| Author | Message | ||
     kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 68 Registered: 05-2005 |
I love reggae and have done since late 70s. i would guess most people on here are at least mid-late 30s and older, so did any of you guys buy reggae in the 70s and 80s(when it was roots and not vile sexual crap) and if so what did you buy? and do you still listen to it? | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 141 Registered: 03-2005 |
Toots and the Maytals at the top of the list. Their "In the Dark" figures in my entry in the best album thread. Also the Pioneers. Also the Heptones. The Ethiopians. Really big on the vocal groups but not that hot for Bob Marley. For me, the peak period for Jamaican music runs a little earlier than your chosen period, Kevin, from about 1968 to about 1978 or so. I still listen from time to time. Two weeks ago, I played the Pioneers' great 1969 opus "Long Shot Kick de Bucket" to someone totally unfamiliar with the sound. He was suitably blown away. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 69 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, I have In the dark and its a good album, toots is ok but I find him a bit too "professional" if you know what I mean. I like my reggae rootsy, heavy and loose and as such Cultue,Burning Spear,Lee Perry, U-roy, King Tubby etc are more my bag | ||
| Duncan Hurwood Member Username: Duncan_h Post Number: 34 Registered: 05-2005 |
My knowledge is limited to three box sets: "Tougher than Tough: the Story of Jamaican Music", the Bob Marley one ('Songs of Freedom'), and the Lee 'scratch' Perry one ('Arkology'). I like most of it: especially the middle two discs from the Jamaican set, covering approx from 1968 to 1980. But I wasn't around at the time. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 142 Registered: 03-2005 |
Kevin, that makes perfect sense to me. As I recall the whole "roots" thing got going in the mid-70s and was a specific reaction to the more pop-oriented earlier music. Being a pop guy, I'm more keen on the earlier stuff including the early/mid 60s ska and rock steady sounds. In that context, the gospel-inflected Toots Hibbert sounded much more raw and rootsy than most of his contemporaries. I wonder if you might get more pleasure out of the Leslie Kong-era Toots things from the tail end of the 1960s. At that time, Toots and the Maytals were about as tough as it got in JA. Although I've tried a number of times, I've never really gotten into Lee Perry's work. | ||
| kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 71 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, I just listened to In The Dark. I forgot how much it actually sounds more like a gospel/soul record than a reggae record. Actually,lots of early reggae acts were particularly influenced by The Impressions/Curtis Mayfield - The Wailers in particular. | ||
| Eke Member Username: Ekewebb Post Number: 29 Registered: 05-2005 |
Heart Of The Congos - I'm on my third version now and it's forever wonderful. Love that Arkology set that Duncan recommends as well. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 31 Registered: 01-2005 |
You can't go wrong with Eek-A-Mouse's Wa-Do-Dem. I also like Black Uhuru's Red. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 145 Registered: 03-2005 |
Kevin, if you go back into the 60s, it becomes very clear that Jamaican artists were heavily influenced by U.S. sounds. But they always had their own rhythmic thing going. Some of the early ska bands, such as the Skatalites, were heavily influenced by New Orleans jazz. Early Wailers (easily my favorite period for them) are indeed influenced by the Impressions. Toots Hibbert is probably more of an Otis Redding disciple. It's pretty clear that, for me, it's that jazz/gospel/soul/caribbean melange that appeals to me and once the gospel and soul elements started to leach out of Jamaican music I lost interest. Perhaps it's a generational thing here. | ||
| Hardin Smith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 10 Registered: 03-2006 |
I'm a huge reggae fan, but feel woefully ignorant trying to suss out some of the distinctions described above...I just know what I like...at the top, or near the top, of such list would be Toots...I have an excellent and fairly cheap six disc anthology of his early records which can't be beat...I, of course, love Bob Marley, in all of his many eras, and have nearly gone broke buying and re-buying all of his classic stuff in its many formats and re-formats...it may be an obvious choice, like saying you're a Beatles fan, but is similarly unassailable...I also love love Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, and I know I'll get grief for this one: Yellowman. I have most of the different reggae-summing-up box sets described above, and I think the single favorite disc contained in any of them, ever, is "Uptown Top Ranking" by Althea and Donna, I believe(?)... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 205 Registered: 03-2005 |
Never heard that one, Hardin, though I'm pretty sure one of my old vinyl Trojan story sets had something by them. I think the anthologies are a perfect way to be introduced to any music; they help you zero in on the eras and the producers that you really like. And in JA music, the producer is very important. We're very confessional on here, so you need not fear exposing your likes that cause you a bit of embarrassment (Yellowman). After all, I like the Pioneers who were usually seen as a bit of a sell-out act. They moved to the U.K. in the very early 1970s and started doing things like Motown covers (a really great "Papa was a Rollin' Stone") and even Cook-Greenaway songs and, most unforgivable of all, Elton John's "Jamaica Jerk Off." But they also kept doing originals and I've always liked their anti-hip pop instincts. | ||
| Eke Member Username: Ekewebb Post Number: 44 Registered: 05-2005 |
The first time I heard Althea and Donna's Uptown Top Ranking was when they performed it on Top of the Pops in the UK. At that time Musicians Union rules dictated that they perform it live with the Top of the Pops Orchestra performing the backing track. And what did the TOTP Orchestra know about reggae? Absolutely sod all and of course it sounded completely dreadful. Then of course I heard the actual record a while later and realised how wonderful it was... | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 219 Registered: 05-2005 |
Yeah love Reggae, although the way I was exposed to it was through UB40's first album Signing off in 1980, which I still love to this day. Other stuff like Steel Pulse, Horace Andy and the Trojan boxsets are great. I must admit I have limited Reggae knowledge, anynoen remember Basement 5, they had a great track called Silicon Chip iun the early 80's? I seem to remember 10'' vinlyl. | ||
| Hardin Smith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 16 Registered: 03-2006 |
"Uptown Top Ranking" is, as we say here in the States, "the sh-t", Randy. (It is a song, not a disc, as I goofily described it in my post). I believe it is on the "Time Tough" box set. I would send you an MP3, if I weren't technologically challenged and had even a faint idea how to do it. I'm a hopeless Luddite - I'm afraid it's CDs and vinyl for me.... "Uptown..." is one of those insidiously catchy tunes that will have you singing bits of incomprehensible Jamaican patois, to the confusion of friends and family. My favorite snippet from it is "My partner's style are strictly roots", whatever the hell that means... I also meant to include in my earlier post the factoid that, according to the Nichols book, RF suggested to GM that their next album be light reggae...who knows if that was real or a joke...RF, brilliant musician that he is, can apparently be pretty off the wall... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 206 Registered: 03-2005 |
Feel not bad about no MP3. My crunchy box from the last 100 year has no MP3. | ||
| Ian Britchfield Member Username: Ian_b Post Number: 3 Registered: 03-2006 |
Culture have a great album called "too long in slavery". Have seen Desmond Dekker live a couple of times and he was great. I'm also a big fan of earlyish UB40 and Bob Marley. There's a very good reggae double CD compilation which I got a few years ago called Pleasure Island which includes Uptown Top Ranking and a lot of other good stuff such as Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals, Desmond Decker and Third World etc although there is also some fairly dodgy stuff on it. | ||
| Hardin Smith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 242 Registered: 03-2006 |
I have a Dekker antho that's superb (the recent one)...Israelites really is up there amongst the alltime great reggae songs, don't you think? At least for me - along with Pressure Drop and Uptown Top Ranking and pretty much all the Marley "hits"... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 295 Registered: 03-2005 |
So many Leslie Kong productions . . . . |