1974
YESTERDAY ONCE MORE * BEVERLY WONG * ACKEE 536 * UK
For a long time this record languished in my cellar in a junked box along with many others 'like' it, and as it had virtually no re-sale or trade value (I suspect it still hasn't) there was nothing to be done with it short of throw it away, and I can never somehow manage to do that, so there it lay a punt that didn't pay off, what did I expect from a cover of a Carpenters hit? Then some time back I was checking all those dud's out of the cellar and this one was pay dirt, a top find. Make no mistake it is a full blown cover, no weird Jamaican artistic license with the lyrics, not that there is anything wrong with that, but this follows the original in almost every sense (as best as I remember it, though I would never have paid it that much attention) this cover has everything the Carpenters version had, saturated in sentimentality and nostalgia, the sing-along chorus, the violins. But! . as well as a sweet Soulful voice from Beverly Wong (who is she?) it has something the Carpenters didn't have: a driving Reggae rhythm which, for me, transforms it miraculously into a top cut and all what I didn't think I liked in the original version flipped over into what I liked!. The moral of the story is: prejudice, by which I mean prejudgment, means I must miss a lot of what I would otherwise like.
See also: She Went Away