Millie Small - 1965 - Millie FLAC

 I'm In Love Again/Don't You Know/I Love The Way You Love/See You Later, Alligator

 R.I.P. Millie


Jamaican teenager Millie Small stunned the music business by reaching number two in both the U.S. and the U.K. with "My Boy Lollipop" in 1964.

Born Millicent Small in Clarendon, she was the daughter of an overseer on a sugar plantation (her reported date of birth varies from 1942 to 1948), and she was one of the very few female singers in the early ska era in Clarendon. She was already recording in her teens for Sir Coxsone Dodd's Studio One label with Roy Panton (as Roy & Millie), with a hit behind her in that capacity ("We'll Meet"), when Chris Blackwell discovered her and brought her to England in late 1963. Her fourth recording, "My Boy Lollipop," cut in London by a group of session musicians that included guitarist Ernest Ranglin (and, according to some accounts, Rod Stewart on harmonica) and featuring her childlike, extremely high-pitched vocals, was the first (and indeed, one of the few) international ska hits. It remains one of the biggest-selling reggae or ska discs of all time, with more than seven million sales.

Small, who was known as "the Blue Beat Girl" on her album, was perceived as a one-shot novelty artist from the start because of her unusual, high-register vocals (which actually owed a lot to Shirley Goodman of the '50s New Orleans R&B duo Shirley & Lee), and she only made the Top 40 one more time, with the "My Boy Lollipop" sound-alike "Sweet William." She did cut an entire album around the two hits (and video clips exist of Small miming to "My Boy Lollipop" and another single, "Henry"), which also includes the first of several of her covers of Fats Domino material ("I'm in Love Again"), with whom she later recorded an album.

After her contract with Island ran its course, Small recorded for Trojan Records; her first single for the label was an interpretation of Nick Drake's "Mayfair," but it was the B-side, "Enoch Power," that received the most attention for its potent criticism of the anti-immigration stance of British right-wing politician Enoch Powell. Small retired from music in the early 1970s and died on May 5, 2020, following a stroke.

Little Millie - 1964 - Millie And Her Boyfriends

 Roy And Millie - Never Say Goodbye/Roy And Millie - We'll Meet/Jackie & Millie - Since I Met You Baby/Owen And Mille - I Don't Want You



Millicent Dolly May "Millie" Small, CD (born 6 October 1946), is a Jamaican singer-songwriter, best known for her 1964 cover version of "My Boy Lollipop".


Small was born at Gibralter in Clarendon, Jamaica, the daughter of a sugar plantation overseer. Like many Jamaican singers of the era, her career began by winning the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour talent contest at the age of twelve. Wishing to pursue a career as a singer she moved to live with relatives in Love Lane in Kingston. In her teens, she recorded a duet with Owen Gray ("Sugar Plum") in 1962 and later recorded with Roy Panton for Coxsone Dodd's Studio One record label as 'Roy and Millie'. They had a local hit with "We'll Meet".
 

 These hits brought her to the attention of Chris Blackwell who became her manager and legal guardian, who in late 1963 took her to Forest Hill, London, where she was given intensive training in dancing and diction.[2] There she made her fourth recording, an Ernest Ranglin rearrangement of "My Boy Lollipop", a song originally released by Barbie Gaye in late 1956. Released in March 1964, Small's version was a massive hit, reaching number two both in the UK Singles Chart and in the US Billboard Hot 100, and number three in Canada. It also topped the chart in Australia. Initially it sold over 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. Including singles sales, album usage and compilation inclusions, the song has since sold more than seven million copies worldwide. Her later recordings, "Sweet William" and "Bloodshot Eyes", also charted in the UK, at numbers 30 and 48 respectively, and "Sweet William" also peaked at number 40 in the US, her only other American chart single. "My Boy Lollipop" re-charted in the UK in 1987 at no. 46.

"My Boy Lollipop" was doubly significant in British pop history. It was the first major hit for Island Records (although it was actually released on the Fontana label because Chris Blackwell, Island's owner, did not want to overextend its then-meagre resources; in the US, the record appeared on the Smash Records subsidiary of Mercury Records), and Small was the first artist to have a hit that was recorded in the bluebeat style (she was billed as "The Blue Beat Girl" on the single's label in the US). This was a music genre that had recently emerged from Jamaica, and was a direct ancestor of reggae.

She appeared on the 1964 Beatles TV special Around The Beatles.

 On 6 March 1965, Small appeared on the Australian television programme Bandstand. This was as part of a concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Kings Domain, Melbourne, part of the Moomba Festival. She performed "My Boy Lollipop", "What Am I Living For" and "See You Later, Alligator". Small continued to tour and perform up to the early 1970s.

On 6 August 2011, the 49th anniversary of Jamaica's independence, the Governor-General created Small a Commander in the Order of Distinction, for her contribution to the Jamaican music industry. The award was accepted on her behalf by former Prime Minister Edward Seaga.

In July 2012 she stated that she had been recording again and planned to perform in Jamaica for the first time in over 40 years