AVATAR - Jah Guide

Jah Guide - Peter Tosh [Reggae, Thursday]

Marcia Griffiths - Electric Boogie

Judah Eskender Tafari & Everton Blender - Danger In Your Eyes

Israel Vibration - Prophet Has Arise

Dennis Alcapone - Wake Up Jamaica - Live 1973

Nicky Thomas - Is it because I'm black?

Toots and The Maytals - Bam Bam (Live)

Dennis Brown - Have You Ever Been In Love (JA Studio - 1982)

Kiddus i - Graduation in Zion

Taken from my favourite Jamaican Reggae film, "Rockers". Released in 1978, the film, (directed by Ted Bafaloukos), starred several popular reggae artists, including Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, Burning Spear, Gregory Isaacs, Big Youth, Dillinger, and Jacob Miller. Kiddus i was a relative unknown, and although he didn't go on to future fame, this clip demonstrates that this was most certainly not due to an abscence of talent and charisma. Gwan Dread!

Peter Tosh & Mick Jagger - Walk & Don t Look Back

Paul Blackman - Say So (and Augustus Pablo Dub version)

Gregory Isaacs (July 15, 1951 - October 25, 2010)

The "Cool Ruler"
RIP

Errol Dunkley - Happiness Forgets

Bob Marley & the Wailers - Roots Rock Reggae

Stephen Marley - You're Gonna Leave

Lee "Scratch" Perry - Dub Wizard

Lee Perry
In the early 1970s, Perry was one of the producers whose mixing board experiments resulted in the creation of dub. In 1973, Perry built a studio in his back yard, The Black Ark, to have more control over his productions and continued to produce notable musicians such as Bob Marley & the Wailers, Junior Byles, Junior Murvin, The Heptones, The Congos and Max Romeo. With his own studio at his disposal, Perry's productions became more lavish, as the energetic producer was able to spend as much time as he wanted on the music he produced. Virtually everything Perry recorded in The Black Ark was done using basic recording equipment; through sonic sleight-of-hand, Perry made it sound unique. Perry remained behind the mixing desk for many years, producing songs and albums that stand out as a high point in reggae history.

By 1978, stress and unwanted outside influences began to take their toll: both Perry and The Black Ark quickly fell into a state of disrepair. Eventually, the studio burned to the ground. Perry has constantly insisted that he burned the Black Ark himself in a fit of rage. After the demise of the Black Ark in the early 1980s, Perry spent time in England and the United States, performing live and making erratic records with a variety of collaborators. It was not until the late 1980s, when he began working with British producers Adrian Sherwood and Neil Fraser (who is better known as Mad Professor), that Perry's career began to get back on solid ground again. Perry also has attributed the recent resurgence of his creative muse to his deciding to quit drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis. Perry stated in an interview that he wanted to see if "it was the smoke making the music or Lee Perry making the music. I found out it was me and that I don't need to smoke."

In 1998 Perry reached a wider global audience as vocalist on two tracks of the Beastie Boys' album Hello Nasty.

Perry now lives in Switzerland with his wife Mireille and two children. Although he celebrated his 70th birthday in 2006, he continues recording and performing to enthusiastic audiences in Europe and North America.


~

King Tubby - Dub Creator

King Tubby
King Tubby's production work in the 1970s would see him become one of the best-known celebrities in Jamaica, and would generate interest in his production techniques from producers, sound engineers and musicians across the world. Tubby built on his considerable knowledge of electronics to repair, adapt and design his own studio equipment, which made use of a combination of old devices and new technologies to produce a studio capable of the precise, atmospheric sounds which would become Tubby's trademark. With a variety of effects units connected to his mixer, Tubby was able to 'play' the mixing desk like an instrument, bringing instruments and vocals in and out of the mix (literally 'dubbing' them) to create an entirely new genre known as dub music.

Using existing master tapes—his small studio in fact had no capacity to record session musicians—Tubby would re-tape or 'dub' the original after passing it through his 4 channel MCI mixing desk, twisting the songs into unexpected configurations which highlighted the heavy rhythms of their bass and drum parts with minute snatches of vocals, horns and Piano/Organ. These techniques mirrored the actions of the sound system selectors, who had long used EQ equipment to emphasise certain aspects of particular records, but Tubby was able to use his custom-built studio to take this technique into new areas, often transforming a hit song to the point where it was almost unrecognizable from its original. One unique aspect of his remixes or dubs was the result of creative manipulating of the built-in highpass filter on the MCI mixer he had bought from Dynamic Studios. The filter was controllable by a large knob—aka the 'big knob' -- which allowed Tubby to introduce a dramatic narrowing sweep of any signal, such as the horns, until the sound disappeared into a thin squeal.

Tubby engineered/remixed songs for Jamaica's top producers such as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo and Vivian Jackson that featured artists such as Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Horace Andy, Big Joe, Delroy Wilson, Jah Stitch and many others. In 1973, he built a vocal booth at his studio so he could record vocal tracks onto the instrumental tapes brought to him by various producers. This process is known as 'voicing' in Jamaican recording parlance. It is unlikely that a complete discography of Tubby's production work could be created based on the number of labels, artists and producers with whom he worked, and subsequent repressings of these releases sometimes contained contradictory information. His name is credited on hundreds of b-side labels, with the possibility that many others were by his hand yet uncredited, due to similarities with his known work.

By the later part of the decade, though, King Tubby had mostly retired from music, still occasionally mixing dubs and tutoring a new generation of artists, including King Jammy and Scientist. In the 1980s he built a new, larger studio with increased capabilities, and focused on the management of his own labels, Firehouse, Waterhouse and Taurus, which released the work of Anthony Red Rose, Sugar Minott, Conroy Smith, King Everald and other popular musicians. He has been cited numerous times as influential to modern musicians including Animal Collective's Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez.

King Tubby was shot and killed on February 6, 1989 by an unknown group of people outside his home in Duhaney Park, upon returning from a session at his Waterhouse studio. It is thought that the murder was probably an attempt at robbery.

Peter Tosh: "Steppin' Razor"

Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh, nicknamed "Steppin' Razor" (19 October 1944 – 11 September 1987) was, along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, an equal part of the inner-triangle of the band that would come to be known as “The Wailers” (Tosh would later explain that they chose the name Wailers because to "wail" means to mourn or to, as he put it, "...express ones feelings vocally"). This band would go on to change the course of both Musical and Jamaican history.

A talented guitarist (he taught Bob Marley how to play) and charismatic singer, his giant Six foot five frame and deep booming voice echoed a strong revolutionary and volatile spirit. This spirit would both drive the band forward in its early years, as well as lead to his eventual departure, just as the band stood on the edge of global success.

In 1973, Tosh was driving home with his girlfriend Evonne when his car was hit by another car driving on the wrong side of the road. The accident killed Evonne and severely fractured Tosh's skull. He survived, but became even harder to deal with. After Island Records president Chris Blackwell refused to issue his solo album in 1974, the volatile Tosh and Bunny Wailer left the Wailers, citing the unfair treatment they received from Blackwell, to whom Tosh often referred with the derogatory play on Blackwell's surname, 'Whiteworst'.

Peter Tosh cared not of fame, nor money. His drive was formed within a deep spiritual and political soul that strived for fairness and equality, opposed war, and the extremes of Capitalism, and of course, advocated the legalisation of Cannabis. These themes stirred within his music and his heart throughout his life.

Peter Tosh also had a quirky side. He learned how to Unicycle, and would often arrive on stage in this manner during live shows towards the end of his career.

Tosh possessed a sarcastic outlook on the world, and this carried over to his lyrics. He would merrily twist words around to better reflect his true feelings. This trick of language was later emulated by many other reggae artists. Here are some examples of Toshisms;

America - Asadica
Blackwell - Whiteworst (Chris Blackwell of Island Records)
Buckingham - Buk-In-Hamm
Bureaucrats - Bureaucraps
Christopher Columbus - Christ-t'ief Come-rob-us
City - Shitty
Disc jockey - District johncrow (johncrow is a Jamaican vulture)
Ganja (Prohibition) - Gone-Jah
Germany - Germs-many
Judge - Grudge
Inequity - Out-a-quit-ty
Kingston - Killsome
L.A. - Hell A (Los Angeles)
Lawyer - Liar
LSD - Lucifer Son of Devil (referred to as the drug of the devil)
Managers - Damagers
Marco Polo - Marc O. Polio
New York City - Boo York Shitty
Politics - Politricks
Prime Ministers - Crime Ministers
Situation - Shituation
System - Shitstem
Technology - Tricknology
Trinidad - Trinibad
Producer - Reducer
Unicycle - I and I-cycle
Understand - Overstand

Tosh’s first three solo albums, Legalize It (1976), Equal Rights (1977) and Bush Doctor (1978) showcase him at his politicised best. The latter album contains collaborations with two other giants of popular music - a vocal duet with Mick Jagger on a cover of The Temptations’ “Don’t Look Back” and Keith Richards playing guitar on “Stand Firm”, a song that contains the following humorously profound lyric;

“All you got to do, live clean,
Let your works be seen.
Stand firm,
Or you gonna feed worm”

Interestingly, whilst this song is delivered in Tosh's usual reggae vocal style, and with a solid reggae drum beat, Richards infuses a marvellous Country element to his guitar track, producing an extremely original musical hybrid. Tosh also experimented with different Musical forms on his next album, Mystic Man (1979), and produced the now legendary Reggae-Jazz-Funk-Disco anthem, "Buk-In-Hamm Palace"...

"Light your spliff
Light your chalice
We gonna smoke it in a Buk In Hamm Palace"

In 1987, Tosh was awarded a Grammy for Best Reggae Performance for "No Nuclear War". However, on 11 September 1987, just after Tosh had returned to his home in Jamaica, a three-man gang came to his house demanding money. Tosh replied that he did not have any with him but the gang did not believe him. They stayed at his residence for several hours in an attempt to extort money from Tosh. The leader of the gang, Dennis 'Leppo' Lobban, a man whom Tosh had befriended and tried to help find work after a long jail sentence became more and more frustrated. He put a gun to Tosh's head and fired twice, mortally wounding him. Leppo turned himself over to the authorities, and was tried and convicted in the shortest jury deliberation in Jamaican history: eleven minutes. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted in 1995 and he remains in prison. Neither of his two alleged accomplices were found, though rumours persist that both were gunned down in the streets sometime after.

Although Peter Tosh worked with, guided and influenced one of the most influential musicians of all time, his own music deserves to be held up as an example of what happens when music (or indeed art) holds up a banner to the world and says...

This is what I believe in. What I believe in is good. Join me, or get out of my way.