My niece, Acacia, and I recently discovered that we share a deep love for Rocksteady music. For those of you who don’t know, Rocksteady is a very specific style and era of music produced in Jamaica during the years 1966-1968. To those who do know it - imagine my surprise when I found out that my twenty-something niece is as big a Phyllis Dillon fan as I am, and has been singing her songs since she was a little girl. It felt like the universe had played a strange trick on me as it simultaneously conspired to bring the two of us together. For years, I’d been searching for a Rocksteady singer, not knowing that I already had one. And, that singer was someone I’ve spent countless ordinary moments with — waffles on Sunday mornings with the kids, holiday celebrations, family trips to Magic Mountain, and the big move into her first apartment.
Acacia and I agreed that we absolutely should be making this music together. I engaged in some step-parent jujitsu, and drafted my step-son Diego (her cousin) as the engineer/producer for our recording. My niece and I rehearsed the song together twice, and we subsequently recorded this track with Diego in basically one take (with some looping). Acacia sang and played ukulele, Diego played guitar, keyboards and toy xylophone, and I played drums and bass. Since we are not Jamaican, nor is this the mid-late 1960’s, we decided to do our own thing instead of trying to be traditional. We are called Love Ocean, and for our first release, we chose to cover the classic Slim Smith and The Uniques track, My Conversation.
The new Love Ocean single is available on all major streaming platforms.
On a side note, I used my Watermelon Pistolera on this recording. It was set on the neck and middle pickups to get that big, dubby tone.
...need to save a few bucks first though.
