The Artists on the Frequency — the station's own singers, bands and sound systems. One act at a time; pick a name to hear who they are.
Garratt Lane
The sharpest thing in Tooting — an alarm clock with a brass section.
Garratt Lane are five people from the Tooting end of the road it's named after, formed the week the Lido reopened with a tonic suit and a fiver between them. Del sings — sharp, funny, front of the beat, a mouth on her and a suit two sizes too small — and writes the words on the back of betting slips between shifts at the Castle on the High Street. Winston's trumpet holds the horn line together; Sandra took the organ sound with her when she stopped going to church; Ranjit walks the basslines home from the Broadway and never plays the same fill twice; Mickey counts everything in out loud whether you want him to or not.
The songs are Monday morning under the awnings at Tooting Broadway waiting on a bus that's showing twelve minutes and lying, the 7:50 into town with somebody's paper on your shoe, Garratt Lane market on a Saturday with wages in the pocket, and a hot corner where they chose to walk it back. Two-tone as it was actually lived in a mixed manor — nobody's slogan, everybody's bus stop. Play them loud in the morning.
Key tracksBroadway in the Rain · Mind the Doors · Garratt Lane Saturday · Two Sizes Too Small
- Roots
- Tooting / Garratt Lane, SW17, South West London
- Lineup
- Del Whitmore, lead vocal · Winston Blake, trumpet, musical director · Sandra Okafor, Vox organ · Ranjit Dhillon, bass · Mickey Doyle, drums
- In the lineage of
- The Selecter, The Beat, The Bodysnatchers, The Specials