Chart entered : 8 March 1980
Chart peak : 4
Number of hits : 49
Yet another band that Two Tone were courting although UB40's drive to be an authentic reggae band and lack of interest in fashion mean they can't really be counted as part of the mod / ska scene. I've no doubt it did give them a bit of a boost though.
UB40 came together in a racially mixed area of Birmingham in summer 1978. Its eight similarly aged members were either unemployed or in dead end jobs at the time. Some of the band had been at school together; others were drawn in via girlfriends and work colleagues. Saxophonist Brian Travers and bassist Earl Falconer were flatmates who discovered that the building had a cellar which could be used as a rehearsal space. The friends were united by a love of reggae and political discussion. They claim not to have been proficient musicians at first but their front men, Ali and Robin Campbell, who both played guitar and sang, came from a musical family background. Neither seemed particularly keen to acknowledge that their father Ian had enjoyed a minor hit in 1965 with his version of The Times They Are-A-Changin'. The other members were Jim Brown ( drums ), Michael Virtue ( keyboards ), Terence "Astro" Wilson ( trumpet / toasting ) and Norman Hassan ( trombone / percussion ).
Their first gig was in Februrary 1979 in Birmingham. Word quickly spread. By the autumn they were playing gigs in London and in December they recorded a session for John Peel which featured both these two tracks. One of their London concerts was caught by Chrissie Hynde and she invited them to support The Pretenders on their UK tour at the beginning of 1980. Major labels were now interested in the band but they preferred to go with Graduate Records , a local independent run by a Dudley record shop owner David Virr apparently since 1969 though the first single on the label wasn't released until 1979.
UB40 ( named after an unemployment benefit form ) have become a byword for musical disappointment and are currently mired in an acrimonious legal dispute so it's timely to revisit how good they once were. "King" , which wasn't played on the radio, is a spacey , mellow lament for Martin Luther King and the death of sixties idealism with long instrumental passages for the horns and Mickey's little keyboard flourishes. "Food For Thought" is a snappier skank announced by blaring horns including Brian's sax which then hangs around as a nagging reminder on a song questioning the validity of Christian missionary work in countries ravaged by famine. Ali's Jamaican-inflected nasal vocal tone cuts through like a cheesewire on the bleak lyrics. This was a politically charged time when bands could score big hits with songs that challenged and provoked.
It was the first single on a truly independent label to make the Top 5 and got to number one in New Zealand. UB40's policy of putting out double A-sided singles to give more VFM would eventually cost them but this is one of the best debut singles of all time.
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