Desmond Dekker

Get up in the morning

Slaving for bread, sir

So that every mouth can be fed

Poor me, the Israelite

Desmond Dekker -- who was born Desmond Adolphus Dacres in 1941 -- died on this date in 2006.  This ska song was the first truly Jamaican song to be a hit in the United States.  I vividly remember hearing "Israelites" on the radio in 1968.  I liked it, but I thought it was one of the oddest records I had ever heard.