Kick starting Monday... with The Heptones!

Sometimes, you need to kick start Mondays with a bang!
The 1966 classic "Gunmen Coming to Town" by The Heptones provided that BANG! for me this morning.
It was the third song I heard while walking on the treadmill and it made me quicken my pace for the remainder of the morning.
Fronted by notable vocalist and session bassist Leroy Sibbles, The Heptones enjoyed a lengthy career as one of Jamaica's top vocal groups. Their recorded output encompasses ska through roots reggae, and "Gunmen Coming to Town" kicked it all off.
A rollicking ska number fashioned out of "The William Tell Overture," "Gunmen..." is one of those songs that seem so unique to Jamaica: Effortlessly wedding uplifting music to downright harrowing lyrical narrative.
"Some had the ratchet knife, they were trying to take my life," Sibbles croons, "they were gunmen, gunmen coming to town."
The song serves as a glimpse at a life outside the walls of the island tourist resorts -- a life of dread and homegrown terrorism rooted in religious animosity and poverty.
Again, unique to Jamaica, the song can also fill a dance floor: British mods of the mid-60s claimed this tune as one of their unlikely anthems.
Today, I did as well.