Desmond Dekker has died suddenly at the age of 64.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5018910.stm
I saw him at the Bristol Tropic Club in 1987 or 1988. One of the best gigs I ever went to.
The Harder they Come - one of my favourite movie soundtracks.
They say there is a pie up in the sky… waiting for me when I die…
“My ears are alight” is one of the best mondegreens, IIRC it was used is a commercial where the writers also thought he is saying “my ears are alight”, when
actually he was saying “The Isrealites”.
Discovered this musician throught “The Harder They Come” soundtrack. What a gem it is.
Rest in peace.
What a bummer. He did so much, and he was still touring. He had gigs booked through the end of the year.
::hums “Desmond Dekker Came First” by Toots and the Maytals::
That’s a shame. He was a great artist, and a reggae pioneer.
I have an original Jamaican pressing of his big single before it was a hit, on a white label with rubber-stamped titles. It’s called “(Poor Me) Israelites.” The parenthetical title is often omitted when the song is reissued. The B-side is stamped simply “Version”, and it’s the instrumental track of the A-side. That’s how a majority of singles were made in Kingston.
Every time I hear a cut off The Harder They Come soundtrack I’m pleasantly reminded of my undergrad days at Reed College back in the early-'80s. I had friends who thought Bob Marley was the shit. Bob was aight, but I always loved the older stuff better.
I was living in Portland, OR while Drugstore Cowboy was being filmed there, and actually watched the shooting of the scenes under the Burnside Bridge that featured “Israelites” on the soundtrack.
That’s Jimmy Cliff. Dekker’s tune on that record is “007 (Shanty Town).”
Dem a loot, dem a shoot, dem a wail …
RIP, DD.
Off-ter a starm there must be an calllm-uh, puh-puh in the farm ya sound yer AHHHH-larm. 
Yes, I know. But it seemed apt, this being the Dope and all. 
DD also sang on Cliff’s ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want’ which is the opening track of ‘The Harder They Come’.
And according to the freshly updated Wikipedia entry, he was the ‘Desmond’ of ‘Desmond has a barrow in the market place’ fame in the Beatles’ ‘Ob-la-di, ob-la-da’.
It was a commercial for a brand of cassette tape. It had someone listening to that song and holding up signs with funny misheard lyrics on them, including “My ears are alight.” At the end, they held up a sign saying they couldn’t be sure because it hadn’t been recorded on the right brand of tape.
Dammit, I was already having a not so good day today, now I just want to cry.
See ya on the other side Des.
For something to make you laugh, here’s the Maxell “Israelites” commercial.
Stellar commentary on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Friday afternoon. They had some guy on to say how great Dekker was. He talked about the impact of “(Poor Me) Israelites” and quoted from the part he thought he knew: “Get up in the morning, cooking for breakfast…or whatever he says there…”
Go away, plastic talking head guy, and get us somebody who knows the subject.
Ah, a real loss.
Like so many I first discovered him through soundtracks - in this case both The Harder They Come and Drugstore Cowboy ( which uses “Israelites” in the opening sequence ). Strangely enough I have never heard him played on the radio. Not even once.
But ever since that early exposure he has been right up there with ( a close #2 ) Toots & the Maytals as my favorite Jamaican artists.
And that facilitated “toasting,” the Jamaican version of rap.