10cc – Dreadlock Holiday
10cc Graham Gouldman – Kevin Godley – Eric Stewart – Lol Creme
“Dreadlock Holiday” is a reggae song by 10cc. It was written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman and was the lead single from the band’s 1978 album, Bloody Tourists. Lead vocals were performed by Graham Gouldman.
The lyrics, about a white man lost in Jamaica, and being confronted by an unpleasant dreadlocked man looking for money, were based on a true event that happened to Moody Blues vocalist Justin Hayward and Eric Stewart in Barbados. The reference to cricket in the first chorus, reggae in the second, and Jamaica in the third, reflects finding common ground with the antagonist.
It became the act’s third and final number one single in the UK, and final top 10 hit, spending a single week at the top in September 1978. The single peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA. The song was later covered by Boney M on their 1985 album, Eye Dance, by Top Deck (in 1987) and by Polish singer Reni Jusis (in 1999).
10cc are an English art rock band who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1970s. The band initially consisted of four musicians—Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme—who had written and recorded together for some three years, before assuming the “10cc” name in 1972.
For the most part, 10cc featured two strong songwriting teams, one ‘commercial’ and one ‘artistic’, but both teams injected sharp wit into lyrically dextrous and musically varied songs. Stewart and Gouldman were predominantly pop-song-writers, who created most of the band’s accessible songs. By way of contrast, Godley and Creme were the predominantly experimental half of 10cc, featuring an Art School sensibility and cinematic inspired writing. Every member was a multi-instrumentalist, singer, writer and producer. Most of the band’s albums were recorded at their own Strawberry Studios (North) in Stockport and Strawberry Studios (South) in Dorking, with most of those engineered by Stewart. Read more…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadlock_Holiday
Picture Source: http://www.cathedralstone.net/Pages/10cc.htm