Pluto Shervington

Born Leighton Shervington in August 1950 in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, the singer joined the showband Tomorrow’s Children during his early twenties. Fellow band members Ernie Smith and Tinga Stewart had already scored commercial successes with the heavy-patois tracks ‘Duppy Or A Gunman’ and ‘Play De Music’, respectively, both of which reached the charts. Taking his cue from those releases, Shervington delivered the hit ‘Ram Goat Liver’ followed by ‘Dat’; the pair presented paradoxical tales of hardship wrapped in comedic arrangements that sailed past many listeners. Issued in the UK in 1976 on the fledgling Opal label, ‘Dat’ climbed into the Top 5. Trojan Records, which held the licence for his earlier single ‘Ram Goat Liver’, secured Shervington a second UK chart placing when the track reached number 35 two months later. After relocating to Miami, Florida, to pursue further recordings, he re-entered the international market in 1982 with ‘Your Honour’, a UK Top 20 entry. Neither the subsequent single ‘I Man Bitter’ nor the accompanying album achieved comparable commercial results.