January 2010

  • Simple Simon - "Revolution Fighter" (Video)

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/31/10 10:31pm
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    This was pretty rare apparently. But it seems that everything sees re-issue nowadays...That's a good thing, though...

  • David Isaacs - "A Place in The Sun" (Video)

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/31/10 10:28pm
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    Stevie Wonder's obviously an incredible talent, but this cover isn't too shabby.

  • Dread Lon - "Storyteller" (Video)

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/31/10 9:59pm
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    Average dub, but still satisfying...The images that accompany it all are just as entertaining.

  • Stubborn Records inna Single Style

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/31/10 5:17pm
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    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.

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  • David Isaacs minus the (later day) Itals

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/30/10 12:30pm
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    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.

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  • Boris Gardiner Goes Motown (and Staxy)

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/29/10 12:36pm
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    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.

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  • Ernest Ranglin Gets Goin'

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/25/10 11:00am
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    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.

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  • A Couple of Online Radio Shows Worth a Look

    By selecter on 1/23/10 3:54pm
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    Upstroke radio showUpstroke radio showThere is an online radio station that has two great reggae shows on the air. FCC Free Radio is one of these underground radio stations like Pirate Cat, if you have heard of it. Recently Pirate Cat was fined by the FCC for $10,000 but they are still kicking, and so is FCC Free.

    The Upstroke:

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  • Delroy Wilson: Better Must Come

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/11/10 7:34am
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    Some folks are able to craft a career’s worth of good music without gaining to much notoriety or even more than just a modicum of respect. Delroy Wilson didn’t go without the respect that he deserved, but at the same time wasn’t ever an international star in the same right that Bob Marley or Peter Tosh would become.

    Wilson’s songs were just as recognizable, if not as politically dense. But considering that very notion, his catalog should have retained a buoyancy and accessibility that some of his cohort didn’t possess. That being said, the singer did release a spate of singles during the ‘60s and early ‘70s that were not only met with immediate popularity, but would go on to become some of the most recycled rhythms in JA music. There wasn’t an equivalent of the Satta rhythm, but there were tracks like “Mash it Up,” “Conquer Me” and “Ms. Grace.”

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  • Errol Dunkley: Moving...

    By cobwebsandstrange on 1/7/10 5:10pm
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    The best music has the ability to remind listeners of a time, place or situation.

    I began writing about music almost seven years ago. And at the dawning of all of this I was able to obtain a buncha stuff from the Moll Selekta imprint. The label, which deals (or dealt seeing as their website doesn’t seem to be updated all too frequently) mostly with vintage rock steady, dance hall and dub, was in the throws of quickly releasing a number of works.

    In just about a single year, I received Lee Perry’s Panic in Babylon, Mike Brooks’ The Earth is the Fullness and a compilation entitled The Bunny Lee Rocksteady Years. That last disc was made up of singles from folks that weren’t readily familiar to myself – or anyone I knew. A few different cuts warranted repeated listens. Most notable, though, was a track by Errol Dunkley called “King and Queen.”

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