Eddy Grant appreciation and discussion thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqmZTKXEhWQ

Eddy is a Partizan fan

Great interview with Eddy here: https://online.berklee.edu/takenote/podcast-episode-041-eddy-grant-on-arriving-at-electric-avenue-by-fortuitous-events-that-included-heart-problems-lost-luggage-and-more/

I think California Style is my favorite song by him. one of those songs that should go on for an hour

I really wish he would just set up a bandcamp site. I'd love to pay him for FLACs. The MP3 store on his site is...better than nothing, I guess? It's missing a couple of his solo albums (s/t, Barefoot Soldier) and has none of The Equals. And then there is the pricing - each album of mp3s is $10, but each individual track is $0.90 - so for 9 of the albums it's cheaper to buy the individual tracks (Love In Exile only comes out to $6.30) and for 6 others it's cheaper to pay $10 (the Hit Collection comes out to $23.40...)

I started reading this thread only the other day. I remember years ago I wouldn't have bothered listening to the Equals. I probably just thought it was some old junk that was completely outmoded. And I also didn't like his early '80s solo hits. At that time I was into funk and jazz funk and so on, and I just didn't like those Eddy Grant tracks at all. I think I didn't like the poppiness of them.

But after reading some of this thread, I listened to quite a few Equals tracks and also a couple of the '80s hits and I have completely revised my opinion. I think Eddy Grant is a genius. I also watched a very long YouTube interview with him, which was really interesting. I loved his account of coming to London for the first time in the early 1960s, and his perception of the Beatles when they first emerged.

it's interesting. sometimes in the past i'd hear people talk positively about their own work and think they were exaggerating. listening to grant, i hear someone who has a lot of insight into his work and his career. when he says that he can play pretty much every style of music, that he's done all kinds of stuff that nobody except for the hardcore record collectors knows about, i believe it. i've heard so little of what he's done but what i hear is the work of someone who's incredibly talented, and hearing grant talk, he's grateful for the success and recognition that he's had and at the same time... like, what he said about "electric avenue", he worked in music for a long time, went through all kinds of weird circumstances, had hits everywhere except america, and he finally breaks through in america with a song that was maybe the best song he'd written to that time.

and then america is like "that was nice, what else you got?"

Boy, the Equals stuff is so good!! Tho, "Softly Softly" is... startling... to the extent the folks involved clearly listened to "Satisfaction" a time or two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guUtQ5YfZkk

"Michael and the Slipper Tree" is an amazing track...

What is the hardest jam in the world, and why is it "I Get So Excited"? (!)

xp agreed, hardcore dilettante notm

Obv some folks dig it. That I’m not among them shouldn’t tarnish your enjoyment.

brand new shoes for you and me!

Oh, I didn't see hd's post about re-recordings... huh. Both the comps I listened to today have "Domino" on them... guess I'll have to scour YouTube more for verified originals (...not that this knowledge makes the versions I heard any less awesome-sounding!)