Who recorded it first

The Tide Is High

Not a Blondie original — a 1967 single by The Paragons

Blondie’s 1980 recording was a US and UK No. 1 and is routinely filed as a Blondie song. It is a cover. “The Tide Is High” was written by John Holt and first recorded by his group The Paragons in 1967, produced by Duke Reid for his Treasure Isle label in Kingston — issued in Jamaica on Treasure Isle with “The Tide Is High” up front, and in Britain on Trojan as the B-side of “Only a Smile.” The original was popular in Jamaica and, after U-Roy’s deejay version (1970–71), in Britain, but it went largely unnoticed elsewhere until Blondie picked it up.

The record

Who recorded it first

First recording
“The Tide Is High” — The Paragons
Year
1967
Label
Treasure Isle (Trojan in the UK), produced by Duke Reid
Written by
John Holt

Released Issued in 1967 as a 7-inch single on Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle label in Jamaica, with “The Tide Is High” as the lead side and “Only a Smile” on the flip; the British issue on Trojan is catalogued the other way round, carrying it as the B-side of “Only a Smile.” It also appears on the group’s Treasure Isle album On the Beach.

Charted No international chart placing. It was a hit in Jamaica and, after U-Roy’s deejay version (1970–71), popular in Britain too — but it did not chart in the US or UK.

Hear The Paragons’ 1967 Treasure Isle recording — the original. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated “The Paragons - Topic” channel; the description carries the distributor line “Provided to YouTube by Trojan Records.” Runtime 2:42, matching the 162,000 ms MusicBrainz logs for the Paragons recording (761cbdbf-a2e4-4231-bd61-f3f8b8b30d7d), so this is the 1967 cut and not a later re-recording.

How to hear the trail

The Paragons cut it in 1967 for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle, backed by Tommy McCook and the Supersonics — per Wikipedia’s entry on the song ↗.

John Holt, who wrote it, sang lead on the Paragons record before going solo around 1970 and becoming a major reggae star in his own right — see his biography ↗.

Blondie did not stumble on it at random: Chris Stein heard the Paragons track on a compilation he picked up in England — per American Songwriter’s account of the cover ↗.

Cover databases file every later version, Blondie’s included, beneath the Paragons recording — WhoSampled lists them from the 1967 source ↗.

Covers and versions of “The Tide Is High” on WhoSampled
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Fact-check

Setting the record straight

Blondie’s 1980 chart-topper is so dominant that the song is often assumed to start there. It starts in a Kingston studio in 1967.

The beliefCover, 1980

Blondie

Their version, produced by Mike Chapman for Autoamerican and released on Chrysalis on 31 October 1980, went to No. 1 in the US and the UK. It is a cover of a record that already existed.

The originalFirst recording, 1967

The Paragons

Recorded for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle in Kingston and issued on a 7-inch: it led the Jamaican pressing, while the British Trojan issue carried it as the B-side of “Only a Smile.” Popular in Jamaica, largely unheard elsewhere.

The writerComposition

John Holt

The Paragons’ lead singer wrote it. Publishing registrations, including MusicBrainz, also carry his bandmates Tyrone Evans and Howard Barrett on the composition.

Wrong band entirely: Blondie made it famous in 1980, but The Paragons made it — and John Holt wrote it — in Kingston in 1967.

Context

Why the cover swallowed the original

The Paragons’ record was not a failure — it was a hit in the place it was made. What it never had was distribution. A 7-inch on Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle in 1967 — the lead side at home, the flip of “Only a Smile” when Trojan issued it in Britain — travelled as far as Jamaican sound systems and the British record shops that served West Indian buyers, and no further. U-Roy’s deejay version (1970–71) pushed it further into UK circulation, still inside the same audience.

Blondie came to it from the far end of that same circuit: Chris Stein picked the song up on a compilation while in England. Their version arrived attached to a major label, a hit album and international radio. The song did not get better in 1980; it got a passport. The irony is that the 2002 Atomic Kitten UK No. 1 is now widely understood to be “a cover of Blondie” — a cover of a cover, with the actual first recording another step further out of view.

The chronology, step by step
  • 1967 — The Paragons record “The Tide Is High,” written by John Holt, for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle in Kingston. Tommy McCook and the Supersonics back them; the distinctive violin is played by “White Rum” Raymond.
  • 1967 — It is issued as a 7-inch on Treasure Isle, leading the Jamaican pressing; the British Trojan issue carries it as the B-side of “Only a Smile.”
  • 1970–71 — U-Roy cuts a deejay version, which spreads the tune in Britain. Wikipedia dates the release to 1971; both sides of the Paragons single appear on the 1970 collection Version Galore, and MusicBrainz dates the U-Roy recording to 1970.
  • 31 October 1980 — Blondie release their version as a single on Chrysalis, from the album Autoamerican, produced by Mike Chapman. It goes to No. 1 in the US and the UK.
  • 2002 — Atomic Kitten take a rewritten version to UK No. 1; Kardinal Offishall has a minor hit with his own reading in 2008.
The song did not get better in 1980. It got a passport.

The original recording artist

The Paragons

Jamaican rocksteady vocal group, Kingston

The Paragons were a Kingston vocal group who came up through ska and hit their peak in the rocksteady years, recording for Duke Reid at Treasure Isle from the mid-1960s. The line-up that cut “The Tide Is High” paired lead singer John Holt with Garth “Tyrone” Evans and Howard Barrett. Their Treasure Isle catalogue — “Man Next Door,” “Tonight,” “On the Beach” — has been mined by reggae and pop acts ever since. Holt left for a solo career around 1970 and the group carried on in various forms into the 1980s.

Popularly credited as the original

Blondie

American new wave band, formed in New York in 1974

Blondie recorded “The Tide Is High” with producer Mike Chapman at United Western Recorders in Hollywood for their fifth album, Autoamerican. Released as a single on Chrysalis on 31 October 1980, it became their third US No. 1 and a UK No. 1 as well, topping charts in Canada and New Zealand too. The arrangement — horns, strings, an unhurried lilt — is a genuinely loving reading of a Jamaican record rather than a flattening of it. The only error in the popular memory is chronological: the band found the song, they did not write or first record it.

The songwriter

John Holt

1947–2014, Jamaican singer and songwriter

John Holt was born in Kingston in 1947 and joined The Paragons in the mid-1960s, singing lead and writing much of their best material, including “The Tide Is High.” Duke Reid also cut him on his own at Treasure Isle, and his 1969 solo side “Ali Baba” became one of the most-versioned rhythms in Jamaican music. He went solo full time around 1970 and became one of reggae’s biggest voices, working with producer Bunny Lee; 1,000 Volts of Holt gave him a UK Top 10 hit and his smooth, romantic style helped point the way to lovers rock. Jamaica awarded him the Order of Distinction in 2004. He died in London in 2014.