Cats [LP]

The Cats made a small stack of records in London at the end of the 1960s, and most of them have been difficult to find ever since. This LP gathers twelve of those sides, from the group's rocksteady version of "Swan Lake" to tough R&B instrumentals and the funkier recordings they made with singer Ray Pereira. Most were originally released as 7-inch singles on the band's own BAF Records label. With clean copies becoming increasingly expensive, The Cats are finally getting their own compilation, and it is limited to 500 copies.Formed in East London in 1967, The Cats were Jamaican expat Tyrone Patterson on keyboards, John Kpiaye on guitar, Richard Archer on bass, and Michael Okoro on drums. Their music sat right where Jamaican ska and rocksteady were rubbing up against American soul, R&B, and funk. You can hear the influence of Booker T. & the M.G.'s and James Brown, but The Cats never sound like they're simply copying anybody. The playing is lean, mean, and always built on a groove. Their biggest record, "Swan Lake," was released independently and still managed to reach No. 48 on the national chart. By most accounts, it was the first UK reggae single to make the charts at all.The rest of the story is scattered across dusty singles kept alive by DJs and collectors worldwide. Finally heard together, the range of the band comes through: reggae, rocksteady, soul, R&B, and funk, all played with the same stripped-down feel.