Boom! This is what we want.
Blackheath Books have come up trumps with a new poetry chapbook.
What sets Keep The Faith apart is the all the poems are born from Londoner Tim
Wells’s suedehead passion for soul and reggae. His enthusiasm for his subject
is infectious and after turning the last page had me reaching for the nearest Sam Cooke album and a
clutch of Trojan releases.
Wells deftly joins the dots between black American and
Jamaican artists in Chicago and Kingston, who created music as their way out of
hard times, and how this resonates with British white kids from Dalston who
use these sacred records to dance their escape from the drudgery of the
working week, dressed in their Saturday night finest. He captures the excitement of living for the
weekend, that moment the needle hits the record, of music as a shared
experience, and of being in possession of the secret key which unlocks these
joyful moments to those in the know.
The twenty poems are all suitably clean, sharp, smart and
to the point. Their direct style and subject matter attractive to folk more
likely to be found scouring second-hand record shops than the poetry section
of Waterstones.
Published as a very limited, numbered edition of 200, Keep The Faith (surely it’s time for moratorium
on those three words and the associated clenched – or rather clichéd - fist)
should sell out fast, so get in quick as soon it’ll be easier to find a copy of
The Wailers “Diamond Baby” on Coxsone. Highly recommended for suedeheads, mods,
soulies or anyone with a passion for music beyond the midnight hour.
Keep The Faith by
Tim Wells is published and available from Blackheath Books, priced £8.
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