Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

The cover of Boris Gardiner's new album. - Contributed

It is three days after Hurricane Dean, the sun is shining and what breeze there is, is gentle. So are Boris Gardiner's personality and voice, the latter a mixture of the recorded, along with instruments and harmony vocals, and the live, as Gardiner breaks into song in between explaining the finer details of 'Reggae Songs of Love (Plus)'.

Slated for release in September, the 14-track album has been three years in the recording, mixing and packaging process, but it has been in the making for a much longer time. After all, Thinking of You was composed in 1960 but never written down much less recorded, Gardiner changing the melody for eventual transfer from mind to CD player. And the addition o 'Di Chick' Hewitt's deliberate deejay delivery on the cover of I Beg Your Pardon (Rose Garden) ("sometimes we a go happy, sometimes we a go sad …") takes the lover's rock album into the dancehall era.

Working toward perfection

Although Gardiner says completing a full-length project "depends on the kind of album you want. It depends on the arrangement, the music. It also depends on your finances", he adds what seems to be the main reason for the time it has taken for Reggae Songs of Love (Plus) to be ready for release. "I tend to take a long time because I am always adding and subtracting. I try to work to perfection. We can't get to perfection, but we get as close as possible," Gardiner said.

That approach has taken him to the top of the British charts with I Want To Wake Up With You and close to the top 10 with You Are Everything To Me, into the December bag of goodies for the nice with C is for Christmas and into the hearts and minds of the proud with Every Nigger is a Star.

While suggestions have come from disc jocks and hardware store attendants, Reggae Songs of Love (Plus) benefits from a strong cast of musicians, with keyboard player Sydney Thorpe playing a tremendous role. Dwight Pinkney and Gizmo do guitar duties, Dean Fraser plays saxophone, Romeo Gray provides trombone, Robbie Lyn and Bowie contribute to keyboards, while Gardiner plays bass, percussions and does the drum programming. He is also involved inthe harmony vocals wher Hewitt is featured heavily, Pam Hall and his daughter Cara Gardiner also contributing.

Moonlight Lover is a combination with Maria Myrie while Happiness is done in tandem with saxophonist Tony Greene, with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on drum and bass.

Writing credits

In addition to voice and hands, Boris Gardiner also makes his mark with the pen on Every Time, More Than Words Can Say and Thinking of You, the first two co-written with brother Barrington. Kirk Douglas contributes Love Me Tonight and I Love Your Eyes, while Michael Graham wrote Attracted To You and My Destiny.

The Sunday Gleaner suggests the obvious that Gardiner is not one of the singers who restricts his voice to his own words and he exclaims "no sah!" and laughs. "No way. If I hear a good song, I will sing it once it fits my voice. I have never wanted to write all my songs.

"You can write so many nice tunes. You might write one hit tune and the rest of them you don't want to hear them," he said.

His songwriting begins with the melody, with the music composed around it. "I can't just get up and sing a tune. It is not in me. Every line have to work out and and fix."

Own stamp

That includes Aldila, a traditional Italian song that was made very popular through the movie Roman Holiday. Gardiner said he lengthened it a little and added some English, as did Connie Francis in her version, putting his own stamp on the song in the process. He also gives his interpretation of Tony Gregory's I'm Still In Love With You, on which Gregory appears as a musician.

"I added to the arrangement … Tony's feel of music and my music is two different feel," Gardiner said.

My Destiny is the only slow, R&B style song on the easy rocking reggae album, which is tailor-made for the market in which Boris Gardiner hit the very top with I Want To Wake Up With You and where he was recently to spread Happiness along with Tony Greene.

"We might be going back in December … England big. You have to go to Manchester, Chelsea, Wolverhampton," Boris Gardiner said.