PRINCE FAR-I - THE VOICE OF THUNDER

No overview of reggae, however brief, would be complete without a mention of Prince Far-I. Another ghetto youth from Spanishtown, he, like everyone else, serve a long musical apprenticeship under the name King Cry Cry, and chatting on the El Toro sound-system before forming his own cry Tuff label in 1979. Blessed with a voice like God clearing his throat, the Prince laid down the law on such gems as ‘Under Heavy Manners’, ‘Shuffle And Deal’, ‘Battle of Armagideon’ and the Biblically themed LP ‘Psalms Far-I’. Sadly the Prince fell victim to the political violence that was rife in Jamaica in the late 70s and early 80s, being shot dead in 1983.

AUGUSTUS PABLO/YABBY U

Now for two reggae masters with slightly unorthodox approaches. The late Augustus Pablo (born Horace Swaby) was a master of the melodica, which he played with haunting beauty on countless tracks. Like many others, his recorded legacy is a hit and miss affair, records issued with his name on often having little or no connection with the man. The best set to find is ‘East of The River Nile’. Yabby U (Vivian Jackson), on the other hand, while on first impressions a Rasta singer, billed himself as the ‘Jesus Dread’, blending apolcalyptic imagery and roots stylings on such tracks as ‘Deliver Me From My Enemies’, and ‘Run, Come Rally’ 

IF DEEJAY WAS YOUR TRADE’ – FUN TIME

The mainstay of Jamaican music was, and is, the sound-system, a mobile collection of speakers, hangers-on and red-stripe. Systems would include a ‘selecter’, who chose the tunes to play, an engineer, to fiddle around with the sound while playing, and an MC, or deejay, who would add live vocals. Systems generally thrived on the cut-throat business of dub-plates, acetates of a spanking new rhythm, and the deejay would freestyle over the top. Systems would meet in Soundclashes to establish a pecking-order, and these would often degenerate in to bloody mayhem and it was the deejay’s task to judge the mood of the crowd and chat accordingly. Most deejays went on to cut many, many records, some to operate their own studios and have their own labels. Here, as ever, we confront the problem of who, what and where.

DJs often named themselves after characters from popular Hollywood films, usually gangster pics or westerns. Thus we have; Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Clef, Dillinger, Dennis Alcapone and Little Caesar. There are far too many good DJs to check, but here’s a  few whose recordings I’d recommend; I-Roy/U-Roy/Jah Stitch/Jah Woosh/Prince Jazzbo/Big Joe/King Stitt and Tapper Zukie.  Anyway……

BIG YOUTH

Born Manley Augustus Buchanan in 1949, he got his nick-name while working as a mechanic, before joining up with the Lord Tippertone Hi-Fi sound system in  1971. Throughout the 1970’s, on a string of labels (including his own Negus Nagast label), he released a steady stream of free-association genius. Tracks would switch from scathing social comment to nursery-rhyme parodies, seeming gibberish to hymns to His Imperial Majesty, all in the space of 2 ½ minutes. Among his best tracks are ‘Natty Universal Dread’, ‘Hot Cross Bun’, and ‘Every Nigger Is A Star’.

MIKEY DREAD

Best known for his work with the Clash, Michael Campbell, the ‘Dread At The Controls’ was a well-known Kingston face with his own radio show. Again, he recorded so much, under so many different names that it’s hard to keep track of his output. The set to check is ‘African Anthem’ a mind-boggling collection of chants, sound-effects and radio jingles (one of which was sampled by the Orb)

DOCTOR ALIMANTADO

Another ludicrously prolific artiste, the good doctor was, and is, a master of the absurd. Track down ‘Best Dressed Chicken In Town’ and you’ll see what I mean. It includes the lunatic saga ‘I Killed The Barber’, concerning a fictional war between barbers and dreadlocks (these kind of singles would start off a whole slew of ‘answer’ singles on the same subject, records often degenerating into slanging matches between rival systems and DJs) and his boxing anthem, ‘I Am The Greatest Says Muhammad Ali’. Doctor A now resides in The Gambia, reissues his own material, and is a thoroughly nice man.

DUBWISE SELECTION

In Jamaican music, the producer was king. Names such as Joe Gibbs, Duke Reid, Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd and King Tubby ruled the roost, controlling every aspect of production, and always surrounded by a mob of ghetto youths hungry for the big time. Their engineers too were all-powerful, stamping their individual sounds firmly on the public’s consciousness. From the beginning the business flourished on dubplates – vocal-free acetates of rhythms, and tunes were often released with a ‘version’, a stripped-down mix of the rhythm track.

It wasn’t long before the studios saw a lucrative marketplace for whole LPs of such rhythms, played by session-bands such as the Roots Radics and Revolutionaries, and augmented by the engineer’s studio wizardry. It’s a debate as to who first released a complete dub set, the two main contenders being the ‘Skin, Flesh and Bones in Dub’ LP, and ‘Aquarius Dub’, produced by Herman Chin-Loy.

Beware though, dub, like so much reggae is a minefield, and it’s often not much that separates an inspired set from some pedestrian plodding. Until you know the genre, it’s safest and wisest to stick with a few names; King Tubby/Scientist/Prince Jammy/Peter Chemist and most material by either the Roots Radics or Revolutionaries.