The British were the first major overseas fans of Jamaican music. In the early 1960s, they embraced ska acts like Millie Small, Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster.<\/p>\n
Late that decade, The Beatles released \u2018Ob La Di, Ob La Da\u2019, an ode to Jamaican rock steady which superseded ska. Recently, American singer Maia the Toad covered that song for RuffCompany Records, a company owned by General Smiley of Papa Michigan and General Smiley fame.<\/p>\n
Maia The Toad, who is originally from Tucson, Arizona, took a radical approach to her version of the classic track.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt ended up moodier, and with the reggae feel, it had its own character. I just tried to keep enough of the original, so it felt familiar while letting the arrangement breathe,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
It was General Smiley who suggested Maia the Toad cover \u2018Ob La Di, Ob La Da\u2019, which The Beatles cut for their self-titled 1968 album. While she was familiar with the uptempo ditty, Maia The Toad admits it is not one of her favorite Fab Four tracks.<\/p>\n
General Smiley had pitched it to other artists before her, but she jumped at the opportunity to cover a song by rock music\u2019s most revered band.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d shared it with a few artists before, and I was thrilled when it landed with me,\u201d said Maia The Toad, who previously worked with General Smiley on \u2018Fever\u2019, a sultry song made famous by Peggy Lee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The British were the first major overseas fans of Jamaican music. In the early 1960s, they embraced ska acts like Millie Small, Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster. Late that decade, The Beatles released \u2018Ob La Di, Ob La Da\u2019, an ode to Jamaican rock steady which superseded ska. Recently, American singer Maia the Toad covered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11403,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11402\/revisions\/11403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}