Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
1973: The Boris Gardiner Happening at Norman Manley Airport before they left for engagements in Trinidad recently. They along with singers, Faith DaGuilar and Ernie Smith, gave shows in San Fernando and Port-of-Spain. - file
It was 1986. The digital revolution had leapt out of a Casio keyboard into the mixing board at Jammy's studio in Waterhouse, Kingston, through the speakers of the producer king's sound system and spread its wings on the airwaves in 1985, forever changing music in Jamaica.
But for one bass player turned singer, it was the year when a song he recorded defied the many songs on one pounding rhythm phenomenon to wake up the U.K. especially.
On the other side of the Atlantic, though, there was a slight difference in the title of Boris Gardiner's British chart topper.
"In England, they say I Want To Wake Up With You. In the U.S., they say 'wanna'," Boris Gardiner, O.D., told The Sunday Gleaner.
Whatever the pronunciation, it turned out to be the song that wanted to hit the top, as it survived doubts, challenges and even a record label collapse.
In the beginning, though, Gardiner's cover of the Mack Davis song came on the initiative of producer Willie Lindo. "I had a band at the Inter-Continental Rose Hall and Willie Lindo said 'come mek we do some tune'," Gardiner said. Lindo gave him two songs, Let's Keep it That Way and I Want To Wake Up With You. Mack Davis had "done it slow, so we decided to do it in reggae ... They were right up my street."
In all three songs were recorded in late 1985 as Guilty, originally done by Jim Reeves, was added to the recordings which were done at Dynamic Sounds and Music Mountain. Gardiner played bass, Lindo was on guitar, 'Bubbler' did drum programming and piano, while Robbie Lyn did strings and other keyboard work. The engineer was the late Ruddy Thomas who was assisted by Lindo.
I Want To Wake Up With You was the last of the trio to be released. When Guilty came out "it got a little airplay and thing, but did not make the charts".
Three or four months later, it was time for Let's Keep It That Way and Gardiner says "we did much better locally. It made the top 15 on the RJR charts. We sent it to London and gave it to a producer. What he did with it, we don't even know up until now".
Then it was time for I Want To Wake Up With You, which came smack dab in the middle of the digital dancehall craze's latest incarnation. "When that song was released there was the Boops craze. There were 49 versions of Boops playing on the radio and poor little I Want To Wake Up With You, they gave it a play now and then. As the Boops play, time for a little change, they play I Want To Wake Up With You.
The oops with Boops continued in New York, as whenit was released in the ethnic market there by VP Records, the Supercat ode to the big spender on women was number one. Still, after sitting at number five when Boops was at number one, when the Wild Apache fell off, I Want To Wake Up With You hit the top.
highe
But highe were to come.
Phil Mathias, a Jamaican record distributor living in England, heard the song in London. He approached Lindo to sell it in England and the producer said "I will give you the tune, but I don't think Boris will sell in England".
Communications fell through in those pre-cellphone days and eventually Mathias did some studio magic with some 45 rpm records to make a 12-inch cut of I Want To Wake Up With You, the sound being changed a bit. It is that mix which Gardiner prefers.
With no promotion 500 copies went in a few days and the stores were demanding stock. He did a few hundred more and again they sold quickly. Realising that he had something potentially huge on his hands, Mathias headed over to Creole Records. The head, Bruce White, was on vacation and Mathias wheedled the number from the secretary and called him up.
The vacation was cut short - and for good reason. With promotion, I Want To Wake Up With You entered the Top 200 British Charts at 196.
It was at this point that Mathias called Lindo and Gardiner heard of the song's progress, which he had know nothing of before. "Willie came now and had a contract and said Wake Up not doing too badly and we need to sign something, so that if it happen we have everything straighten out," Gardiner said.
Two to three weeks after that was done, I Want To Wake Up With You was in the top 50. Gardiner and Lindo headed to London to do a video. After it was shown on Top of the Pops, I Want To Wake Up With You really started moving, leaping to 25 the following week. Then it hit 11 and, with Gardiner doing promotions at radio stations as far as Scotland, it moved top nine, then five, then two. And paused.
sleepless time
Chris DeBurgh's Lady In Red was at number one and a popular British band debuted at 11. The following Friday night, before the charts were released on Saturday, was a sleepless time for Gardiner. All gathered around the computer for the readout and, when the results came, I Want To Wake Up With You was on top.
"We spent three weeks at number one and nine weeks in the top 10," Gardiner said.
There were trips through Europe, including Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia and Norway. The song was released in Australia and Gardiner heard that it was number one, but the company handling it folded.
The follow-up song, Everything To Me went to number 11 on the British Charts.
For 1986, Music Watch Magazine had I Want To Wake Up With You as the number three song of the year, with Lady in Red at six and Madonna's Papa Don't Preach at eight. A plaque from the BPI confirmed 500,000 unit sales and another from the Canadian Music Awards named it as the Top Reggae Single in 1986.
There was another landmark, though, which can't be counted in figures. "A popular deejay on BBC radio sent a request to (Duchess) Fergie and her partner. They were supposed to be getting married and he dedicated it to them," Gardiner said.
