UB40 “Labour of Love II” 1989. 80’s reggae via the UK, the band’s 9th LP, all cover songs. I just got this record yesterday, for free, from an old friend whose cousin’s husband does crime-scene and hoarder house cleanups for a living. You can’t make this shit up. Anyway, he had a couple crates of records to unload so I got the call. This was the only one I scooped (we had pretty much everything else already that was worth having), and mostly for the UB40’s cover of “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)”, originally by Al Green (’73). It’s my all-time favorite UB40 track and reminds me both of freshman year of college (’89-’90) as well as a trip to the Bahamas (’08) when this track was on heavy rotation while I lounged for endless hours beside the pool. Really excellent memories all around. Their version of “Here I Am” went to #7 in the US and to #46 in the UK. UB40 had a couple of other singles from Labour Of Love II: “Kingston Town,” originally by Lord Creator (’70) went to #4 in the UK but didn’t chart in the US. Better received was their cover of the The Temptations‘ “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” which went to #6 in the US but only to #49 in the UK. While not released as a single in the US, “Homely Girl” became a hit in Europe, going to #6 in the UK. The original soul single was by The Chi-Lites (’73). Also pretty great on the album is “Groovin’” originally by Byron Lee (who introduced the electric bass guitar to Jamaica; he and his band The Dragonaires appear in the James Bond movie Dr. No and he owned Dynamic Sounds at which musicians like The Rolling Stones recorded).