Despite the name writ large on the front, UB40 aren’t on this album in body, but they are in spirit. It’s a collection of music which has influenced the Brummie skankers over their 25 years of their existence, and which they play on their tour bus to “melt the miles into the road”.
Just as sales figures show that there’s not much wrong with UB40’s music, this set shows that there’s nothing awry about their taste either. Reggae, of course, forms a large part of the musical menu, from Gregory Isaac’s Mr Know-All (the very first tune which the fledgling band learned to play), through foundation artists such as The Techniques, U-Roy and Peter Tosh, to less prolific but revered names the likes of Ijahman Levi and Fred Locks, with his roots anthem Black Star Liner.
About a third of the band’s choices are soul tunes, from the sublime (Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Otis Redding’s Try A Little Tenderness) to the bizarre (Michael Jackson’s version of My Girl, not the vastly superior Temptations’ version). The notes, by the UB40 themselves, answer a long-standing question: Do Bill Withers’ records have any merit at all? Yes, says UB40’s James Brow, the drummer’s good.
