When Ali Campbell was a kid, he walked around clutching an African Herbsman album that proved to be a sign of things to come.
“That album was my prized possession,” said Campbell, lead singer of the reggae band UB40, during a recent phone interview from his home in England. “That is the quintessential reggae album.”
Growing up in an area of Birmingham, Campbell was surrounded by many ethnicities and fell in love with the reggae music he heard ringing through the streets.
“I thought everyone loved reggae until I went to secondary school,” he said. “All of my peers were listening to Gary Glitter and David Bowie. But I was into Motown and was a Jackson 5 fantatic and loved Stevie Wonder.”
A group of Campbell’s friends got together, formed UB40 and started to play the music they were hearing around the neighborhood.
Unlike some bands that toil and grind on the road for years with little recognition, Campbell said they were only 12 gigs in when Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders first spotted them. “We were playing at this little club called the Rock Garden. She invited us on her nationwide tour and that was like 35 shows, which was more shows than we’d actually done in our whole experience.”
The band released their first single, “Food For Thought,” about Martin Luther King Jr., while on that sold-out tour and never looked back.
After that came several albums, including 1983’s “Labour of Love,” which spawned the massive hit “Red Red Wine”; “Rat in the Kitchen” in 1986, with the popular title song; and “Promises and Lies” in 1993 which held the No. 1 song, “(I Can’t Help) Falling in Love With You.”
Campbell is both humbled and blown away by UB40’s staying power.
“They call us a heritage band now and I’m quite happy to be called a heritage band,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve been involved with reggae music longer than Bob Marley was, which just seems ridiculous to me.”
When it comes to curating setlists, Campbell said they look to social media platforms to clue in on what fans want to hear at the shows.
“We do it for the audience and to make them happy,” he said. “That’s why people are coming to the show, to hear the hits they know and love.”
UB40
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 27, and Friday, July 28
Where: Pala Casino Spa and Resort, 11154 Highway 76, Pala
Tickets: $45-$65
Information: 877-946-7252, palacasino.com
