My Father In Law’s name is Derek, so without further ado I’m going to award this release a big fat four-star rating, showing that the success of any record can sometimes be a thoroughly arbitrary affair in the mind of the listener. On the otherhand, the success of a record can sometimes be down to a sharp, discerning pallet proportionate to the wisdom of its years; so both statements stand-up to scrutiny here. Whilst there’s something amusingly generic and geriatric about the name ‘Derek’ it also represents quality; 30 or so tracks of quality natty, nit-picking, mouth-open, gob smacking, eye-popping mad, love-dub-miss-a-beat ska and reggae magic. In fact, it’s one of those ‘in spite of all the odds’ kind of things, like mud-wrestling nuns or the fat bloke that gets a girlfriend. DJ Derek is different to say the least. For a start he’s well over sixty, he’s a former accountant and was a drummer for a skiffle band long before Lonnie Donegan had the chance to turn his first trick at the back of a church hall in Strathclyde for the price of a washboard. He also once worked in a Chocolate Factory. Finding an unlikely outlet for his skills at the Star and Garter pub in Bristol back in the 1970s, Derek became a legend in his own underpants, whipping out Curly-Wurlies at Cadbury’s by day and Mcing crazy Jamaican ska, dub and reggae shit by night, culled from a veritable trove of rare and specialist classics bought from an importer in London.
Eventually the records outgrew his flat, so Derek spent something like two and a half years recording 32,000 tracks onto hundreds of minidiscs. To this end, ‘Sweet Memory Sounds’ transcribes Derek’s fascination with Jamaican music in a rarely imperfect 22 track collection that includes such soft, loafing dub dreams as ‘Ghetto Queen’ and ‘Mr Bojangles’ by John Holt, Johnny Clark’s ‘Rock With Me Baby’ and and Carlene Davis’s ‘Stealing Love’. Kicking off with the joyous party starters ‘Blazing Fire’ by Derrick Morgan and the Granville William’s Orchestra’s stormin’ ‘Honkey Tonk’ the disc moves through a romantic interlude before enlisting (an occasionally predictable) natty buffalo militia consisting of Max Romeo’s ‘Chase The Devil’ (you know it, you know you do’) and ‘Police and Thieves’ by Junior Murvins.
Occasionally you go through life content, simply because you have no idea of what your life would be like without something. ‘What you’ve never had, you never miss’. That’s what your mother used to say, isn’t it? And what a complete load of bollocks it is. I’ve never had the honour of going to bed with a bevyload of seven-deadly j-vixens without the heart to say ‘no’ between them, but I’m sure I’d miss at least one of them if I had. The same can be said of DJ Derek – although I’m much less likely to take him to bed. You never knew he existed. You didn’t care. And now you can’t live without him. Almost.
The press release that came with it summed it up quite squarely, and who am I to try and top it:
“….a white septuagenarian in a suit and tie, Mcing in Jamaican patois….”
Get it while you can, say I. He’s not getting any younger…