Reggae Music Talk

It’s got to be relatively frustrating to score a singular hit and subsequently not really be known for too much else.

A shockingly slim portion of the public knows who Devo is. But damn near everyone is familiar with “Whip It.” That track was released pretty close to thirty years ago at this point with the band continuing on for another clutch of albums before heading off into different directions. Member’s longstanding work in various art related avenues notwithstanding, they’ll probably always be the “Whip It” band. That’s how it goes. Read more

Folks that would wind up producing some of  the legitimately classic slabs of reggae and dub during JA music’s golden age at one time or another worked as electricians or as engineers. From the knob twittering and soldering together of wires and more wires apparently came some sort of insight into how to work out good music. Occasionally these electrically inclined folks weren’t granted enough renown – Errol Thompson, for instance, is better known for his middling singing than the production work that he put in along side Joe Gibbs.

But regardless of whose known for what, the tandem of Gibbs and Thompson were able to craft some of the deepest and most sensible – in contrast to the work of Lee Perry and the Scientist – dubs to be recorded during the latter portion of the ‘70s. Read more

Here go two completely unrelated album reviews from a different decade. While Mike Brooks should be enshrined in some reggae music hall of fame, the Slackers’ Peculiar might actually represent a low point for the New Yawk, NewYawk band.

Mike Brooks
The Earth is the Fullness
(Moll Selekta, 2004)

Jamaican music is a very mysterious thing. The give and take between American and Jamaican culture has gone under-appreciated for quite some time now. Originally, at the time of the island’s independence, ska was born from a stew of Motown and jazz. Since that time the evolution of that music has really changed the face of the world. Firstly, regardless of what any scholar says, rap comes from Jamaica. Nowhere on earth was anyone chanting overtop of a record before the deejays from the Jamdown. And perhaps even more importantly, the island gave fame to Bob Marley, who you should consider the most famous musician in the world (Elvis who?). While Marley is the most easily recognizable, a producer that he worked with, Lee Perry, produced innumerable tracks from his Black Ark studio. Some of the earliest efforts appear here. Mike Brooks, falsetto and all, runs through twelve tracks of Jah praising material. While the lyrics are bound to seem repetitive, at least they have some purpose. One standout, “Money,” boasts the line, “Money buy material things/But good friend is better than pocket money.” True. Amusing and scientifically inaccurate “Good Herb” borrows from Peter Tosh in an ode to the collie weed. But regardless of the lyrical shortcomings, each track on this slab serves up solid rhythms courtesy of Harry J, Lee Perry, Prince Far I and a few others. Foundling label Moll-Selekta gives the world another worthwhile slab of roots. So far, they each of the imprint’s releases are gold. Read more

This was pretty rare apparently. But it seems that everything sees re-issue nowadays...That's a good thing, though...

Stevie Wonder's obviously an incredible talent, but this cover isn't too shabby.

Average dub, but still satisfying...The images that accompany it all are just as entertaining.

The Anglo/American fascination with music from the Caribbean dates back to Joseph Spence, a blues styled acoustic guitar player from the ‘40s, and probably before that. But in Spence’s wake, there’ve been countless groups and players that have sought to engender whatever vibe comes from those island nations and their music.

Jamaica, as much as anywhere else apart from Cuba, has seen a spotlight shone on its music which resulted in one of the most widely recognizable personages in music – Bob Marley. And while Marley is by no stretch of the imagination the best representative of all musical stuffs from JA, the fact that he spawned hordes of impersonators is worth noting. Read more

Being credited with supplying a label with some touted hit during the early days of a genre should enable a singer or musician to become a well recognized part of the any scene. Of course, external factors usually preclude anything akin to smooth sailing in the music industry, which is obviously littered with sharks and predators of every sort.

So it’s only the most talented – or savvy folks – that wind up becoming anything that people recall years on.

The way that people recall the past is also a curious thing. And while all of this applies to David Isaacs, who recorded a cover of a Stevie Wonder tune for Studio One during the late ‘60s, but didn’t really wind up impacting reggae music and the culture that surrounded it until the mid to late eighties, it does so unfairly. Read more

Jamaican music was always – and will remain to a certain extent – tied to the tradition of soul music that the Motown and Stax labels were churning out during the middle part of the ‘60s and into the ‘70s. Of course, there were other influences on JA music, but with unwieldy list of covers that singers and musicians ran through on the island, it’s easy to hear as much soul music as jazz or any other genre.

Boris Gardiner might not today be one of the most visible proponents of JA music – unless you’re a nerdly, pasty white collector type – but that doesn’t mean that the man’s work was any less stunning than his counterparts at home or his musical heroes in the States. Read more

Lynn Taitt just passed away. And it’s in no small way that I defer to his talents over almost any other jazz inflected guitarist that work from the JA music scene. That being said, Ernest Ranglin is probably the most celebrated guitarist to come out of the ska era that began in the ‘50s.

Of course Monty Alexander’s still kicking around, but it would appear that Ranglin has had a career that spanned just as long and perhaps even included a few more recording highlights. That’s not to slag anyone off, of course, but Wranglin had a hand in so many different things all at once that his career was and remains a splendid thing. Read more