It is hard to believe, but the Police struggled to become successful at first. Roxanne for instance (not on this album), failed to make the charts on first release (and is now one of the most famous Police songs). Regatta de Blanc means 'white reggae' and that is, of course, not a coincidental name. The music of the Police, originally a punk wave band (!) was injected with reggae influences as well although that shifted more to jazz influences in the years to follow.
Not that strange if you know that Sting (Andy Sumner) besides being a teacher, was already playing in jazz-rock bands on the side. In fact Sting and Stewart Copeland (son of a CIA agent) met in a jazz club in London.
They started out playing in clubs, originally with Henry Padovani as guitarist, but he was replaced with Gordon Summers.
Regatta de Blanc contains a couple of big hits (Message In a Bottle, Bring On the Night, Walking On the Moon). Songs like 'On any other day' and 'It's Alright For You' are still more to the punk/wave side. In 'Bring On the Night' and 'Does Everyone Stare' jazz influences are already recognizable. But the biggest hits from the album were the ones with reggae influences (Walking On the Moon, Message In a Bottle).
A lesser known track from the album with clearly a lot of reggae juice in it is this one:
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