1977 Frankie Zhivago Young “The Age Of Flying High” on Alwa

There’s an elaborate inscription on the back of this record in blue pen from Frankie to a woman he clearly wanted to get with, and here’s hoping it worked, since the dude fully deserves to revel in all the pleasures of life just for making such a wide open album. I mean, when you shuffle to the counter at your local spot and ask the hippie clerk with the photographic memory wearing a Pere Ubu shirt, “Can you recommend a groove-based distinctively voiced reggae joint that’s really Northern Soul in a different package?” and after he rolls his eyes for a while and pretends to leaf through a few grey market Roxy Music boots, and finally sighs with the weight of all the things that you don’t know about music on his shoulders, and grudgingly says “Frankie ZY”, and points to “Age Of Flying High” on the wall with its $400 price tag, you know he is simultaneously completely correct about the music, and a healthy $349 off on the pricing. Especially since there are three pretty lame covers, including “My Eyes Adore You”, “No Woman, No Cry” AND “Mr. Bojangles”.

​Yeah, we don’t do Bojangles here at Castle Wax as a general policy, and while I love Bob as an icon and cultural signpost, I’ve heard all his songs so many times I no longer need to hear them any times. If I gotta make my way to Babylon, it won’t be by bus. More likely the Bad Brains tour van. Anyway, the local OG action in Bahamas is either Junkanoo or Goombay, to which FZY adds riddims out of Kingston and R&B outta Miami to his distinctive, idiosyncratic sound, which is mostly cool as shit, especially the three uptempo bangers. Also, Frank is backed by The Boris Gardiner Happening of the infamous “Every Star Is A Star” title/soundtrack, which is an offshoot of Boris Gardiner & The Love People, rooting the entire bag more in straight reggae than it might otherwise have been. Slick action!