Story of the Song | Parkes records 'Love Has Found It's Way' with Dennis Brown

Bass guitarist and leader of Lloyd Parkes and We The People Band, Lloyd Parkes, mentally flips through an immense catalogue of recordings as the outfit heads towards marking 44 years on stage and in studio. Naturally, many of them are with the late singer Dennis Brown, with whom the band partnered extensively. Parks counts Love Has Found It's Way as a "reggae classic" because of "the melody, the arrangement, the chord structure."

It is the title track of Brown's 1982 album for American A&M Records and was released as a single on July 3, 1982. Love Has Found It's Way peaked at number 42 in its ninth week on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart. Before that, the member of We The People Band first heard Brown sing it in Joe Gibbs' studio on Retirement Crescent, starting with:

"Love has found its way

In our hearts today.

Love has found its way.

In our hearts today.

When your love is beautiful

There's nothing, nothing

that can go wrong.

When two hearts beat together

It's like an everlasting song.

It's like an everlasting song

The moon shines bright

over yonder

And it makes me feel so fine.

I'm so thankful, so thankful, baby

That Jah has made you mine.

I'm so thankful that Jah has made you mine"

Parkes said it was easy for the musicians to create the track during the session as "Dennis Brown has a melodious voice. Any musician can tell you when him walk in and start."

Adding to Parkes' ability to create bass lines is his being a singer, officially, among his standout recordings.

On hearing Love Has Found It's Way for the first time, Parkes' response was, "This sound good - especially when we pick up the melody and everybody get the idea and we get creative." When the song was complete, he said he felt "they had a hit song.

"Sometimes you record songs and the one you believe in don't hit. But sometimes you can know it is a hit song. The singer is good, the lyrics is good, the melody is good."

Love Has Found It's Way did not take long to record. With Errol Thompson as engineer, Parkes said the accustomed approach was to record a song twice, the second take as insurance in case it could be done better. The reported reaction of an American R&B singer heralded the success of Love Has Found It's Way in the USA. "I understand that when they took it to A&M, Jeffrey Osbourne said, 'This Jamaican guy is a balladeer'," Parkes recalled. Osbourne's catalogue includes On The Wings of Love and You Should Be Mine.

Having played Love Has Found It's Way at Brown's concerts in the United States and Jamaica, among other countries, Parkes said the strong favourable reaction is the same. He has strong memories of them performing it at the Inseparable series of concerts in Kingston, featuring Dennis Brown and his guests. And, since Brown's death in 1999, Lloyd Parkes and We The People Band has played the song with another standout Jamaican singer - Freddie McGregor.

"Dennis is one of Freddie's favourite singers. He did a good job," Parkes said.