The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues its month-long feature titled ‘Cover Me Good’. It will look at songs covered by Jamaican artistes which became hits.

THE year was 1988. UK-based producer Lloyd “Pickout” Dennis was searching for a hit song to catapult his newly formed Pickout Records into the spotlight.

He journeyed to Jamaica, and with the help of his longtime friend and sound system selector DJ Shadow Man, he began shopping a rhythm he had created.

Dennis had different artistes listen to the track in order to come up with a hit song but nobody seemed to capture his ear until singer Tinga Stewart auditioned his interpretation of the Percy Sledge classic, Cover Me.

“We were at Channel One studio on Friday evening and Tinga start to sing on the rhythm. It sounded good but it needed something else. Tinga then said him have a likkle friend who could spice it up,” recalled Dennis.

Stewart left the session, hopped on his motorcycle and later returned with his “likkle friend”, Ninjaman.

“Him come with the deejay. At di time me neva know Ninja so wi jus’ say, ‘Alright mek wi see what him can do’. Tinga sing over di song an’ right there on di spot Ninja jus’ drop in him lyrics. He didn’t write anything, him jus’ build it right there in the studio. Instantly mi know dis was di tune. Is about 15 man in di studio at di time an’ when wi play it back, everybody ah dance… dat is a good sign dat di song is going to tek off. I just tell di engineer to mix it right away because di song was ready to tear dung di place,” Dennis told the Jamaica Observer during an interview from his London home.

Dennis, who migrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1980s, had taken his original record label Legal Light with him across the pond and even produced a few notable songs, including the popular True Love Will Never Die by Conrad Crystal. However, he looked to establish a new label and chose his childhood nickname as its name. The Ninjaman and Tinga combination helped establish Pickout Records.

“From mi a youth dem call mi Pickout because mi used to suck mi finger an’ pick out mi hair. So mi jus’ sey because everybody know mi as dat already a so mi a call di label. When wi drop di song ah Jamaica everybody jus’ go wild. It was di same year as [hurricane] Gilbert, an’ not even Gilbert could stop dis song, number one pon every chart. When I came back to England nobody know di song so I get to work and di same thing in America. When I done it was popular here in England an’ in America as well. People just like di rhythm, but most of all is di combination of di voices an’ different style that make dis so special,” said Dennis.

Percy Sledge’s Cover Me was released on his 1968 album Take Time To Know Her. Eddie Hinton and Marlin Breene are given writing credits.

Tinga Stewart is best known for his double win with the Festival Song competition in 1974 with Play de Music, and 1981 with Nuh Wey Nuh Betta Dan Yard. In 1975, he wrote Hooray Festival for his brother Roman Stewart which won the competition that year. However, his career began in the late 1960s, his first single being 1969’s She’s Gone, with Ernest Wilson of The Clarendonians.

Ninjaman went on to become one of the most successful deejays of his time. However, his career has been dogged by drug abuse and altercations with the law. He is currently serving a life sentence for murder.

The Ninja-Tinga duo did work again, covering another Percy Sledge original Take Time to Know Her in the late 1980s.