It’s fitting that the premiere of the vinyl only single “Live to Love” b/w “Misty Love” comes on The Vinyl District. The roots reggae workout is the culmination of an eight year partnership between the legendary reggae artist Fred Locks and Brooklyn producer David Ondrick, better known as David O.
Locks’ legacy with reggae goes back nearly a half century in the rock steady group The Lyrics, which recorded in Sir Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s fabled Studio One in Kingston. Locks went on to solo success with 1976 cuts like “Black Star Liner” and “Time to Change” at the time Bob Marley was cutting tracks at Vincent “Randy” Chin’s studio.
Ondrick is known on the New York City Latin music scene, where he’s played with the fusion band Sonido Costeno. He’s had his hand in reggae scene, recording “Coxsone” Dodd and Skatalites saxophonist Rolando Alphonso. He was also worked on a popular reggae remix of Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You.”
“Live to Love” was initially written by Locks in 1962 at age 12 when he was in his first group the Flames. The Lyrics used to rehearse it in the later ‘60s, but it was never put to wax until now. Ondrick says he heard it when Locks was singing it around the studio one day; he got it on tape and built a musical structure around it.
The B-side of the single, “Misty Love,” continues the vibe with a instrumental version of the same track. And what a bunch of instrumentalists: Horace James of Israel Vibration, Andy Bassford of Toots and the Metals, Fabian Cooke mixer for Ziggy Marley, Latin jazz trumpeter Ozzy Cardona, and the Latin percussionists Urbano Sanchez and David Freyre.
The vinyl-only single heralds the impending release later this year of the full length album Time to Shine: Fred Locks Meets David O, Vol. 1 on Ondrick’s label Duplex Music. Locks, billed as “the oldest new artist in reggae” is set to tour in Europe, Canada, South, America, Africa and the Caribbean with his Soldiers of Sound band.
