MILLIE

'MY BOY LOLLIPOP'

Millie Small, My Boy Lollipop

“When he started producing his own music, he [Chris Blackwell, president of fledgling Island Records] came up with a track too hot for Island to handle. It was by Millie Small, a 14-year old girl from Tivoli Gardens, one of the poorest slums of Kingston, and it was called ‘My Boy Lollipop’. Licensed to Phillips, it became an international hit and Pepsi-Cola invited Millie on a promotional tour of Africa and Latin America. Chris went along as chaperone and loved every minute. At the end of the tour, a heroine’s welcome awaited Millie in Kingston. The motorcade wound its way through cheering, flag-waving crowds: this was Jamaica’s first international success following independence. Finally, it reached Millie’s shack in Tivoli. She jumped out of the limo and ran towards her mother with open arms. The older woman backed away fearfully from the most famous person in Jamaica and bowed low. ‘Welcome home, Miss Millie,’ she said, holding out her hand.

In that instant, Chris’s high opinion of himself plummeted: he felt his ambition had estranged a mother and daughter.” 

 -excerpt from Joe Boyd’s book, “White Bicycles”

Acknowledged  by David 'Ram Jam' Rodigan as his first brush with Jamaican reggae, we loved this single and Millie with it. I had thought there were earlier singles we heard that introduced us to the sounds from that part of the world but I grew up with a family who's father was from Trindidad and the sounds coming out of that wonderful house from tin pan calypso to the Might Sparrow, Lord Kitchener et al singing slightly risqué songs may have influenced me earlier than that.