Kingston, Jamaica, spring 1978, and Lloyd Parks is taking his We The People band in to Joe Gibbs’ Studio to record the ‘Meet The People’ album. Lloyd has already achieved big local hits both as a solo singer and with the Termites, and had three solo albums released by Trojan in the UK. Now, as a session musician, he is at the heart of Joe Gibbs’ quest for international success. That February his bass playing helped to propel Althea and Donna’s ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ to number one in the British charts.

Lloyd Parks: “Joe Gibbs’ Studio was like the hang out spot, like the chill spot for every artist. Every day you’d find Big Youth, Prince Far I, Culture and the Mighty Diamonds and all the musicians come around. Before each recording we would play cards and have fun, like find some joke to make off each other, and then we walk into the studio with that same spirit. So that just spin off into magic. Like sometimes when you’re recording the engineer call out ‘ready, ready!’ and then somebody just draw a card, like we call it a card when we jive each other, and then we just have to stop the tune and start again because everybody just laugh. We would be there maybe Monday and Tuesday for a full recording session, but then also every other day just to hang out, cos it was like our recreation ground. And we become the resident band for Joe Gibbs and he called us the Professionals.

“Joe Gibbs’ Studio was near a place called Jungle, so sometimes bad guys come in the yard, but they come just to listen to music, not for violence. I remember there was one time when Joe Gibbs owed some money to Prince Far I or Culture, so some bad guys come in the yard to make trouble. It was a problem with royalties, but with so many bad guys there they manage to resolve it – heh heh. But really the badmen just love the music and love the musicians.

“I also keep working at Channel One studio throughout this time. And boy there was a rivalry between those studios. We called it a musical clash, Joe Gibbs vs Channel One! And everybody trying to say my studio is better than yours. But it was a peaceful clash: it never create problem. What it really create was just better production from both studios.”