Sweet sounds from Lloyd Robinson
Since the mid-1970s, Roy Sweetland has covered the reggae scene as a photographer, but unknown to many, he tried his hand at music production over 30 years ago.
Sweetland directed singer Lloyd Robinson on a series of recording sessions at Channel One studio in 1982 with The Revolutionaries band.
The songs are compiled for an album titled Candy Girl which was finally released digitally in January by Zojak World Wide.
This month, VP Records will release a vinyl cut of Cuss Cuss, one of the songs from the set.
Cuss Cuss was Robinson’s signature song. He first recorded it at Studio One during the late 1960s.
Sweetland knew Robinson — who died in November 2013 at age 68 — as a boy in their community of Olympic Gardens in Kingston.
“He was a local hero… people in the area knew him as ‘the singer’,” Sweetland recalled. “He had so many hits but never did an album.”
Robinson — whose other big hit was Big Red Bum Ball with Devon Russell — agreed to work with the fledgling producer who gathered Channel One’s vaunted house band for the sessions.
Drummer Sly Dunbar, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, keyboardist Robbie Lyn, and guitarists Willie Lindo and Winston Bowen worked on the nine songs. That Girl — originally done for Derrick Harriott — was the first of the batch released last September.
Robinson also cut a version of Big Red Bum Ball, as well as Candy Girl and Freedom Is A Must which he co-wrote with Sweetland.
While Robinson’s career was in full flight, Roy Sweetland worked as a technician at the Jamaica Telephone Company. He ‘moonlighted’ as a photographer, covering major live events like Reggae Sunsplash and Taxi Connection, and shooting album jackets for the Wailing Souls, Gregory Isaacs and Yellowman.
The Robinson project was always close to his heart, given his lifelong association with the artiste. Sweetland made a major push to get it released when he died three years ago.
“He was an under rated singer but we all knew Lloyd’s talent. It’s a great thing for people to hear more of that talent,” he said.
— Howard Campbell
