Lessons in Dub: Harry Mudie Meet King Tubby's

It’s virtually impossible to talk about dub and it’s shifting mores and expectations without mentioning the name of King Tubby – see HERE and HERE. More than an engineer and beyond a producer, King Tubby’s work informs not just Jamaican musicians at this point, but all who mine the musical past looking for echoes, bizarre noises and original ways in which to record.

While creating his own vast musical expanses, King Tubby assisted a number of then unknown folks that would spend a career behind the boards, directing the work of many of Jamaica’s most talented singers and musicians. Harry Mudie was one of them.

Before coming to work with King Tubby, though, Mudie set up an early hi-fi system in Spanish Town during the ‘50s prior to leaving to attend university in the UK. Upon returning to the island after studying not only photography, but also electronics, Mudie rejoined the island’s music scene.

After the liberation of Jamaica from Britain, during the early ‘60s, the island was awash with dance tunes tinged with postitivity. And in 1962, Mudie recorded with the venerable Count Ossie, who himself had been instrumental in the establishment of much of what would follow musically in the next few decades. But by working with the well known hand drummer and devout Rastafarian, Mudie had gained a certain amount of credit. And as the decade wore on, he founded his own label named, Moodisc.

The label was home to a vast array of recognizable names from the era – Winston Wright in addition to Count Ossie and a young I-Roy. But all of this only allowed Mudie to further experiment with production techniques and recording. He may, in fact, be most remembered for being the person to first incorporate strings into Jamaican music on John Holt’s "Time is the Master." Whether or not that was actually a positive step or not is determined by taste, but it was a production flourish that Mudie would revisit on a frequent basis.

Those strings even make an appearance on the first volume of Meet King Tubby's In Dub Conference. “Strings in Dub,” which closes out the album, has ample American soul implications foisted upon it from the instrument’s inclusion, but in no way does this define the rest of the album – thankfully.

Mudie and King Tubby would come together between 1975 and 1977 to record three separate volumes of the aforementioned Meet King Tubby's In Dub Conference. Each volume roughly approximates the next, but the interesting thing about the work here is the confluence of these two stylistically different producers. King Tubby is obviously known for stripping down tracks to its skeletal remains and dousing them with found sound and echoes. Mudie, by contrast fully appreciated the Motown sound as well as Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. He obviously, didn’t seek to create such immense constructions, but the tension between Tubby’s plain sensibility and Mudie’s created a few gems. And in this mash-up, it’s at times difficult to hear who ends up being the dominant force.