“This Generation Rules the nation with version”

Before the fame

In a way, the Musical Youth story has some similarities to the Jackson Five story. There’s a father who used to play in a band and who is an important factor behind the group’s success, and there’s a little singer who is undoubtedly the eye catcher of the group. Not to forget family relations involved in the group, but most of all the fact that there are five talented young guys who take over the world by storm.

It all actually started in Jamaica in 1962, when Frederick (Freddie) Waite formed The Techniques, together with Winston Riley. Slim Smith and Franklyn White. Years later, in Birmingham, England, Freddie’s sons Freddie Junior (better known as Junior) and Patrick seemed to have inherited their father’s musical talent and their father –like Joseph Jackson- supported the boys’ musical ambitions by teaching them to play their instruments. It started with a plastic drum kit that seven year old Junior got for Christmas, which made Patrick kind of jealous because Junior had the drums and he had nothing. So Patrick got an old bass guitar from his dad on which he could play.

Freddie Waite was a good friend of the Grant family and taught Kelvin Grant to play guitar, while Michael practiced very hard to play keyboard. In 1979 the Grants and the Waites decided to form a band. They practised at the Saltley Music Workshop (remember “We used to do it at the musical workshop” from “The Youth Of Today”?) and this is where their first single “Political/Generals” commenced. The double A-sided single was recorded in 1981 to raise funds for the Saltley Music Workshop and featured Freddie Waite Sr. on vocals. The single had clearly political references and on the “Political” side was engraved ‘straight to Thatcher’s head from Fred’. The world famous English DJ John Peel started to play the single regularly and they even did a four-track live session for his show.

Soon after the appearance in John Peel’s radio show, they got a call from Charlie Eyre, a talent scout, who heard the show and persuaded MCA Records to sign the band. This was april 1982 and soon afterwards Freddie Waite decided that it didn’t fit that he was the lead singer of Musical Youth and suggested that the boys find someone their own age as a lead singer. Junior told the others that he knew someone who might be interested and one night when Junior walked home with Dennis Seaton, he asked Dennis if he would join the band. Dennis had seen the band perform and really loved them but never even dreamt of joining the band. He sang in an other band at that moment, but wasn’t really satisfied with the band’s quality and wanted to leave. Dennis did sort of an audition and all the members were soon convinced.

From here the rest is said to be history, but it’s not. Browsing the internet, it looks like no one really knows the full story, so we’ll try and tell some more that others don’t. Of course everybody remembers that Musical Youth had a huge hit with “Pass The Dutchie” worldwide. Doesn’t everybody start to sing “Pass The Dutchie” whenever you name Musical Youth? Don’t these people remember the other hits? We’ll try and sum it up and even tell you what happened afterwards.

The fame

Though the boys had been working hard for years to accomplish what they finally got, it was a big surprise to them to end up topping the charts. They had got on a plane in London for an appearance on the UK TV show Razamatazz, knowing that “Pass The Dutchie” had entered the charts at number 26 the week before. Once they stepped off the plane in Newcastle, they didn’t know what was happening to them, finding a police guard to protect them, as there was a sea of photographers and pressmen waiting for England’s new musical sensation. In The Netherlands (or Holland if you like), they did almost exactly the same, charting at 29 in the first week, up to 11 the next week and then to 2 and ending at the number one spot, where they remained for four weeks. This was most probably due to their appearance in a youth TV show, their first trip abroad, and a huge success, because the youthful audience was screaming for more. The boys couldn’t do more than the two songs they performed that day, as their time was up and the program was fully packed.

The success, of course, didn’t stop after “Dutchie”, of course there was “Youth Of Today” as a follow up single, followed by “Never Gonna Give You Up”, “Heartbreaker” and of course their album “The Youth Of Today”. In 1983 came the second album “Different Style!”, which really was quite a different style, because it was more disco-influenced and even had guest appearances of none other than Jody Watley and Donna Summer plus a song penned by Stevie Wonder.

While recording this album in Los Angeles, the boys got the chance to meet many of their idols, including Mr T. (who was well known for his role as B.A. Baracus in The A-Team back then), Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. The new recordings saw them in the international charts again at least two times, the first time being their first single off the album: “Tell Me Why”. The second chart success was a duet with one of the superstars the boys had been recording with in Los Angeles: Donna Summer, this was, of course, the song “Unconditional Love”.

Though “Different Style!” had some fantastic songs and a high standard production, the singles, as well as the album, didn’t come close to the success Musical Youth had with their first effort. It might be due to the disco-influences, which were probably too far from the sunny reggae sounds of “Youth”, it might also be because of lack of publicity, marketing, support from the record company, who will tell? Fact is, after this album just one new single was released. This was the Eddy Grant written and produced “Let’s Go To The Moon” in 1984. The single flopped unmercifully, which looks to have been the final push for Dennis to pursue a solo career.

After the fame

In 1985 Musical Youth split, Dennis left the band for a solo career and recorded an album for the German label ‘Bellaphon’. The album was called “Imagine That”, something Dennis used to say a lot those days. It contained 10 songs, 7 of which were written or co- written by Dennis himself. Two of them were written by Dennis and Junior, and two by Stevie Wonder, which were also produced by Stevie. Everything became normal after that, the boys finished their schools and got jobs. Michael was involved in an R&B group called 5:AM, which released a few records on Pete Waterman’s PWL Records and later founded 5AM Records, which is mainly focused on gospel music. The 5AM production team also remixed tracks for the likes of Usher, Mariah Carey, Kelly Rowland and Busta Rhymes.

Sadly enough, Patrick Waite died February 13, 1993 while awaiting a trial. Lots of different stories go around about this, from Patrick dying in police custody to even being shot. At least it shows that you don’t have to believe all that’s written, like we’re too much used to. Patrick died at home of heart problems, awaiting court appearance.

Musical Youth were about to reform at that particular time and you can imagine why this didn’t happen then. In the years after, Junior suffered from a nervous breakdown from which he probably won’t recover. It seems that Kelvin has also never been able to cope with the short lived career Musical Youth had.

In 2001, Musical Youth reformed: Michael Grant and Dennis Seaton found inspiration to reunite and take the legacy of Musical Youth into the 21st century. They were set to perform at the English ‘Here & Now’ tour, which features performances by many great artists from the 80’s. Due to the 9/11 attacks, the tour was cancelled and a new tour with Musical Youth hasn’t taken place yet.

In July 2004, a new release by Musical Youth saw the light of day: “Pretty Woman” by Pato Banton & Musical Youth was released by Numious Music.

Short Biography