#60s Reggae

[oldfuturisticrebel]

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"IS THIS THE NEW DANCE? (YEAH) GOING AROUND THE TOWN? (YEAH)"

PIC INFO: Spotlight on a live shot of legendary Jamaican muscial/reggae group THE MAYTALS during their earliest incarnation as a vocal trio, c. early 1960s.

Members included: Toots Hibbert✝, Henry "Raleigh" Gordon, and Nathaniel "Jerry" Mathias. 📸: ❓

Source: https://plainorpan.com/tag/toots-and-the-maytals.

[sonicandvisualsurprises]

1965

In Feel Like Jumping, Perry’s inventive touch shines through, creating a track that’s as joyful as it is timeless.

[retrofightingrobot]

An old abandoned comic out of context!

maybe one day I'll complete it

in the future...

[cinnamoncee]

1969

[vintageblackandwhiteportraits]

[c1trvswurld]

ik humanz is universally hated and labeled the worst Gorillaz album...but counter you guys just have the music taste of a monkey whose had their heads switched but their spinal cords were not intact in the 1970s

[supersupersounds]

The Paragons - Memories By The Score / My Number One

A lovely little pair of rocksteady tracks, pure 60's Jamaica. Memories By The Score is so slow, love this tempo. -Kris

[principiumindividuationis777]

[peaceloveandhistory]

Today in 1982 the Jamaica Post issued a commemorative postage stamp featuring reggae singer Bob Marley. Marley was born in 1945 and would move to Kingston with his mother in 1957. By 1963 he formed a music group called the "The Wailing Wailers," later becoming "The Wailers" achieving local success. During the 1960s Marley became interested in the Rastafari movement, which he would commit to for the rest of his life, and the influence can be heard in his music. Marley would unfortunately pass away from cancer in 1981. His album "Exodus" which was released in 1977, was named by Time Magazine in 1999 as the album of the century. Bob Marley was a prominent advocate for human rights, and social justice, bringing attention to the economically and politically oppressed through his music. "One love, one heart. Let us get together and feel alright."

[apollopolls]

Tumblr rated 7.326/10.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

The Wild Bunch 1995 Reggae / Roots Reggae / Rocksteady / Dub

First off, let me just say that I am in total awe of this crop of reggae instrumentals from the 60s and 70s here. So much music since has come with so much more fuss and technological advancements, and yet an unscalable pile of the stuff that came out after this doesn't seem to come close to how good a bunch of these simple tunes still are. In a broad sense, all these songs' formulas are pretty simple, but they really still just manage to click so damn well 😌.

From this comp's liner notes:

During the past eight years, Trojan have pioneered the 'Revival' Reggae scene. Our re-issue programme has preserved some of the best vocals ever recorded in Jamaica, but with the emphasis being placed on some of the island's many talented singers in recent years, the musicians have tended to be ignored. This current release reverses that trend by turning the spotlight onto the 'players of instruments', and in so doing we pay tribute to Kingston's legendary session men.

Now, because nearly all of these are straight-up instrumentals, they all pretty much operate in the same way, and each of them seem to have one thing in common that ends up either making or breaking the tune: the lead instrument. Because reggae riddims are inherently repetitive and steady, if left alone, they will naturally get stale. So, it takes a good melody of some kind to be laid atop that riddim in order to lend the song some much needed variety. And in a whole lot of these 27 tunes, that ends up coming to remarkable fruition.

It's hard to even really know where to begin with this album since there's so much goodness to be found within it, but the thick, whistle-ringing improvisational organ of Lloyd Charmer's "Ling Tong Ting" is an absolutely terrific place to start. Then the JJ All Stars get topsy-turvy with the audio channels on "Memphis Underground," by sending the melodic leads exclusively and *very prominently* through the left, and 90% of the riddim through the right; Herman Marquis' "Tom's Version," whose intro I'm pretty sure I've heard sampled in at least one hip hop tune before (Wu-Tang, maybe? It's honestly driving me crazy that I can't put my finger on it), then follows by doing a wonderful job of harmonizing its organ and trumpet, yielding this fully warm and satisfying haze; the legendary Augustus Pablo, who singlehandedly managed to transform the melodica from a mere plaything for children into an instrument with serious gravitas, shows why on a rootsy piece of dub called "Great Pablo;" and then towards the end, we get a bit of a surprise with a piece of gospel-reggae that's actually not an instrumental: the Harry J All Stars "Holy Moses," which is aided by a small set of female singers whose deployment of soul harmonies reminds of the backup singing that can be found on a bunch of Bob Marley hits.

But the closing title tune by the Music Doctors may be both the most remarkable and most fun track of them all, for the simple fact that it uniquely trades its leads between—not things like guitars, horns, and organs—but just bass and drums. And the bassist just seems to carefreely play this laid-back and very recognizable piece of melody from The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back;" it's so good!

So, a phenomenal collection of rare Jamaican reggae instrumental classics here, from the genre's premier label itself, Trojan. Yesterday, I posted about an excellent metal cassette from 1985 that's also called The Wild Bunch, and given how good that that album was, I really didn't think that this one could outdo it, but it very much did!

Highlights:

Selwyn Baptiste - "Mo' Bay" Boris Gardiner - "Memories of Love" The Dynamites - "Phantom" Sound Dimension - "Soul Food" Lloyd Charmers - "Ling Tong Ting" The Aggrovators - "The Sniper" JJ All Stars - "Memphis Underground" Lynn Taitt & The Jets - "Love Me Forever" Herman Marquis - "Tom's Version" The Tennors - "Copy Me Donkey" Winston Wright - "Heads or Tails" Augustus Pablo - "Great Pablo" Harry J All Stars - "Holy Moses" Music Doctors - "Wild Bunch"

[sonicandvisualsurprises]

1969

A smooth and soulful Christmas groove from Alton Ellis.

[djevilninja]

I don't want to hear it - No more fussin' and fightin', baby - Hold me tight.... Let's let bygones be bygones - Let's think about tomorrow, girl; Our future's bright.

Johnny Nash - Hold Me Tight

[dearcl113]

007 - King Tubby, Dub Reggae, & 60s Kingston music industry - 2006-2007

On my birthday in 2006 I went with my girlfriend of the time to a record store and got a boxset of random CD's - one of them was a collection of King Tubby beats. King Tubby was a dub reggae producer from Kingston, Jamaica who imo invented the art of producing a beat before anyone else (though I could be wrong). This man was from a very poor background, and would work in studio's physically cutting and compiling record tapes to mix and blend different sounds. During the 1950s and 1960s the reggae scene was exploding in Kingston, (the Wailers were just one of many acts) and King Tubby took this music/blended it to have different more astral sounds. He added in a repetitive rhythm, faster than typical reggae which had that slow riff. Overall he never saw much success musically in his life, he worked in/owned an electronics repair shop fixing sound systems and did this music in his spare time as his own project - like a scientist. He continued to do this until his death in 1989, when he was shot in Kingston at age 48. He lived there his whole life. I'd read a lot of biographies of artists back then - Johnny Cash was really interesting to me but when I was trying to learn guitar I really liked playing his and Bob Marley's music so I started reading about the Wailers. I learned about how this tiny little island started a music business basically from nothing - it's own sound, pushed from tiny hill villages in the countryside to the projects of Kingston and the beaches beyond to the tourists/outside world. Kingston itself back in the 1960s was pretty poor, there were nicer areas but they were separated from the slums which typically housed the native residents of the island. Many moved from the hillside villages looking for work and settled in tight communities barely surviving through crime, poverty or other factors. Regardless Kingston had a very similar music industry to how most local music scenes are today just enlarged due to the presence of outside investors coming in and putting money there to capitalize on the movement. This allowed a dream of anyone on the island if they were talented enough to capitalize on their music. It was competitive, and it was innovative. It was centered around local parties that'd have the sound originally - there was almost as many artists as there were in the UK during the whole British invasion and they were all normal people chasing a dream. Back in the US in RI Reggae is one of the most popular genres here - maybe it's because we have a large Caribbean immigrant population dispersed throughout southern NE but generally people here like genres like ska, reggae, or older genres which haven't died out as much in popularity. For a very long time one of the biggest acts in the state was a Sublime cover band. I also really liked reggae when I first started getting into music, I felt so peaceful listening to the Wailers even if things weren't going well at all. King Tubby has always inspired me, just for his drive and innovation. When I tried making beats and ambient music I'd play with the sounds in a similar way just to experiment like he did. He's credited now as the creator of the remix - which otherwise if this wasn't done we wouldn't have hip hop. That's why I think he really helped invent the genre on top of people like DJ Kool Herc who really honed in and focused the sound. Reggae is such an important part of hip hop, especially dub music. It shows you if you have a crazy idea, maybe you should follow it - King Tubby learned what he did from fixing sound systems broken by rival competitors in the music industry in Kingston. His crazy idea led to so much - what could yours do?