The Mexicano: Goddess Of Love

1978 Ice Records ICEL 1003

The late 1970s found me working as a cashier on the counter of a major bank in North London. We had a few celebs drop in from time to time, such as the late actress Janet Key, seen many times on TV, including as the long-suffering Kate Regan, estranged wife of John Thaw’s character in The Sweeney, and puppeteer Ronnie Le Drew who worked Zippy in the long-running children’s series Rainbow.

However, one day a young guy came into the bank to pay in a cheque which I noticed was drawn on Lightning Records. Now, I was in the early stages of my late-70s early-80s reggae obsession – roots reggae was huge at that time - so I knew that London-based Lightning was the label on which Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson’s African Dub CD series had been released, and was also home to Althea & Donna of chart-topping Uptown Top Ranking fame and Janet Kay’s lover’s-rock smash Silly Games, so I wondered who this dude was. He came in a week or two later and made a similar deposit.

By the time of his third visit I had seen a bill posted on a derelict shop unit near my workplace with a grainy photo announcing the release of the debut album Goddess Of Love by The Mexicano, who turned out to be Rudolph Grant, brother of Eddie on whose Ice Records label it was issued. 'Golly-gosh,' I thought, 'I’ve met a reggae star!'. I say star, he had enjoyed a UK Number One on the reggae charts with Move Up Starsky which I’d heard many times on BBC Radio London’s Reggae Rockers show with Tony Williams, and again with David Rodigan on Capital’s Roots Rockers.

He only came in once more, but while he was there he passed a copy of his new album to me under the glass. I was massively into reggae this time, so I was thrilled. While Starsky was a cool groove on which Rudy toasted boisterously over the rhythm of Bob Marley’s I’m Still Waiting, some of the other tracks were a tad lacklustre. However, the fast-paced Rock It held up strongly as it bemoaned the twin evils of inflation and starvation, Lonely Street showcased the singer’s mellow vocals in contrast to the shouted passages, Dub Rock was a great side-closer and Harry The Fool, while a little clumsily constructed lyrically, broke down the sum of its parts into separate instrumental elements to demonstrate how reggae music worked. Featured musos included bass players Lloyd Parks and the late Robbie Shakespeare who worked frequently with Gibbs and Thompson including on the aforementioned dub plates, which couldn’t be bad. It’s nowhere near up there with Jamaican originators such as Marley, I Roy, Big Youth or Mikey Dread Campbell, all of whom I’d have sold my soul to have met – the nearest I got was seeing Peter Tosh play the Rainbow, backed by Black Slate of Amigo fame – but it was a great slice of UK reggae from that fabled time which I still possess – and I’d gotten to meet its creator. Irie…