Boris Gardiner - Contributed

As closely as he listens to his own production, Gardiner still has a listening ear for the public.

That is how the covers of Groovy Kind of Love and I Beg Your Pardon (Rose Garden) ended up on the album.

Gardiner recorded the former in 1968 with Dawn Penn for Arthur 'Duke' Reid's Treasure Isle label. "It is almost the same arrangement, but we added some things and perfected it … Sometime ago a guy called me from overseas and said, 'Why don't you do over this song?' People always request it and when I play it, they get up and dance. He suggested doing it over, but stay close to the original. So I did it," Gardiner said.

I Beg Your Pardon (Rose Garden) resulted from a trip to the hardware store. "I was at Budget Supplies one day and a girl who works there said, 'Are you Boris Gardiner?' She said, 'You know the song 'Rose Garden'? I like that song, you must record it. I told her I would think about it. I came home and took the guitar and felt it out and realised that it could work with reggae. It is one of the better ones that could be released as a single to push the album," Gardiner said.

And More Than Words Can Say, which he wrote himself, had its first incarnation "about '67. I recorded it and a lot of people like it, but them days it was funky days. It has a nicer feel this time. Now it has little more arrangement, a more modern feel, more voices".

- MC