The Jamaicans were a ska

Ska

Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...

/rocksteady

Rocksteady

Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor to ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Maytals and The Paragons. The term rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton...

 trio formed in Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 in 1967, consisting of members Tommy Cowan

Tommy Cowan

Tommy Cowan is a producer and singer, initially working in reggae but later concentrating on gospel, who has been involved in the music business since the 1960s...

, Norris Weir and Martin Williams.

Career

The Jamaicans originally started out as a band known as the Cool Shakes, consisting of Jerry Brown and childhood friend Norris Weir, joined later by Martin Williams. Then Tommy Cowan joined the group to make them a quintet. The group soon changed their name to the Jamaicans, cutting two singles for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle - "Pocket Full of Money" and "Diana". They would also take first place in the Island's Festival Song Contest in 1967 with the rocksteady classic "Ba Ba Boom" (by this time without Jerry in the group), written by Cowan and Weir about the Jamaica Independence Festival

Jamaica Independence Festival

The Jamaica Independence Festival is a celebration of Jamaica's independence, a status gained in 1962.-History:The festival was initiated in 1962 by then Minister of Community Development Edward Seaga, to showcase literary, fine, and performing artists, and to celebrate "things Jamaican"...

. "Ba Ba Boom" was entered in the 1967 Independence Festival Song Competition (now known as the Popular Song Competition), which had been inaugurated by Festival organizers the previous year, and the Jamaicans took home the win that year with their entry, which became their best-known song.

In addition to "Ba Ba Boom", the Jamaicans had another local hit with "Things You Say You Love" and they recorded a cover

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of the Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Mayfield

Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...

 song "Dedicate My Song to You". Another song written and recorded by the trio, "Black Girl", was later covered by the disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

  group Boney M

Boney M

Boney M. is a Eurodisco group created by German record producer Frank Farian. Originally based in Germany, the four original members of the group's official line-up were Jamaicans Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett, Maizie Williams from Montserrat and Bobby Farrell from Aruba...

. The Jamaicans split up in 1972.