Ska is Better.

My Christmas Music post from a few days ago sent me down the Youtube rabbit hole looking for music.  Duke Ellington gave the Swing treatment to The Nutcracker Suite, and freshened it up.  Ska is another genre that can take familiar music and make it fun.  It doesn’t always work, but when it does, the song can be better than the original.

Ska was bigger in the U.K., than it was here, so I would buy compilation albums to learn about new bands.  This was before Youtube.  Here are four TV and movie themes from a CD that I bought a few decades ago and is shown above.

The Specials are one of my favorites.  Much of their music is great.

Tommy Cook and the Supersonics have a lot of songs out, but this is the only one I like.

Carlos Malcolm & The Afro Caribs put out many other songs, but aren’t memorable.

I don’t know if Pat Satchmo did anything else, but he does sound like Louis Armstrong.  In this case, I think I like Armstrong’s version better.

Later on, I will post on my favorite Ska bands.