For many people, the summer of 1980 was a hot and heady season, filled with the scent of ganja and the sounds of UB40. The eight-piece band was the cred alternative to bland, soulless pop, and their debut album, Signing Off, was a stoned rallying-cry to young unemployed Britons disillusioned by the rise of the Tories and disgusted by the creeping conformity of the yuppie ascendancy.
Things have changed though and UB40 are now symbols of the pop music establishment, the popular wing of reggae music, the class cats of dub and you're as likely to hear their work on BBC Radio 1 as on BBC Radio 2. The band grew up together in the ethically diverse city of Birmingham where the sound of reggae dominated their lives. The summer of 1978 brought the eight members of the band together in a cellar in the city where for six months they collaborated on ideas and forged their musical identity. They started out playing pubs, club dates and benefits all around Britain. Their first demo tape impressed the influential DJ John Peel and a BBC Radio 1 session was broadcast in January 1980.
They were helped in the early days by Chrissie Hynde who requested that the band be the support act on The Pretenders first national tour and shortly after they brought out their first record King/Food For Thought.
UB40's path to massive cross-over success has been marked by some interesting sights along the way. Signing Off was a magnificent debut, its cover a replica of the standard DHSS unemployment benefit form UB40, and its grooves featuring the hit singles, My Way Of Thinking and The Earth Dies Screaming. The follow-up album, Present Arms, also presented a superb single, One In Ten, while their cover of Neil Diamond's Red Red Wine became the band's first UK Number 1.
Soon after the band reunited with Chrissie Hynde to record a cover of Sonny And Cher's I've Got You Babe which was to become their second number one. By 1986, they were one of the most prolific as well as one of the most successful bands in the world. In the same year, they became the first British band to play in the then Soviet Union. They performed in both Leningrad and Moscow and at the time the band felt that just as satisfied overcoming this political barrier as they had earlier when they overcame many of the racial barriers confronting a predominantly white reggae band.
Following last year's The Dancehall Album which showcased the "toasting" talents of reggae's up-and-coming stars, UB40 released the third in their series of Labour Of Love albums, recorded at the band's own studio. Continuing the policy on the two previous albums of searching out old classic reggae tunes, the band cast their net wide on this new album. The opening song is Holly Holy by the Fabulous Flames and also included in there is John Holt's My Best Girl, Ken Boothe's The Train Is Coming, Mighty Diamonds' Someone Like You, Bob Marley's Soul Rebel and a stirring finale in a cover of Peter Tosh's Legalise It.
The You-bies are as popular as ever and have spent the past 20 years proving that their trademark reggae sound is as relevant and as resonant today as it was when they first started. Twenty years askankin' ain't bad by anybody's standards.
UB40 play Dublin Castle on Saturday May 1st at 7.30 p.m.
