Rhoda Dakar - Sings the Bodysnatchers

  by John Clarkson

published: 21 / 2 / 2016

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Seven-piece all-girl ska group the Bodysnatchers were together for little over a year, but packed a lot into their short lifespan. Signed quickly after forming to Jerry Damner's Two Tone label, they had two UK chart hits, 'Let's Do Rocksteady' and 'Easy Life', in 1980; made a memorable appearance on 'Top of the Pops', and toured with both the Selecter and the Specials on what turned to be the latter's final shows. Yet the Bodysnatchers' tenure in the spotlight was so brief that, although songs were written, when they broke up and five of their members went on to form the Belle Stars, they had not yet recorded an album. Thirty-five years later the Bodysnatchers' front woman Rhoda Dakar has with the aid of a Pledgemusic campaign gone into the studio to record some of those songs. With all ten of its songs recorded hastily after just rehearsal in one day, 'Rhoda Dakar Sings the Bodysnatchers' sounds less than promising. Dakar has, however, surrounded herself with a fine set of session players, including the Specials' Lynval Golding on guitar and Horace Panter on bass, and the scuzzy, raw sound that embeds these until now never completed songs suits them and works well. While Dakar was little more than an adolescent when these songs were originally conceived, the Bodysnatchers, for all the upbeatness of much of their music, had, like much of the Two Tone label, a beyond their years melancholy to their music. Opening track 'Easy Life ', which is reprised here in an alternative version as is 'Let's Do Rocksteady', is a rallying call for women to fight for equality. 'Happy Time Tune', about social and political injustice, finds Dakar dreaming of a fairer world, and on 'Hiawatha' she reflects on the plight of the American Indian. 'Rhoda Dakar Sings the Bodysnatchers' is surprisingly successful. a defiant late tribute to an ill-fated group that shone just briefly but which deserve wider attention.

Track Listing:-

1 The Ghost of the Vox Continental
2 Happy Time Tune
3 007
4 Private Eye
5 Too Experienced
6 The Loser
7 Mixed Feelings
8 Hiawatha
9 Let's Do Rocksteady

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/rhodadakarofficial/
https://www.musicglue.com/rhoda-dakar/
https://twitter.com/RhodaDakar
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC75U4Y0QfuKGypAhhaJuwnA

Label Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/PhoenixCityRecCo/

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