| BY KEVIN JACKSON— Observer writer— |
The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues its month-long feature titled ‘Cover Me Good’. It will look at songs covered by Jamaican artistes which became hits.
Among the songs on American singer Eddie Kendricks’s 1978 album Vintage ’78 is One of the Poorest People. It was never released as a single. However, an interpretation by Jamaican singer Junior Tucker in late 1979 became a monster hit topping charts locally.
“We did the cover of One of the Poorest People because it was chosen by Diane Jobson, who worked at Tuff Gong. At the time, she was Bob Marley’s lawyer. I think she gave it to Tommy Cowan and suggested I should sing the song. Then Tommy played the song for me and to be honest, I didn’t like it when I first heard it, but, at the time, I trusted anything Tommy said would be a hit,” Tucker recalled in an interview with the Jamaica Observer .
Cowan, who worked at Tuff Gong as marketing manager, is credited as executive producer of Tucker’s version of One of The Poorest People and released it on the label. Diane Ellis is listed as producer on the vinyl 45 rpm.
Tucker, who had been recording professionally since the early 1970s, was attending Kingston College when the track was released. A child star, he had earlier recorded a few covers, including Michael Jackson’s Happy and Stevie Wonder’s Happiness.
“No. I did not think One of the Poorest People would have become a hit. At the time, it was not a hit for Eddie Kendricks. It was just a track on his album. But when my version of the song took off, it stayed number one on the (local) charts for several weeks and I believe it spent about 20-odd weeks inside the top 10. It was a huge song,” said Tucker.
The song topped both the RJR Top 40 and JBC Top 30 charts from late 1979 going into 1980. On RJR‘s Top 100 Songs for 1980, it ranked at number eight.
Kendricks’s version of One of the Poorest People gained traction locally thanks to airplay on radio stations such as JBC-FM. The Vintage ’73 album, which it was featured on, contained the radio hits Your Wish is My Command, Best of Strangers Now, and Ain’t No Smoke Without Fire (both of which charted on Billboard). Kendricks, a founding member of The Temptations, died in 1992 at the age of 52 from lung cancer.
Tucker said the song’s success propelled his career.
“It opened doors for my career and I started travelling and performing overseas. It was the breakout song for me. Its success also got me the attention of Island Records and it changed my life both financially and professionally. I was attending Kingston College at the time and all the kids were looking at me because I was on television performing. It also put me on the same stages to perform with popular artistes such as Bob Marley,” he said.
Tucker would later migrate to the United States to live with his mother during the success of One of the Poorest People.
After signing with Island Records, Tucker scored success with a cover of Some Guys Have all the Luck. In 1983, he recorded the original version of Mr Telephone Man which later became a Billboard hit for American group New Edition.
Tucker would also sign with Geffen Records through his association with American singer Ray Parker Jr. In 1989, he signed with Virgin Records and scored a hit in the United Kingdom with Don’t Test which peaked at number 54. Another hit song, a cover of Benny Mardones’s Into the Night, enjoyed success in Europe and Australia.
Tucker left Virgin and enjoyed a successful run in the dancehall in the early 1990s with hits like Don’t Touch My Baby, Love of a Lifetime, Give it Up, and covers of When I Fall in Love and You Don’t Care.
In 1996, he became a Christian.
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