It was my late uncle that had a gramophone who played this song. As a mere rural boy who grew up where there was no schooling in that part of South Africa, I just couldn’t believe there was such a person with childish voice intonation that I found hard to believe there were such a real human being with such an unparalleled refined voice. I was just a little boy when I came to fall in love with this piece of a song and it was around late fifties or early sixties. In fact the song was so successful it is credited with giving Island Records, the company that published it which is now a household name in the music industry, its first notable hit. Indeed it was Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island, who personally brought Millie Small over from Jamaica to the UK to record the song. It terms of sales it has sold in excess of 7,000,000 copies around the globe. It performed likewise in Australia, Canada and New Zealand and subsequently was considered the signature song of Mille Small’s career. This track reached number two in both America and Britain. The genre of music Millie’s version of “My Boy Lollipop” is generally classified under is called ska/reggae. Ska is a genre which is commonly known as the predecessor of Jamaican reggae. And whereas reggae has gone on to become a global phenomenon, ska never took off like that. As such this is not only the first songs of that genre to achieve international success but also only one of a handful to ever do so anyway. And even in terms of being classified as a reggae track, it has also proven to be one of its top sellers in music history.
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Millie herself was 17 years old when she recorded her rendition of the song. It was first initially recorded by a singer from Brooklyn named Barbie Gaye. And like Millie Small she was a teenager at the time. “My Boy Lollipop” was written back in the 1950s by Robert Spencer alongside Johnny Roberts.