Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Mikey Bennett - Contributed Photo

Vocally Housecall, the single that climbed to 37 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Chart and peaked at number 4 on the R&B/Hip Hop Singles Chart in 1991, is naturally indelibly associated with singer Maxi Priest and deejay Shabba Ranks. Visually, it is all Shabba, what with the designer rags (literally) that he wore in the accompanying video, which shook as he pranced and intoned "me have de remedy fe yu heart me have de remedy fe yu brain".

But it is Maxi Priest who sings the song's subtitle, Your Body Can't Lie To Me.

Shabba Ranks in 1992, one year after 'Housecall' hit

behind the song a pen

Behind the song, though, was a pen, that of songwriter and producer Mikey Bennett and he has the gold award certifying sales of more than 500,000 copies of the album the song was on, As Raw As Ever, on the wall of his Grafton Road, Vineyard Town, studio as evidence.

Like many a hit coming out of Jamaica, Housecall was the result of quick work. Very quick work.

"I was up by Specs-Shang (Shabba Ranks' then management company) and they weren't sure they had a single for the album," Bennett said. That album was no ordinary compilation; it was Shabba's debut full-length effort for Sony/Epic, an all-important step for a genre that was breaking out of the zinc and bamboo lawns of Jamaica, as well as making strides across the class divide.

"Specialist was my brethren and he said they needed a song. I said I can always do that," Bennett said.

That "always do that" was not a boast or a flippant remark. Bennett had been doing just that for years, penning hits for Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, JC Lodge and a slew of others through the King Jammy's and Music Works studios. As a member of Home T, he wrote the first number one for all the performers involved when Who She Love by Home T, Cocoa Tea and Shabba Ranks hit the top. And his first individual song with the Ranks was the woman for life track Haffi Kill Me Dead. Then there was House Husband and the entire Golden Touch album.

Drummer Sly Dunbar had just done a rhythm for Bennett, on which he had recorded Chevelle Franklyn with No Pushover. Bennett said "Specialist heard the rhythm and liked it. I was going to New York the next day. Maxi was there, Shabba was there".

But no song was there, at least, as yet.

When he got to New York, Bennett bought a little tape recorder and, along with singers Brian and Tony Gold, he went up to Maxi Priest's hotel room "and the song start grow".

It was not exactly starting from scratch, as Bennett said whenever he goes into a writing session he has two or three ideas in stock.

It was not a total one man effort, though, as Bennett said "Brian Gold was the one who came up with the first line of Shabba's part. Brian Gold has had a hand in most of the big songs out of Jamaica for the past 10 years".

There was no waiting time for the 'studio call', as "we wrote the song the day, went into the studio the night. We sketched out Shabba's part and Shabba finished it".

However, it was not an approach that sat well with Vivian Scott, the A&R person for Epic on the Shabba Ranks project. She was accustomed to the system of doing demos, which are then analysed for hit potential and the song adjusted as necessary. Bennett returned to Jamaica and went right back into the groove of the craft where he can "always do that".

Then "Scott called me one night to say 'you are my saviour'".

Maxi Priest File

Housecall was a hit, a remix done by David Morales bringing it firmly into the hip hop world.

And it was not the end for the combination of Mikey Bennett's pen and Shabba Ranks' vocals, as in 1992 the groove of Mr. Loverman, complete with the 'Shabba' which was breathed as much as sung hit home. "Most people never had a hit in the U.S. I had two in consecutive years," Mikey Bennett said.