Old music: Roland Alphonso – James Bond

For those too young for punk and too bewildered by post-punk, in 1979 2-Tone was just the ticket. It also provided a handy route into ska, a genre of music I'd never heard of, and which bore scant relation to the po-faced roots reggae it had evolved into over the preceding decade. Songs recorded in the early-to-mid-60s by Prince Buster and the Skatalites were being covered by the Specials, Madness and the Selecter. It's hard to imagine, given the array of ska compilations available today, but if you wanted to hear more of the music that inspired the 2-Tone bands, back in 1979 it was a struggle. Then the British reggae imprint Trojan released Intensified! Original Ska 1962-1966 . Even now I get a frisson of excitement just looking at the cover. On the front was a yellow and green photo of a Jamaican sound system (I had no idea what it was – may as well have been a nuclear physics lab for all I knew); on the back the clarion call: "Calling all rude boys and girls!" The music was funny, exotic and strange. There were indecipherable (occasionally out of tune) vocals, staccato horn sections and that infectious jerky rhythm. Saxophonist Roland Alphonso had been in the seminal ska combo the Skatalites, who backed many key ska vocalists including the Wailers, and was an important part of Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Studio One records. Dodd produced Alphonso's James Bond theme in 1966 with the Soul Brothers, who included keyboardist Jackie Mittoo. The whole Intensified! package seemed immensely cool. But a ska version of John Barry and Monty Norman's James Bond theme! What a discovery. I love that collision of cultures. I later learned there are quite a few Bond-related ska tunes – after all, Dr No was set in Jamaica – though this is the best, better even than Alphonso's version of From Russia with Love .