Eric Donaldson – Cherry Oh Baby

"Cherry Oh Baby" is a song written and originally recorded by Eric Donaldson, released in 1971 on Dynamic Sounds, a Trojan Records subsidiary, after he had already tried his hand in the 1960s with a vocal group called the West Indians and later the Kilowatts. Produced by Bunny Lee and Tommy Cowan with backing from Inner Circle, the song won that year's Jamaica Festival Song Competition, the first of what would become six festival wins across his career, and became Dynamic's biggest selling release. The Rolling Stones recorded a version for their 1976 album, Black and Blue, though the song became far better known through UB40's 1983 cover, which reached number twelve on the UK Singles Chart the following year. More than thirty cover versions have been recorded since, cementing the song's riddim as one of the most reused in reggae history, alongside Donaldson's other festival hits like "Land of My Birth."