Regatta De Blanc: Jah, let these white folks feel that reggae rhythm...for they know not what they do...

The idea to do a white guy reggae album actually came from an unlikely source: Grooving to Men At Work's original version of "Down Under" I realized how reggae that whole thing sounded, albeit with a weird outback hillbilly vibe. I filed away the idea with other things always taking precedent. But running through a couple of albums in my collection recently, I kept stumbling over the little reggae genre exercises these white groups and artists were doing, so I said "OBG, get your shit together and do that white guy reggae album you wanted to compile". 

And so I did, and here we are. This is in no way, shape or form some sort of exhaustive overview of that particular sub-subgenre. There were of course also tons of white guys (and gals) doing ska and dub, so if you really want to deepdive into that it'll open up buckets of worms...and the knowledgeable folks at Jokonky's are probably better authorities on that. No, I really just wanted to make a fun sampler of white folks more or less well-equipped fo that doing short musical vacation trips to Jamaica and back. And that's what Regatta De Blanc is: 15 slices of white folk reggae. 

Let's see...sunglasses...check...colorful shirts...check...yup, we're ready to go to Jamaica, boys...

One of the things that amused me was the realization that the whiter the dudes, the more prone to reaggae they were. I mean, show me a whiter band than The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, then without the nitty gritty in their name or their music, covering Claude King's country & western standard "Wolverton Mountain" as a cod reggae song with an exagerrated fake Jamaican patois that has to be heard to be believed. When the spoken bit comes in, you really suspect this is a send up, especially when the narrator goes on about real estate opportunities on Wolverton Mountain and buying a condo in redondo but either way, it cracks me up. Cringy as fuck, sure, but also pretty droll. 

Other white boy soft rock with folk/ country rock leanings groups that dip into the reggae rythms are America with "Lovely Night", Orleans with "Give One Heart" (immediately covered by Linda Ronstadt) and The Pousette-Dart Band proclaiming "Yesterday Is Not Today". And of course, as the probably most mainstream of country groups The Bellamy Brothers, who had a slightly hippie-ish look (longhairs!) and demeanor when they first started, but quickly became a Nashville mainstream act, which probably means that a lot of white good ol' boys might've first heard reggae when the Brothers implored them to "Get Into Reggae Cowboy". 

Dem reggae boyz livin' it up...

The Police lent this collection its name, but not a title song, as "Regatta De Blanc" isn't particularly reggae. "Don't Stand So Close" sure is, though, and represents white reggae boys' most insistent law enforcement. Couldn't really do a comp on this and leave out Sting & Co. I also had to include ol' Slowhand as one of the first white star musicians to play reggae. If we're being less charitable, one could say that he traded ripping off one black music tradition for another despite basically being a racist dipshit, which the last years between Covid and Brexit only confirmed. But well, like the art, not the artist I guess. Other Brits dabbling in reggae despite that really not being in their wheelhouse: Led Zep and their trip to "D'yer M'aker" and One Buck Records hero Danny Kirwan serenading "Mary Jane" (ahem). 

When I first listened to Blondie's Panic Of Girls (delivered with a copy of the Rolling Stone, back when veteran acts desperately tried to find ways to get their records in the public eye and thought bundling them with newspapers or magazines was a way to go) I was pleasantly surprised to hear them take on Sophia George's 1985 one-hit wonder "Girlie Girlie", which gave me a rush of notalgia. "Girlie Girlie", together with Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie" were my first exposure to reggae, hearing them on the radio when I was a kid. 

They didn't get the note about dressing in colorful Jamaican garb

If we thought The Dirt Band's "Wolverton Mountain" was a piss-take on the genre, then what about hipster satirist pranksters 10 CC  coming up with the timeless travelogue "Dreadlock Holiday"? "I don't like reggae...oh no-ooo...I love it!....oh yeah", while starting out with a musical phrase that sounds 100%  like Bob Marley's "Could You Be Loved?". Those little rascals.   

And for something that not everyone has heard before: How about the Boss himself doing the reggae thing? Our old pal Farq got a lot of mileage out of clowning Springsteen's possible genre excursions after his admittedly ill-conceived soul album, but the Boss did dip more than a toe in the genre when he guest starred at one of New Jersey-based reggae artist Jah Love's concerts to sing a reggae/dub version of "Born In The U.S.A." which has to be heard to be believed. And I don't mean that as an insult. Incongruous, maybe, but strangely entrancing.  

Lemme sing some reggae to ya, baby...

So, friends and neighbours, let these white folks get in the rhythm of the island and take you away for about an hour...Regatta De Blanc!