissal of his former boss Coxsone Dodd.
Aston Francis Barrett, CD, often called "Family Man" or "Fams" for short, was a Jamaican musician and Rastafarian. He was best known as the bandleader of Bob Marley's backing band, as well as co-producer of the albums, and the man in charge of the overall song arrangements.
Robert Warren Dale Shakespeare was a Jamaican bass guitarist and record producer, best known as half of the reggae rhythm section and production duo Sly and Robbie, with drummer Sly Dunbar. Regarded as one of the most influential reggae bassists, Shakespeare was also known for his creative use of electronics and production effects units. He was sometimes nicknamed "Basspeare".
Harry Zephaniah Johnson, known by the stage name Harry J, was a Jamaican reggae record producer.
The Smile Jamaica Concert was a reggae concert held on 5 December 1976 at the National Heroes Park in Kingston, Jamaica, aimed at countering political violence. Bob Marley had agreed to perform, but, two days before the concert, he was shot in his home. He recovered and, with The Wailers, played a 90-minute set for the 80,000 people in attendance.
"I'll Take You There" is a song written by Al Bell, and originally performed by soul/gospel family band the Staple Singers. The Staple Singers version, produced by Bell, was released on Stax Records in February 1972, and spent a total of 15 weeks on the charts and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. By December 1972, it had sold 2 million units and is ranked as the 19th biggest American hit of 1972. It remains one of the best-selling gospel songs of all time.
The Pioneers are a Jamaican reggae, soul and rocksteady vocal trio, whose main period of success was in the 1960s. The trio has had different line-ups, and still occasionally performs.
Glen Adams was a Jamaican musician, composer, arranger, engineer, producer, based since the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, New York City.
John Masouri is a journalist, author, reviewer and historian for Jamaican music and several of its musical offshoots including dub, roots and dancehall. He is one of the world's foremost reggae music journalist and has worked extensively over it.
Gladstone Anderson, also known by his nickname "Gladdy", was a Jamaican pianist, keyboard player, and singer, who played a major part in the island's musical history, playing a key role in defining the ska sound and the rocksteady beat, and playing on hundreds of recordings as a session musician, a solo artist, and as leader of Gladdy's All Stars, featuring bassist Jackie Jackson, drummer Winston Grennan, guitarist Hux Brown, and keyboardist Winston Wright. As Harry J All Stars the band had a massive hit in Jamaica and United Kingdom with the instrumental song "The Liquidator" 1969. Anderson's work was consistently popular in the late 70s too, as roots reggae, dub and sound system culture increasingly prioritised more conscious and deeply spiritual concerns.
Val Bennett was a Jamaican tenor saxophonist and jazz and roots reggae musician who began his career in the 1940s. He made a number of releases on the Island Records and Crab Records labels.
Felix Headley Bennett OD, also known as Deadly Headley, was a prolific Jamaican saxophonist who performed on hundreds, possibly thousands, of recordings since the 1950s.
Now That's What I Call Reggae or Now Reggae is a triple-disc compilation album released in the United Kingdom on 25 June 2012.
"Run for Cover" is a 1967 rocksteady and reggae single by Lee "Scratch" Perry, credited as Lee "King" Perry. The recording featured Perry, his band, Lynn Taitt on guitar and The Sensations as backing singers. It was recorded at Clifford Rae's WIRL studio and appeared on the WIRL record label in Jamaica, then in the UK on Graeme Woodall's Doctor Bird (label), both pressings with "Something You've Got" on the B-side.
Paul Douglas is a Jamaican musician, best known for his work as the drummer, percussionist and bandleader of Toots and the Maytals. His career spans more than five decades as one of reggae's most recorded drummers. Music journalist and reggae historian David Katz wrote, "dependable drummer Paul Douglas played on countless reggae hits."
Clifton "Jackie" Jackson is a Jamaican bass player, who was an important and prolific session musician and bassist on ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub and discomix records throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and was later a member of Toots and the Maytals.