The Pioneers (band) - Career - The Pioneers Revived: 1967-68

The Pioneers Revived: 1967-68

Sydney began working at Joe Gibbs' record shop, and through Gibbs, returned to recording. At his first session (to record "Give Me Little Loving"), with the other members of The Pioneers gone, Crooks recruited Jackie Robinson, who he found outside the studio just before recording began. Crooks later said of the encounter:

"When I was about to voice the song I looked outside the studio and I saw a little boy sitting on a stone. I said 'Hey, come here man, you can sing?' He sung the harmony for 'Give Me Little Loving' and his name was Jackie Robinson. After that I said to him 'You are one of the Pioneers from today' and he became the lead singer of the Pioneers".

The new version of The Pioneers enjoyed success with singles such as "Longshot" (a track written and produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry on Gibbs' behalf about a long-lived but unsuccessful racehorse), "Jackpot", "Catch the Beat", and "Pan Yu Machete" (an attack on Perry, who left Gibbs in 1968 to start working on his own productions). Crooks and Robinson also recorded as The Soul Mates in 1967. The group parted ways with Gibbs after an argument and moved on to work with Leslie Kong, the first recording for Kong being "Samfie Man", a song about a confidence trickster, which topped the Jamaican singles chart.