There are few things I really like in life, few things I really think are worth while. Giving your pre-teen kids body farts. Growing onions. Pre-reggae Jamaican music.

If you check out this link, you will find "Calabash" [1.4 MB .wma file] by Count Lasher and Charlie-Binger's Six, from this 2001 Interstate Music Inc. compilation called Boogu Yagga Gal: Jamaican Mento. This is perfect music. It is fun. It is artful. It is real.

From the ample liner notes in the booklet that accompanies the CD, available at Amazon, you learn that Mento was an amalgam of English, African and Jamaican dance hall styles which started to meld before 1880, merged with US jazz and paralleled Trinidadian calypso. Before the breakout of the more distinct ska in Jamaica in the early 1960's, "Mentors" music had been recorded as early as 1925 and 1933.

This recording is from the early 1950's and reflected the tourist destination dance music that was recorded at that time. Little is known about the the band or its leader Charlie Binger. Count Lasher had a relatively long career, still cropping up even on the John Peel show.

Buy some Mento. Put a run on this record. Send it up Billboard. The world would be better.