CONNECTICUT – Although reggae was the sound they listened to most in their youth, Jamaican artists like Timmy Love consumed copious amounts of American soul music by acts like Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.
Love and Quino of reggae band Big Mountain team up for a remake of Wake Up Everybody, originally done in 1975 by that group.
The famed songwriting duo of John Whitehead and Gene McFadden collaborated with Victor Carstarphen, to compose the song which was produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff for Philadelphia International Records.
Timmy Love and Quino’s version is produced by Neville Marlon Clarke. The idea to cover Wake Up Everybody came from Don Hines, Love’s road manager.
Timmy Love
“He played some of my songs for Quino McWhinney who said he liked my voice and would like to do a song with me. I told my drummer Alphanso Brown about it and a few days later, he told me that he had a vision that the song should be a remake of Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes’ Wake up Everybody,” Love recalled. “Just then, it dawned on me that for the past 20-plus years since 9/11, all the wars, tsunamis, depression… the world has been undergoing so much negativity, and it’s about time for the universe to wake up.”
Love is from St. Mary parish in eastern Jamaica but has called Connecticut home for over 30 years. His previous singles are also covers of major pop songs such as Africa by Toto and Forever Young, originally done by German band Alphaville and made popular in Jamaica by Laura Branigan.
Quino of Big Mountain
Interestingly, Big Mountain are also best known for a cover song. The San Diego, California band hit it big in 1994 with a reggae version of Peter Frampton’s Baby I Love Your Way, which peaked at number six on the Billboard hot 100 chart.
