Song of the Day 5/20: Prince Buster, “Too Hot”

If you don’t like 90-degree highs before Memorial Day, just wait until tonight, when a storm front will move through and leave us with highs in the low 60s throughout the weekend. Just another 30-degree swing in 24 hours. Climate change, or Jewish space lasers? Opinions vary.

Cecil Campbell, better known as Prince Buster, influenced the course of Jamaican music in the 1960s, when he was in the forefront of the ska and rocksteady movements as both a performer and producer. But he dropped out of the music scene in 1973 just as reggae became a First World breakthrough, so his prodigious recorded output is seldom heard in the U.S.

Rock audiences were exposed to Prince Buster during the late-’70s ska revival in the UK, when covers of his hits made the set lists of bands like the Clash and Madness, who took their name from one of his songs. The Specials included their version of “Too Hot” on their eponymous debut album in 1979.