* En anglais uniquement
Much like
UB40, American reggae band
Big Mountain brought a very commercialized version of Jamaican music to the American mainstream when their cover of
Peter Frampton's "Baby, I Love Your Way" reached the Top Ten in early 1994. To the band's credit, though, its three albums contain reggae roots music combined with only several R&B-ish covers, and the lineup includes two Jamaicans with excellent credentials: rhythm guitarist
Tony Chin and drummer
Santa Davis -- both of whom played with
Peter Tosh's band and
the Soul Syndicate.
Big Mountain were originally formed in San Diego as the Rainbow Warriors. After several years of dizzying lineup changes and two name changes -- first to Shiloh and finally to
Big Mountain -- the group settled around vocalist/guitarist
Quino, with rhythm guitarist Jerome Cruz, drummers Gregory Blakney and
Lance Rhodes, keyboard player Manfred Reinke, and bassist
Lynn Copeland. That lineup released
Wake Up on the Quality label in 1992 and charted "Touch My Light" early the following year. The single reached number 51 in America, but only one year later
Big Mountain began to experiment with several different guitarists. After several changes,
Tony Chin became available and joined
Quino and
Copeland with new additions
Santa Davis,
James McWhinney (percussion), and keyboard players
Billy Stoll and
Michael Hyde. During sessions for their second album, movie producer
Ron Fair approached
Big Mountain about recording a cover of "Baby, I Love Your Way" for his upcoming movie Reality Bites. Included on the soundtrack and the group's 1994
Unity album, the single reached number six in the U.S. and became a worldwide hit.
Despite
Big Mountain's success on the commercial pop charts, most of the reggae community remained faithful to the band; the group headlined two consecutive Reggae Sunsplash festivals in Jamaica during massive world tours that crisscrossed Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Indonesia. Third album
Resistance was released in 1995, followed two years later by
Free Up. ~ John Bush