Musical Youth
From: Joris van Drunen Littel
<bas@iaehv.nl>
Subject: Re: Whatever
Happened to Musical Youth?
Date: 23 Aug 1995
18:45:18 GMT
Wilson Lee wrote: >Anyone
know if any of these kids went onto further
success?
Hi Wilson, here's some info I
found in a Q-article dated August
1994:
After the band split Dennis Seaton
went solo. A solo deal was set up with Island. Stevie "Master Blaster" Wonder, a
friend form Musical Youth days, even wrote a single and appeared in the video, a
real coup, but the track was never released. He moved to London and kept
songwriting. Seaton's new band, an R&B & reggae outfit, is named XMY
(Ex-Musical Youth?). Kelvin Grant is playing reggae and flitting between
Birmingham & JA, while Michael handles production work for Motown while
fronting his own band, 5AM. Patrick turned to joyriding and drugs...at 19, he
served 12 months for theft and driving offences; at 22 he was sentenced to four
years for assaulting and robbing a 37-year-old woman. In March 1993 he died
(heart attack). Junior had a
mini-breakdown...
Joris -
bas@iaehv.nl
~~~~~
From:
Rasrojah <Rasrojah@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 15
Apr 1998 20:46:47 EDT
To:
raw@databack.com
Mime-Version:
1.0
Subject: Re: Musical
Youth
Sender:
owner-raw@po.databack.com
Reply-To:
raw@databack.com
Status:
The denouement to the Musical Youth
story is an extremely sad one:
While cutting an
album at Eddie Grant's eastern Caribbean studio, the
two
brothers in the group, sons of an
ex-Technique, developed severe mental
problems,
and the group broke up. I remember years ago, Jackie Mittoo
telling
me he had performed as a member of and
ersatz Musical Youth in Nigeria in
short pants,
hoping people would think he was one of the
kids.
Ras
RoJah
RAW
H1
~~~~~
Greetings,
The
following is literally taken from "The Guiness Who's Who of Reggae",
1994
edition.
Musical Youth was formed at
Duddeston Manor School, Birmingham, England.
The group featured featured two sets of
brothers, Kelvin and Michael
Grant and Junior
and Patrick Waite (d. February 18 1993). The latter
pair's father Fred Waite was a former member
of the Techniques, and sang
lead with Junior
at the start of the group's career in the late 70's.
Although schoolboys they managed to secure
gigs at certain Birmingham
pubs and released a
single "Political"/"Generals" on local label 021
Records. An appearance on BBC DJ John Peel's
evening show brought
further attention to the
group and they were signed to MCA Records.
By
that time founding father Fred Waite had baked down to be replaced by
Dennis Seaton as lead singer. During the
winter of 1982, the group
issued one of the
fastest selling singles of the year in "Pass the
Dutchie". Based on the Mighty Diamonds' "Pass
the Kouchie" (a song about
marijuana), the
title had been subtly altered to feature the patois
'Dutchie'(literally a 'cooking pot'). The
infectious enthusiasm of the
the group's
performance captured the public's imagination and propelled
the record to number 1 in the UK charts. A US
Top 10 hit also followed.
The catchy follow-up
"Youth of Today" also reached the UK Top 20 and
early in 1983 "Never gonna give you up"
climbed to number 6. Minor
successes with
"Heartbreaker" and "Tell me why" were succeeded by a
surprise collaboration with Donna Summer on
the Uk Top 20 hit
"Unconditional Love". A
revival of Desmond Dekker's 007 saw them back in
the Top 30, but after one final hit with
"Sixteen", they fell from
commercial grace and
subsequently split up in 1985 when Seaton left the
band. Plans to reform the band were scotched
when Patrick Waite, who had
gone on to a
career of juvenile crime, died of natural causes while
awaiting a court appearance on drug charges.
The Grant brothers remain involved in music,
while Seaton has released a
solo set and
formed his own band: XMY {:-))}.
Posted: Fri - February 7, 2003 at 06:23 PM