The Ruts

The Ruts / Ruts DC are an English reggae-influenced punk rock band, notable for the 1979 UK Top 10 hit "Babylon's Burning", and an earlier single "In a Rut", which was not a hit but was highly regarded and regularly played by BBC Radio 1 disc jockey John Peel.

Career

Formation and early days

The Ruts were formed on 18 August 1977. The band consisted of singer Malcolm Owen, guitarist Paul Fox, bass player John "Segs" Jennings and drummer Dave Ruffy and were active in anti-racist causes as part of the Misty in Roots People Unite collective based in Southall, West London and playing several benefits for Rock Against Racism.

Schoolboy friends Fox and Owen shared a mutual interest in music. In the early 1970s they lived together in a commune on the Isle of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales, where they performed their own musical compositions with Paul Mattocks, who played flute, guitar and keyboards and later became The Ruts' first drummer.

Post Office telephone engineer Jennings met record shop manager Ruffy in 1976 and became interested in punk after discussing the latter's Ramones' T-shirt. Meanwhile, Owen's interest in punk was piqued when he saw the Sex Pistols playing live. At the time, Fox was playing with Ruffy in a funk band, Hit and Run, which included J.D. Nicholas who went on to join The Commodores in the U.S and sixteen-year-old saxophone player Gary Barnacle, who later played on several Ruts songs. Hit and Run were a covers band who released one single, a version of Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs' 1965 hit "Wooly Bully". The Ruts initial history is described in an audio interview with Jennings, conducted by Alan Parker, which appears on the album Bustin' Out.

The Rude Boys

The Rude Boys are a 1990s R&B/vocal group from Cleveland, Ohio.

The Rude Boys

A 90s R&B vocal group from Cleveland,Ohio. Joe N Little III aka Joey Beanz Little, Edward Lee Banks, Larry Marcus and Melvin Sephus were discovered by Gerald Levert who got them signed to Atlantic records. Their 1990 LP, Rude Awakenings, included the single "Written All Over Your Face," which made it to #1 on the Billboard R&B charts and #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, It also won 1991 Billboard Award for R&B Single of the Year." Are You Lonely" also reached #1 on Billboards R&B charts. Larry Marcus is a cousin of B.B. King.

The Discovery

Joe N Little III along with Edward (Buddy) Lee Banks was discovered by Gerald LeVert singing in a local night club in Cleveland, Ohio, LeVert expressed that he wanted to further hear them sing again and possibly sign the two, at that time both were the lead singers of a local R&B group along with members Larry (Bingo) Marcus (cousin of B.B. King) and Melvin Sephus, after meeting the other group members and working in studio with them, in 1988 LeVert presented the group to Sylvia Rhone then Senior VP of Atlantic Records and in turn got them signed to the label.

The Crack

The Crack is The Ruts first album, released in 1979 and containing the UK hit singles: "Babylon's Burning" (Number seven on the UK chart in June 1979) and "Something That I Said" (No. 29 in September 1979). The white-reggae "Jah War", which was written in the aftermath of the Southall unrest and the over-use of force by the Metropolitan Police Service's Special Patrol Group in 1979, was also released as a single but didn't make the UK chart.

The cover picture by artist John H Howard shows the members of the group (from left to right: Malcolm Owen, Paul Fox, Dave Ruffy and Segs - who is perusing a copy of Exchange & Mart) seated on a large sofa, around them are some of their contemporaries such as Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible of The Damned (top right corner), Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69 (bottom right), while Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are standing behind Malcolm, John Peel appears to be doing something to a schoolgirl (in uniform) with a bar of chocolate on the left hand side, Jimi Hendrix looks on from the right, the wives and girlfriends of the band members appear in various poses, as does the band's roadie Mannah (seen from the back) who assisted in writing the song "S.U.S" which deals with the vagrancy act, widely used by London's Metropolitan Police Service in the late 1970s. The astronomer Patrick Moore looks on somewhat disapprovingly from the left. The album sleeve contains a dedication to Jimmy O'Neal, one of the organizers of the Deeply Vale Free Festival, where the band had their beginnings.