After winning the attention of Studio One founder Coxsone Dodd and Treasure Isle Records producer Duke Reid, the Paragons cut a series of singles that would establish them as one of the most popular singing groups in Jamaica. The band, which went through several lineup changes before splitting up in 1970, found their greatest success with singer John Holt, who replaced Stamp in 1964. The Paragons had spent their formative years as an R & B/soul band derived from popular American sounds, but the addition of Holt saw the band experimenting with the rocksteady sound that would make them famous.
A teenaged musician who rose to prominence through the talent show circuit, Holt was already recording singles with producer Leslie King and being broadcast on Radio Jamaica when he joined the Paragons. Holt's slow, romantic style of singing was a sharp contrast to the belting soul singers of the early '60s, and that singing technique established a format that reggae singers imitate to this day. Holt's voice became such a fixture of the Paragons that soon after he joined, Bob Andy left the Paragons to pursue a successful solo career. Thus Holt became the primary songwriter and arranger for the best-known version of the Paragons.
Over the next few years, Holt provided the Paragons with hits that included "The Tide is High" (later famously covered by Blondie), "On the Beach" and "My Best Girl." Although they mostly recorded their own original material, the band also found success with a 1967 cover of Harry Belafonte's "Island in the Sun" and a take on the Beatles' "Blackbird." It would be futile to pick a single Paragons song as their greatest, but it is hard to imagine a summation of the band's career that did not include "Happy Go Lucky Girl," which Ziggy Marley has selected to appear on his new compilation project, Ziggy Marley in Jamaica, due out July 15.
Boasting one of the earliest skank beats and a piping organ riff, the song's arrangement came courtesy of Skatalites saxophonist Tommy McCook, then a prominent session musician for Duke Reid. The result was a precursor to Lovers rock, the mellow reggae offshoot that found popularity in the 1970s with artists like Bob Marley and Gregory Isaacs.
"Happy Go Lucky Girl"'s title, melody and major-key chorus almost mask the darkness of the lyrics. Serving as reggae's answer to U.S. hits like "Under My Thumb" and "It's a Man's Man's Man's World," the song detailed a chauvinistic narrator's power struggle with the object of his desire. "I have tried my best to change you/Oh how much I'd love to control you," croons Holt before the back-up singers join him on the chorus. The singer's cravings to repress his would-be flame were sung so sweetly that the song's message was lost on some listeners, although the catchy beat and grooving instrumentation were undeniable.
After recording a few more singles and some full-length LP anthologies, Evans and Barrett received scholarships to study in the United States and quit the band. Holt embarked on a highly successful solo career and reunited with his old band mates sporadically, performing with Evans in Jamaica in 1993 and recording a new Paragons album later in the decade. The band re-recorded some of their older songs and released them with better sound quality, becoming the latest in a long line of records that paid tribute to John Holt and the Paragons.