The name Aswad comes from the Arabic word for ‘black’. Aswad got together in London’s Ladbroke Grove in 1975 and signed to Island Records a year later. They were well liked in Reggae circles and had a big enough reputation to be picked as backing musicians by touring Jamaican reggae legends like Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, and Bob Marley. Commercial success came finally in 1988 with the album ‘Distant Thunder’. They covered a Tina Turner B side ‘Don’t Turn Around’ which went to Number 1. The track had been written for Turner as a rock ballad by Diane Warren who said: ‘ I remember being so depressed because it wasn’t on her album and I remember hearing the album and thinking that my song is better than anything on the album. When Aswad heard it and did it reggae style, you could say they screwed around with it, but my, what they did with it was great.”