Christmas came two months early for Ken Boothe in 1974. His cover of Bread’s Everything I Own went number one in the United Kingdom for three straight weeks, giving the singer his biggest hit.
Produced by Lloyd Charmers, October marks 50 years since Everything I Own topped the British chart.
Distributed by Trojan Records, an all-reggae company operated by Jamaican Lee Gopthal, it was released in that country months after being recorded at Federal Records in Kingston, Jamaica.
Lloyd Parks played bass on the session with Charmers playing keyboards, Willie Lindo on guitar and Paul Douglas of The Maytals on drums. He was recruited to play on the song after Val Douglas, the Federal Records bassist, had to leave the studio because of an emergency.
“I don’t remember what it was, either he had to pick somebody up at the airport or his youth (child) at school, but he said I should do the session,” Parks recalled.
In several interviews, Boothe said he heard Bread’s 1972 original while in Canada and was encouraged by a friend to do a reggae version. At the time, he was on a high with songs like Artibella and Silver Words, following a prolific career in the 1960s at Studio One which produced hits such as Moving Away, Just Another Girl, and Puppet On A String.
Parks remembers Ken Khouri, owner of Federal Records, was so impressed with Boothe’s take on Everything I Own that he made a bold declaration.
“Him seh, ‘if this song don’t go to number one, him going to close the studio’. And I said, ‘wow!’”.
Trojan had a distribution deal with Island Records, which had Bob Marley on its books, as well as rock bands like Traffic. Its biggest Jamaican sellers were Lee “Scratch” Perry-produced albums like Soul Rebel by The Wailers and Return of Django by The Upsetters, Bob and Marcia’s Young, Gifted And Black and John Holt’s album, 1,000 Volts of Holt.
Anthony “Chips” Richards was Trojan’s marketing man. He was assigned to promote Everything I Own in the UK, especially among its growing West Indian community.
Although Dave Barker and Ansel Collins’ Double Barrel topped the British national chart in 1971 there was not a large reggae presence on mainstream radio. Pitching Boothe’s ballad was not easy.
“There wasn’t a lot of reggae on the radio; you had a one-hour show on the BBC on Sundays and they basically played general releases. Producers were using strings in the songs for a commercial feel, to get on radio,” Richards said in a 2017 interview with the Jamaica Observer. “I had a lotta doors slammed in my face for Everything I Own.”
He serviced the single to 360 record stores in the UK and regional radio stations, which did the trick. Everything I Own quickly moved from underground hit to national success, joining My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small, Israelites by Desmond Dekker, and Double Barrel as number-one songs by Jamaicans in the UK.
Everything I Own, which also topped the Irish national chart, earned 26-year-old Boothe slots on high-profile shows like Top Of The Pops. In World A Reggae’s home base, The Netherlands, Ken Boothe’s version never charted, But the song still did reach a top 3 spot in the Dutch Top 40 in the version of Culture Clubs’ Boy George.
Lloyd Parks — whose bass lines helped make songs like Should I by Dennis Brown and Tyrone Taylor’s Cottage in Negril classics — was surprised when Everything I Own became a monster hit.
“I knew it was a good song but honestly, I never believed it would go into the British charts,” he said.
Ken Boothe celebrated his 76th birthday last March. Parks plans to release a dub album showcasing some of his revered bass lines in early 2025.
By Howard Cambell
