Reggae From The Lost Ark – Vol. 05
Swing A Ling Sound
The latest in the “Lost Ark” reggae series, tracks pulled together from mining the absurdly amazing early reggae floating around on the Interweb… Seriously – how is it possible to have been one of many people that walked further and further into the depths of reggae, first from vinyl in the 70s, then through reggae compilations and reissues from the 80s and 90s, only to find a near limitless mess of tracks out there, ripped and “reissued” by people all over the world, one great track after another coming to light, music and musicians and singers that might have otherwise been lost forever?
This is where the gift that is the Net, and where traditional music labels (and their army of attorneys) don’t get it. All of this was out there, but if you left it to to them it would be locked in a crate in someone’s closet, not out there for people to enjoy, to see the genius that poured out of Jamaica, a non-stop flood of killer tracks from those that might never have been heard from again.
So is there a vast amount of money to be made by anyone? Of course not – it’s a niche in a niche in a niche – but it is art, it is music, it is people doing something they love, now able to be heard decades later by people who love it. It’s often a hard life all around, but with the right song playing, especially simple songs like these, rolling bass lines setting the path, just the right guitar and organ chunking along the way, easy melodies and lyrics? Life is good…
Download: Reggae From The Lost Ark – Vol. 05 (Zipped Tracks)
Preview: Reggae From The Lost Ark – Vol. 05 (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – Promoters Grouse – Rupie & Andy Capp
02 – Skinhead Train – Laurel Aitken
03 – Another Fool – Vern & Alvin
04 – Heart Don’t Leap – Dennis Walks & The Mudies All Stars
05 – Let Me Tell You Boy – The Ebony Sisters
06 – What You Do So – Count Sticky
07 – A Thing Of The Past – Phyllis Dillon
08 – The Chase – Yvonne Harrison
09 – Pussy Price – Laurel Aitken
10 – Halfway Tree Pressure – Shorty The President
11 – Herbert Spliffington – Rupie & Sidy
Reggae From The Lost Ark – Vol. 04
Channel One Studio
More great early reggae, this time with a few “mento” tracks from Laurel Aitken, Lord Spoon and Stanley Beckford – “reggae” before it was reggae.
The Kingstonians kicking in with yet another great track, Audrey Hall (another singer unknown to me before I started mining the amazing reggae blog “You and Me on a Jamboree”) and more.
I keep digging and digging and there seems to be no end to the number of tracks out there that I never heard, hope you enjoy…
Download: Reggae From The Lost Ark – Vol. 04 (Zipped Tracks)
Preview: Reggae From the Lost Ark – Vol. 04 (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – Love Me Tonight – Audrey Hall
02 – Hold Down – The Kingstonians
03 – Choo Choo Train – The Soul Cats
04 – Running Wild – The Music Doctors
05 – Scare Him – The Flames
06 – Somebody’s Baby – Little Des
07 – Rudi’s in Love – The Chequers
08 – Fire in Your Wire – Girlie & Laurel Aitken
09 – It Don’t Sweet Me – Laurel Aitken
10 – Woman a Love In a Night Time – Lord Spoon & David
11 – Soldering – Stanley Beckford & The Starlights
Halfway Tree Dub – Vol. 01
The Upsetters
This compilation is one for the true die hard reggae dub crowd. It’s early dub in it’s purest, simplest form – big ass bass, simple drums and you can almost feel them turning tracks on and off, clicking effects buttons at random just to hear what it sounds like.
It’s dub from back in a time when no one really knew what it was or cared – at it’s simplest form it was simply the “B” side to the dancehall single in front, a way to give the DJs their own ability to remix a track live, stretch it out, and eventually serve as the foundation for “toasters“, DJ and all rap to come.
And there’s something so special about how there was on one hand, such a simple and pure craft behind the music – the musicians were amazing, playing so tight but free in, around and behind each other, the engineers getting all on tape as clean as could be with the simplest of technology – and then adding in random chance, experimentation and pure luck that would later become the “x” factor in so much music, from The Beatles work on Sgt. Pepper, to jazz, and to the full blown weirdness of all avant garde music since then.
And all of these tracks pass the simple test of true dub/reggae genius in that if you don’t listen to this kind of music, you will think it’s insanely repetitive, simple, boring. That it isn’t even “music” because where is the “verse/chorus/verse” song structure? Where are the lyrics? You mean the bass is the lead instrument? What the…?
But if you do enjoy dub/reggae this will be heaven – pure, mesmerizing, trance inducing, meditative simplicity that reflects near perfect sessions, musicians all in the room together, locked in a groove, dub masters like Scientist and the Mad Professor at the controls.
If I could go back in time, and had any musical talent at all, I would be sitting on the floor with a bass guitar, setting up a big, round, full bass line monorail rhythm for all others to ride…
Enjoy…
Download: Halfway Tree Dub – Vol. 01 (Zipped Tracks)
Preview: Halfway Tree Dub – Vol. 01 (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – Construction Dub Style – John Holt
02 – Turn Corn Meal and Fresh Milk – Mad Professor
03 – Dub The Daughter – Scientist
04 – Dub You Only – Monty Morrison
05 – Choice Of Dub – Scientist
06 – From Man To Dub – The Kingstonians
07 – Let Dub Down – Joe Morgan
08 – Raw Dub – Scientist
09 – Feel Good – Mad Professor
10 – Ordinary Version – Impact All Stars
Forces of Victory Dub
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Once again, a special compilation from me in that it is all tracks from a single artist. This time it’s Linton Kwesi Johnson, the “dub poet” from back in my time, from England. When I first heard his poetry/music in school it was as if someone grabbed me by the shoulders and said “Listen, and open your eyes…”
Once you heard the words, saw the imagery, you could no longer say that you didn’t know – he made clear the way things were for those pushed into the shadows, subject to the “sus laws” and other practices that were unfairly, and often brutally, enforced in England at the time. I’ll leave it to you to decide how much has actually changed since then.
If you are familiar with reggae, or with poetry, but you are not familiar with LKJ you owe to yourself to listen to what he does, what he has to say and the incredibly unique way he says it. To make it a bit more interesting I created some “extended mixes” of several tracks by sewing together some of the dub versions with the vocal versions.
Not your average dancehall, but solid “old school” reggae – real musicians, big bass and drums, dub madness and powerful lyrics. Amazing poetry, big ass powerful dub tracks, undeniable power…
Download: Forces of Victory Dub (Zipped Tracks)
Track List:
01 – Reality Poem/Dub
02 – Bass Culture
03 – Inglan Is A Bitch/Dub
04 – Peach Dub/Reggae Fi Peach
05 – Victorious Dub/Forces Of Vicktry
06 – Brain Smashing Dub/Fite Dem Back
07 – Sonny’s Lettah (Anti-Sus Poem)
08 – Funny Dub
If you are interested in more from LKJ, you can find his many albums on Amazon, and his books, including some rare out-of-print titles, can also be found there.
Roof Club Dub
Port Antonio
Although Switzerland is now in many ways my second home and most definitely the place I visit more than anywhere else, there was a time when Jamaica was first on the list.
I still remember the first time my friend’s older brother played his new album, “Rastaman Vibration“, and there it was – this entirely new style of music, about as different as it could be from the radio play of The Who, Queen, Aerosmith, Boston and the rest that was everywhere at the time.
And that one record opened the door to a life long love of reggae, which lead me to getting to know the reggae DJs where I later would go to school, to promoting parties in college just so I could bring more of this music forward and then, when one of my many “career” paths took a turn (or more like a complete stop) and I had enough cash and not enough other options, well of course, what else to do but stuff a backpack with some gear and disappear to Jamaica for a bit to see where it all came from?
Being the relatively small island nation that it is, and being the overly hyperactive guy I am, I think I did about five laps around the country the first time, and a few more a year or so later, and then some more again on another visit.
And Port Antonio, a small town on the Northeast coast and certainly not one of the big tourist towns at the time, became one of my favorite places to hang out and just be. And of course, what was key for me was that there was a great little club in the middle of town – The Roof Club – where there was the most amazing dancehall, roots and dub going on just about every night.
The DJ was stuffed in a little closet on the edge of the dance floor, there was one little stretch of bar, it was an “open air” place with the requisite tin roof – and I would go as often as possible, not so much to drink or party, but just just listen and take notes. Literally…
I hung around there so often I got to know the DJs and whenever a great song was playing I would head over, find out who it was, and I had another ’45 single to track down the next time I looped around to the crazy record shops in Kingston or Montego Bay.
And of course, when I was living in NYC and had two turntables of my own, I brought a mix tape of house music I worked on down for them on one of my visits – and there was nothing better or stranger than walking through town one day and hearing my own music blasting from the place on an otherwise peaceful Saturday…
And even though the music in this collection is from a much earlier time, it captures some of the style I love best – early reggae, meant to be played in just such a place as The Roof Club, on a warm, humid summer night, cool breeze blowing through the open walls, cold beer in hand, waiting for the next great track to blast out from the wall of subwoofers lining the dancefloor.
Enjoy…
Download: Roof Club Dub (Zipped Tracks)
Track List:
01 – It’s Raining – The Three Tops
02 – My Last Date (With You) – Hortense Ellis
03 – Don’t Mind Me – Joe Higgs and Ron Wilson
04 – Bossa Moon – S. S. Binns
05 – Musical Resurrection – Roland Alphonso
06 – Live Injection – The Upsetters
07 – Put It On – The Wailers
08 – Rodney’s History – Carl Dawkins
09 – C. N. Express – Clancy, Lee and Sticky
10 – Conversation – Cynthia Richards
11 – Long Shot (Buss Me Bet) – The Pioneers
12 – Stick Together – U-Roy
13 – My Conversation – The Uniques
14 – Holly Holy – The Fabulous Flames
15 – Rainy Night in Georgia – Nicky Thomas
And if you’d like to hear a simply amazing early track from Bob Marley and The Wailers, before they slipped into full blown Rasta reggae and shipped tracks off to London for remixing for “Western” ears, check out Track 7 – “Put It On” – and try not to jump along… It’s so great to hear his unique voice in context with the other hits of the early years, long before they were known around the world to everyone, everywhere.
Reggae from The Lost Ark – Vol. 03
Lost Ark - Vol. 03
That Brazilian site just keeps pouring out reggae gems… There are so many tracks and I go through as many as I can each week, pull a long list of killer tracks, then refine and assemble from there for these compilations. Given what is there this thing could make it up to Volume 10 or more, no problem.
There is no particular theme here, just great early reggae but that said, there’s another cool track by The Pioneers, a great original/”toasting” combo I assembled and there are a few tracks that have classic rhythms that have lived on for years (Swing Easy by Soul Vendors).
There’s also an example of another great reggae tradition – taking US pop tracks/melodies and making them their own. “To The Fields by Herman” – pulls a horn line from a pop tune I can’t recall and “Call on You Baby by Owen Gray adapts the base line from “I’ll Take You There” by The Staple Singers.
And the last track “Take a Ride” by Al Campbell is truly extraordinary in that it’s such an early track – but with a big, killer bass line that became the foundation for a very popular “riddim“, used recently by many, many of the dancehall guys out there now.
As with the others, what an amazing time for Jamaican music, and for the evolution of reggae. In a weird way, it makes nearly all the Marley stuff seem so “sanitized” and/or altered to fit a western ear – this is just pure, looped out party music.
Download: Reggae from the Lost Ark – Vol. 03 (Zipped Tracks)
Preview: Reggae from the Lost Ark – Vol. 03 (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – To The Fields – Herman
02 – Reggae Hit The Town – The Ethiopians
03 – Catch The Beat – The Pioneers
04 – My Whole World Is Falling Down – Ken Parker
05 – Call On You Baby – Owen Gray
06 – You Don’t Care For Me – Lloyd Sparks
07 – Buttercup – Winston Scotland
08 – Feel The Rhythm – Clancy Eccles
09 – Swing Easy – Soul Vendors
10 – Come On Little Girl – The Melodians
11 – Take A Ride – Al Campbell
Reggae from The Lost Ark – Vol. 02
The Black Ark
Here’s the second volume of “Reggae From The Lost Ark” - a collection of more amazing classic tracks I put together from the “You and Me on a Jamboree” reggae blog.
This one has a few tracks by “The Pioneers”, a great group that that worked some classic rhythms, and from “The Mudies All-Stars”, a backing/studio band that I never heard of before but who played on some great dub tunes (I guess I’ll have to figure out who the actual engineer/producer was as well…)
Anyway, as like the first compilation in this series, every track on this deserves to be the first track, and all are great.
And if you want to hear a great track and an incredibly unique voice for reggae check out “Take My Hands” by Yvonne Harrison. I never heard of her before checking the You and Me blog, but wow – what a special voice - like a 40s “torch singer”, just a pure as can be. A great sound…
Download: Reggae from the Lost Ark – Vol. 02 (Zipped Tracks)
Preview: Reggae from the Lost Ark – Vol. 02 (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – Intro – Honey Boy Martin
02 – Jackpot – The Pioneers
03 – Sweet Soul Music – The Gladiators
04 – People Grudgeful – The Pioneers
05 – Let Me Tell You Boy (Dub) – The Mudies All-Stars
06 – Hurry Come Up – The Crashers
07 – Take My Hands – Yvonne Harrison
08 – Why Birds Follow Spring – Alton Ellis
09 – Jail House – Mr. Foundation
10 – Dub Them Heart – The Mudies All-Stars
11 – The Dark End Of The Street – Pat Kelly
12 – Drifter (Dub) – The Mudies All-Stars
Reggae from The Lost Ark – Vol. 01
The Black Ark
This is the first of a series of early reggae compilations I’ve been putting together from the tracks I discovered on the previously mentioned “You and Me on a Jamboree” blog. And this stuff is the real deal – scratchy, muffled, warm, insistent, bass driven 60s reggae at it’s best.
So if you only know of Marley and Shaggy, well this will be an interesting journey. But if you do listen, I hope you can listen to all of it – I thought every track should be the first track, they are all that good. And try to imagine that this music was being cranked out all over one just one tiny island, while the rest of the world was listening to a progression of Elvis, The Beatles, The Supremes, etc.
And if you really want to impress someone who asks you if you like “reggae”, or who you have been listening to – and you tell them that you’re listening to some old tracks by “The Concords” or “The Pioneers” or “The Soulmates” and well, you would be a club that not even a reggae freak like me belongs to…. ;)
Download: Reggae from the Lost Ark – Vol. 01 (Zipped Tracks)
Preview: Reggae from the Lost Ark – Vol. 01 (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – Reggae Sound – Prince Buster All Stars
02 – Buttoo – The Concords
03 – River To The Bank – Derrick Morgan
04 – Rocking Sensation – Delano Stewart
05 – Black Is Soul – The Silver Stars
06 – Run Girl Run – G.G. Grossett
07 – Cherry – The Tenors
08 – The Hippies Are Back – The Soulmates
09 – Bandit – Errol Wallace
10 – Delilah – Tyrone Taylor
11 – Nana – The Slickers
12 – Deceiver – The Pioneers
13 – T-Bone Girl – Junior & The Mudies All-Stars
14 – Quaker City – Eric Barnett & The Theo Beckford Group
15 – Moonhop In London – Hot Dog All-Stars
Music Blog: You and Me on a Jamboree
You and Me
If you are looking for long lost reggae “You and Me on a Jamboree” is amazing source for rocksteady, dub and more. Of course, given that the guys are based in Brazil the site is all in Portuguese, but who needs to know what they are saying when you can just listen and figure it out from there?
We were talking about how this is what is so amazing about the Net. People out there who love music, obscure music at that, continually “re-releasing” tracks that not would have otherwise been long lost or known in small pieces.
There are always few commercial compilations are out there but they in no way do justice to the number of incredible musicians and singers who were making amazing music that just wasn’t heard or who had their contributions buried under the chart “hits”.
Even if they made it to a commercial collection years later, it was often just the most popular tracks, or a name that someone might recognize, or the easiest songs to license.
And in that way it was as if all you could see was a few frames from an amazing film or fragments from ancient pottery. You could get a sense of the time, but not really see it as big as it was.
Then there are these new music blogs… Places where reggae freaks like me get to dig around, dust off long hidden gems and see the full spectrum, enjoy the creativity and reggae from its true roots.
What is great about this source in particular is it full of reggae they way it used to be – party music that, for the most part, didn’t take itself too seriously, nor was it wrapped up in a weird hip hop trend. These things have simple rolling bass lines, simple rhythm tracks with no weird guitar solos or breaks with light, often absurd lyrics – nothing to take all that seriously because it was just supposed to be a soundtrack for a good time.
It was for a Saturday night jam, with empty lot turned into a dancehall, full of vendors with coolers of beer, or selling grilled chicken with crazy Sky Juice pushcarts all over the place. Two big sound systems, one at either end, competing with each other from trucks full of bass bins, thumping the chests of the dozens of people lined up in front of them, ready to stay there all night.
Even thought I’ve barely scratched the surface of what is out there I thought it time to put together a series of compilations from the many tracks available on this site and I will be posting them here soon.
Gold Coast Dub
Phenomden
OK… What are the odds? Not just reggae, but really great reggae. Not just one style, but Roots and Dancehall. And not in English, or German but the real deal – Swiss German (or if you want a mouthful – Schweizerdeutsch or Schwyzerdütsch or Schwiizertüütsch or Schwizertitsch – apparently the fun part of having a language that is only a spoken language is that you can write it any way you want…).
But there is a guy in Zurich making killer reggae and he is a great “toaster” or DJ as well – and as rare as it is for me to send out a compilation featuring one artist, this guy is worth a listen. If not to hear just how far reggae has traveled from Jamaica, or to hear it in not just another language, but such a cool (and rarely heard) language like Swiss German.
Even though I still only know less than a few dozen words of Swiss German (almost impossible to learn without mastering German first), what can I say – it’s become this beautiful background to my world with my friends in Uetikon. And who knows, another ten years visiting and I may even be able to order a damn pizza and a Coke sometime…
And so for me, well, great reggae rhythms and a language that is the sound of my second “home”? It doesn’t get much better than that…
So… If you are up for something new be sure to check him out…
Download: Gold Coast Dub (Zipped Tracks)
Download: Gold Coast Dub (Single Track)
Track List:
01 – Für Immer – Phenomden
02 – Style-Generator – Phenomden
03 – Dance Im Olivehain – Phenomden
04 – Download Business – Stereo Luchs
05 – Steinig – Phenomden
06 – Computer Riddem – Phenomden
07 – Schriibe – Phenomden
08 – Tinitus – Phenomden
09 – Reggae-Kultur – Phenomden
10 – Züri Dance – Stereo Luchs
And if you’d like to add Phenomden to your collection you can track him down via MySpace and on Amazon here and here. The guy is the real deal – if you love reggae you will not be disappointed.