|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: May 2, 2018 |
“New engineer round a Tubby’s named Jammy. Him wicked!” |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Apr 25, 2018 |
Anyone with more than just a passing interest in rock steady and reggae knows and loves the music of The Heptones. Their near faultless body of work gives no indication as to why crossover success managed to elude one of the greatest ever Jamaican harmony trios |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Mar 22, 2018 |
The Skatalites worked together as a recording band from 1963 to 1965 but during those two incredibly creative years they established the template for all that followed. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Mar 7, 2018 |
Legendary rock steady and reggae vocal group led by Carlton Manning… their debut recording ‘Love Me Forever’ is an all time classic. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Feb 28, 2018 |
The series of singles that King Stitt, the first ever deejay superstar, made with Clancy Eccles were the first where the deejay received a proper credit on record. They demonstrated how lyrical interjections and interruptions from a ‘toaster’ could build up as much excitement on record as they did in a dance… and the floodgates were now open. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Feb 13, 2018 |
A name that deserves to be up there with the other great deejay originators of the early seventies… |
|
|
Text by Jeremy Collingwood
Date Updated: Jan 31, 2018 |
A fine vocal trio consisting of Ansel Cridland, Winston Watson and one time member of the Righteous Flames, Danny Clarke. It was Clarke who founded the group in 1975 and over the next decade they cut themselves a niche as a classic Jamaican roots vocal harmony group – whose sales never reflected their standing in the reggae world. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Jan 24, 2018 |
The personification and epitome of musical and sartorial cool Derrick Morgan’s story recounts the growth of Jamaican music into the phenomenon that took the world by storm in the mid-seventies. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Jan 10, 2018 |
One of the most important and influential stylistic and artistic innovators of the second half of the twentieth century… |
|
|
Text by Jeremy Collingwood
Date Updated: Dec 27, 2017 |
A producer turned performer, Hudson always created music of worth and note that developed a very particular style over the 1970’s. He never crossed into the mainstream but many people’s collections feature his albums and singles. His death at the age of 42 saw reggae loose a maverick. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Nov 8, 2017 |
Earl ‘Sixteen’ Daley has never stopped singing for those who care, not only about reggae music, but also about the message within the music. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Oct 25, 2017 |
The Dub Inventor, was not only responsible for transforming the music making process but also the way we listen to and appreciate music in the latter half of the twentieth century. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Oct 18, 2017 |
Count Ossie was the foremost exponent of Rasta drumming; his bass drum adorned with Psalm 133 ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity’. His presence continues to be felt as an intuitive act of faith demonstrating an unbroken link with Jamaican music’s shared ancestral and cultural heritage. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Oct 4, 2017 |
One of the foremost vocal groups of the sixties and early seventies… |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Sep 12, 2017 |
The original ‘singjay’, Eek A Mouse, whose appeal has always been as big and broad as his super sized six foot six inches height. He has consistently broken down barriers and built bridges between the genres of roots, dance hall and ‘crossover’ reggae. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Aug 29, 2017 |
During the years that he reigned as King Yellow no one was able to come near Yellowman’s popularity and he worked tirelessly throughout the eighties for every producer who had the wherewithal to record him… |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Aug 2, 2017 |
The ‘Original Front Tooth Gold Tooth Gun Pon Tooth Don Gorgon’… one of the most startlingly original and seriously contumacious dancehall deejays. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Jul 26, 2017 |
Although female vocalists are not particularly well represented in Jamaican music Hortense Ellis is rightly regarded throughout the reggae world as one of the island’s finest ever singers… |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Jul 19, 2017 |
Pioneering singer and songwriter who introduced Jamaican music to an international audience in the Sixties and early Seventies. |
|
|
Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Jul 5, 2017 |
Throughout his fruitful and varied career Cedric ‘I’m’ Brooks conducted a continuous lifelong musical investigation that defied categorisation and that consistently challenged and broke down cultural and social preconceptions… |
|