SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)
By:
November 18, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… ska records! PLAYLIST HERE. Series edited by Josh Glenn.
As I listen to Joya Landis’s rocksteady cover of “Angel of the Morning,” produced for Arthur “Duke” Reid’s Treasure Island Records from 1968, I’m aware of its relationships to the versions that became before and after it. In 1967, the year before Landis left her Queens, NY home to record in Jamaica with Reid, the white American singer Evie Sands covered “Angel of the Morning” and offered a folky, sometimes tremulous take on the song, accompanied by acoustic guitar. Sands’ girlish vulnerability is perhaps the leavening for a song that is frankly about sex, and unmarried sex at that. (And don’t get me started on Juice Newton’s 1981 pop country cover of the song, all Fear of Flying gone wrong, with Newton gazing through lace curtains in search of her absent lover, fingers trailing slowly over her brass bed. Her voice the keening of a lover duped.)
In contrast, in Landis’ version, she tackles the song’s story of “the morning after” with a difference that sets it apart. As she swings those lines,
Maybe the sun’s light will be dim
And it won’t matter anyhow
If morning’s echo says we’ve sinned
Well, it was what I wanted now.
Landis’s narrator comes off as frank, confident, even a little playful. Is it the way that Landis’ attractive soprano, clear and without affectation, flirts with the other instruments — the brass and synths, and that heavy, more frankly sexual baseline? Is it her pacing, which does not stop for tears, but moves through the song jauntily, as if dragging out the emotion would slow down the dancers, who are ready to move on to the next tune? Landis’ narration suggests a life of hooking up with minimal guilt, or least where there’s more room to acknowledge the complexity of sexual desire, beyond being its victim. White male rockers were already singing about this. And this was a year where Black American women were recording songs of frank desire: Aretha Franklin recorded “(You Make Me Feel like) a Natural Woman;” and Etta James instructed her man to “Tell Mama” so that she can “take care” of him.
Rocksteady, a slowed down version of ska at its pinnacle of popularity in 1968, was shaped by American soul, and especially doo wop. But there’s something lighter, freer than a lot of doo wop in this song, a swivel of the hips and a swerve from heartache. If you see probably the most produced Image of Joya Landis from this time period, one that accompanied the single “Moonlight Woman,” you get that feeling, too. Landis stands, left foot forward. She wears mid-heeled pumps and pantyhose, a new shade that my mother also used to wear, “Coffee.” Her dress, groovy, if subtle for those psychedelic times, is a scarlet red, with a sporty white hem that reaches mid-thigh. Her head, hair relaxed into a preppy bob, is surrounded by a nimbus of yellow light, more sun than moon. She gives us two thumbs up.
Landis’ rocksteady career with Reid was short, if impactful. After recording “Angel” and a few more hits, including “Moonlight Woman,” and “Kansas City,” Landis, walked away, rejoining her husband and children in Queens, where she continued to perform in nightclubs, and increasingly, for church. Perhaps it was this ability to walk away from the lure of fame that shaped Landis’ interpretation of “Angel of the Morning. Her desire, once satisfied, could be left behind.
SKANK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Lucy Sante on Margarita’s WOMAN COME | Douglas Wolk on Millie’s MAYFAIR | Lynn Peril on Prince Buster’s TEN COMMANDMENTS | Mark Kingwell on The [English] Beat’s TEARS OF A CLOWN | Annie Nocenti on Jimmy Cliff’s MISS JAMAICA | Mariane Cara on The Selecter’s ON MY RADIO | Adam McGovern on The Specials’ GHOST TOWN | Josh Glenn on The Ethiopians’ TRAIN TO SKAVILLE | Susannah Breslin on The [English] Beat’s MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM | Carl Wilson on Prince Buster / Madness’s ONE STEP BEYOND | Carlo Rotella on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ THE IMPRESSION THAT I GET | Rani Som on The Bodysnatchers’ EASY LIFE | David Cantwell on Desmond Dekker’s 007 (SHANTY TOWN) | Francesca Royster on Joya Landis’ ANGEL OF THE MORNING | Mimi Lipson on Folkes Brothers’ / Count Ossie’s OH CAROLINA | Alix Lambert on The Specials’ TOO MUCH TOO YOUNG | Marc Weidenbaum on Dandy Livingstone’s RUDY, A MESSAGE TO YOU | Heather Quinlan on Fishbone’s MA & PA | Will Hermes on The [English] Beat’s WHINE & GRINE / STAND DOWN MARGARET | Peter Doyle on The Skatalites’ GUNS OF NAVARONE | James Parker on The [English] Beat’s SAVE IT FOR LATER | Brian Berger on The Upsetters’ RETURN OF DJANGO | Annie Zaleski on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ SOME DAY I SUPPOSE | Deborah Wassertzug on The Bodysnatchers’ TOO EXPERIENCED | Dan Reines on The Untouchables’ I SPY FOR THE FBI.
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