Tonight saw the legend that is Rhoda Dakar performing a DJ set at Things Happen Here in the heart of Dartington. I last saw Rhoda perform on the main stage at Beautiful Days Festival in 2017, that was seven years ago, I know, where does the time go eh? I was excited to see her in DJ mode and was interested to know what tracks would form the basis of her 90-minute set. 

For those that aren’t familiar, Rhoda Dakar was the vocalist for a ska band in the late 1970’s called The Bodysnatchers, she also worked closely with The Specials and Special AKA as well as having a hand in many other bands up to current day (I think she recorded recently with Dub Pistols too!) 

Ahead of her set, Ska au Go Go kept the audience simmering away with a plethora of ska, reggae and rocksteady classics until Rhoda was ready to take the lead for the remainder of the night. 

One thing I learned tonight was regardless of who you think originally recorded a track may not have been the original recording band or artist, case in point, take ‘Red Red Wine’, a classic track recorded in 1983 by Birmingham Reggae/Pop band UB40....right? I’m afraid not, the track was originally recorded by the one and only Neil Diamond in 1967, some 16 years earlier and included on his sophomore studio album Just for You.   

This was also true for a track called ‘Dakota’ made famous by Welsh indie rockers Stereophonics, tonight however, I heard an artist called Melbourne Douglas knocking out a ska-tinged version of the same track, to add another level of complexity to proceedings, I heard that a band called The Regulators have recorded an alternative version of the track. The question is, who wrote the original? well, in a cruel twist of fate, it was Stereophonics that penned the original track which puts a complete mockery to my previous paragraph. In this instance, it was the two other acts that I mentioned who had decided to create alternate versions of the track in a ska/reggae style only a couple of years ago, confused? You betcha! 

With the night starting with me scratching my head, I hoped that things would become clearer as Rhoda Dakar took to the deck (singular - it transpired that only one of the twin decks available was fully functioning) meaning that she was going to have to tread water whilst the CDs were being swapped over. To do this, she said that she was going to do some ‘talking’ to put the audience off the scent of her frantically ejecting and inserting a new CD every time a track came to an end, standing side of stage for 20 minutes, I can safely say that she had everyone fooled, the operation was seamless and was proof that she is no one trick pony! 

Her set was eclectic, some classics were more apparent, and it was great to hear tracks that I had never even heard of before that have made such an indelible mark on Rhoda’s musical upbringing over the past few decades. She took the room back to the early days of the Jamaican dance halls to the dance floors of the UK clubs in the 80’s and 90’s. There were many versions of tracks in her set that I was not familiar with and after spending a couple of hours trawling Spotify (other streaming channels are available), I have created a playlist which replicates the setlist that Rhoda played on the night. 

She wrapped up at 11pm and spent the next 30 minutes signing autographs, vinyl, old 7” records and anything else that people had bought with them. I saw a happy looking Glyn (Ska au Go Go) as Rhoda signed a very old ‘2 Tone’ book, one of the pages was dedicated to The Bodysnatchers and Rhoda was only too happy to put her mark on the page.

Her taxi arrived to whisk her away to her hotel, it was a great night and I managed to catch up with the legend before I left, thanking her for coming to Dartington to play and jokingly said that I would probably see her at Beautiful Days Festival in August (she has a tendency to turn up most years) but she assured me that she won’t be there this year owing to it being her birthday (this never stopped her before!)

All in all, a great night and a rare chance to glimpse Rhoda Daker on the wheels of steel, playing tracks that have helped to shape her musical upbringing. 

Words and Pictures musomuso