Twang is joined in a pod basking in summer heat and thick with the sweet smell of sinsemilla to discuss reggae from its ska roots, a groove mutated by Caribbean musicians playing covers of American R&B, through the rock steady hits of the 60s and into the 70s global stardom of Bob Marley, The team consider the important acts of the time, consider British reggae, the rise and dominance of dub and later evolutions such as disco mix.
The Afterword #91: The Reggaecast
by 82 Comments
And the team have chosen, nay curated, a playlist of choice cuts for your summer listening…
Nice playlist
Agreed. I’m having that for my holiday listening!
A great listen, very entertaining and informative, thanks. I think it was Twang who mentioned The Wailers miming on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973. According to Chas Hodges of Chas and Dave fame, all bands who appeared on the OGWT were miming. When he appeared with the band Heads, Hands and Feet, they recorded the backing track a few days before broadcast and then mimed to this on the show with only the lead vocal being live. Apparently this was standard procedure for all artists appearing on the show.
Cheers! Yes later on they played live in the bigger studio but to start with they all did. Came as a shock though!
So you see the band miming to a ‘live’ recording.
Yay!
Swedish duo Roxette allegedly once flew an extra guitarist in from Sweden to that USA for a playback performance – on the radio. There was more money in the music industry in the early nineties.
@twang can I still add tracks – have a couple of contemporary tracks I’d like to add, and of course the dreaded Under Mi Sleng Teng which for purposes of illustration needs to be on. Not clear how I do it in Spotify.
Yes you can. I made it a public list. I think you just open it in Spotify and then you can add to it like any other playlist.
Nope greys out @twang so will send you a list if you don’t mind.
Try now. I’ve made it collaborative.
boom
And also tish.
Let me clarify my comments about Bob Marley not really being reggae. From Catch A Fire onwards, he was a phenomenum, existing in a different plain to all other reggae. He still lived in Jamaica and was much loved and respected, hence the One Love Concert Twang referred to, but his music wasn’t popular on the sound systems or at the lawn dances. He was a god-like being in a category all of his own. Yes, his rhythm section was a crack reggae unit and his songs were righteous, sufferah or lover’s but he wasn’t really part of the reggae community. His music belonged in another world, that of an international superstar. A great singer, a fabulous songwriter and a wonderful performer but not really reggae.
😉
Not reggae. *snort*
I’m curious, though, as to the source of this bizzare theory?
Lloyd Bradley’s superb book, Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King. It was published in 2000. You’ll love it.
That’s where I read that the long hot summer of [insert year here] was the one that killed off ska because everybody was too hot to dance.
Clearly a book full of outlandish theories.
I think the notion sounds up, at least according to one or two oldsters I asked. The heatwave of 1965 ( I think) is recalled by older Jamaicans in the same way the heatwave on 1976 is in the UK – the difference being that Jamaica is properly hot already, & people were literally dropping dead in the heat. Quite plausible then for Duke Reid &/or Sir Coxone to push the more ‘groovy’ & less manic ‘Rocksteady’ at their sound systems.
The nugget that tickled me most from Bass Culture is that the term Blues Dance or ‘Blues’ ( basically a house party shabeen type of affair) derives from the fact that most Jamaican radiograms were Blaupunkt & ‘Blues’ became a synonym for dance party.
Quite interesting.
I shall have to read this definitive book which doesn’t think Bob Marley is a reggae artist. 😄
He thinks he’s Reggae but had no real influence on nor was part of the Reggae movement of the seventies. He functioned in a unique environment.
A ludicrous suggestion of course but we can agree to differ. Still the biggest reggae star in the world and in all likelihood will always be.
I buy it: Marley alerted the rock audience to reggae and I am respectful and grateful but I find much of his output a bit bland and ubiquitous now. Bit like the Johnny Clegg effect, thanks, mate, now show me the real stuff. Of course I am but a music snob , brought up on swiping down tall poppies
I don’t think it is ludicrous. If you’re coming from the point of view that reggae is a music created in and informed by Jamaican popular culture, then it’s undeniable that by the late seventies (at the latest), Marley was no longer in that world, and had moved on to global ubiquity. He certainly came out of it, but he didn’t stay in it.
You should read Bass Culture, it’s a tremendous book.
More correctly he was a global phenomenon who was central to Jamaican culture – living there, active in the community and politics.
OOAA of course!
Looking forward to listening to this. And to the playlist as well. As long as I can ignore the ‘curated’ word….
😁
Not available on Spotify and essential to any discussion of British reggae and reggae in general:
Yes I looked for it but sadly it’s not there!
My next Unsung Hero Of Reggae, after Sister Ignatious and Mick Hucknall, is Tony Blackburn. The BBC notoriously didn’t play much Reggae during its peak period, largely because of DJs like him. He hated it. He didn’t regard it as ‘proper’ music. He would stop records halfway through or play the original R&B version of a Reggae cover to compare them unfavourably. His hatred for Reggae rivals Steve Dahl’s for Disco later in the decade. Tony Blackburn’s prejudice helped to make Reggae more exotic and rebellious to my ears.
I had a weird party trick in the 90s. I used to sing “It Dread Inna Inglan” by Linton Kwesi Johnson in my extremely Glasweigan accent. It used to go down quite well.
I’d love to hear that!
Can you tell me at what point you discuss Chaka Demus & Pliers and ‘Sweat (A La La La La La Long)’ so I can skip to those bits?
…at 39 minutes and 54 seconds.
😉
Afraid I cut that bit. Tig insisted in singing lengthy extracts in authentic Jamaican patois which I though would have the cultural appropriation police up in arms.
Kituffle kituffle in the first place, Im no Tek no trail
Top five Toasting
Big Youth – Screaming Target
Taper Zukie – MPLA
Prince Jazzbo – Ital Corner
Gussie Presenting I-Roy
Prince Far I – Under Heavy Manners
Top five Dub
The Mighty Two – African Dub Chapter Three
Upsetters – Super Ape
Keith Hudson – Pick A Dub
The Skatalites – Heroes Of Reggae In Dub
Augustus Pablo – East Of The River Nile
Roots top five
Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live!
Burning Spear – Social Living
The Congos – Heart Of The Congos
Abyssinians – Satta Massa Gana
Culture – Two Sevens Clash
Top Five British
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Forces Of Victory
Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution
Misty In Roots – Live At The Counter
Matumbi – Point Of View
Third World – Journey To Addi
Top five British Dub
Alpha & Omega – Watch & Pray/Overstanding
Aswad – New Chapter Of Dub
Blackbeard – I Wah Dub
Al Breadwinner Meets Nat Birchall – Sounds Almighty
Prince Fatty Presents Hollie Cook In Dub
Black Roots – On The Ground In Dub
An interesting list. A couple of observations:
1. Third World are Jamaican.
2. Bob Marley is not reggae.
Quite right.
Don’t know what happened there. Cuh!
Third World were in the movie Rockers, essential viewing for any reggae fan. In this trailer it is them backing Jacob Miller singing Tenement Yard.
Substitute Third World with Carroll Thompson – Hopelessly In Love. It’s great!
Perhaps the best lovers rock album ever.
My thoughts precisely!
Reggae is vile …
* I don’t mean that
Your inner Morrissey peeping out?
Good stuff and spot on about the DNA of Reggae in Hip Hop, Trip Hop, Drum & Bass, Dub Techno and pretty much all contemporary pop, Rap & R&B -we should no more bemoan the lack of contemporary Roots Reggae than we should the lack of authentic Blues and Trad Jazz getting played on Capital FM.
Point of order – the 80s hit about a Reggae star getting his collar felt by the Metropolitan Police was not Eek-A-Mouse – I believe it was the late, great Smiley Culture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTHgj5_RfGo
Yes!
Also Smiley Culture’s Cockney Translation:
And also on Fashion Records, Peter King’s Bad Memory:
Nary a mench of The Wailing Souls, The Mighty Diamonds or Israel Vibration? Yet Metallica and Lisa Stanfield yes? Dang civilians.
Also not included Prince Far I, Augustus Pablo (only in passim), Scientist and Snow. The river of reggae is broad.
To be fair I included Prince Far I in the playlist. But we could deffo have done a two parter. But the point is to get everyone to tell us what we missed! 😉
Errol Thompson is the mastermind behind Under Heavy Manners. He and Marcia Griffiths had two children together.
There was a time, a long time to be honest, when I paid very close attention to what Marcia Griffiths was up to. Wonderful singer, I think in Aretha’s league, maybe not quite as good but close. Naturally is a great, great album.
Nice podcast, everyone. I enjoyed it, but I sort of wished that I’d volunteered to participate too. I kept thinking “ooh – I’ve got something incredibly interesting and pertinent to add here!”
You were sorely missed, duco. You should volunteer for one in the near future.
Indeed. You’d be very welcome.
Ragga Toast-off with UK veterans General Levy, Sweetie and Tippa Irie- check out Tippa around 2 mins in –
Great podcast and sounds like it could have gone on easily for another hour. I imagine into the next hour there would have been mention of Soul Jazz’s fabulous series of Studio One compilations, their 100% to 600% Dynamite essential compilations.
For recent albums Nothing More To Say by The Frightnrs and it’s companion dub album. Sadly they’re likely to be their only albums
We also forget to mention that Unesco have officially declared Reggae as a Cultural Treasure.
If we went on long enough we could even have got onto Serge Gainsbourg’s reggae period. This is, of course, La Marsallaise en reggae.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLq7EcvRaf0
Contender for first ska record perhaps?
It doesn’t quite have the slight emphasis on the off beat that ska has but it’s a perfect example of a song which, when played by Carribbean musicians, would have been proto-ska.
It was exactly that kind of tune they played at the early Sound System dances though. Fats was very popular & very influential.
Yes you can hear the influence loud and proud.
Question for Twang:
What is the tune that opens the podcast (i.e. directly after the announcement “Welcome to the Afterword podcast”)?
It’s “Mystery Train”, the Elvis hit @duco01.
Erm … I’m a bit confused here.
So it’s a reggae version of “Mystery Train”, the famous Elvis number?
OK, fair enough. who’s the artist?
Um, that’s me playing. I did it for the reggaecast as a special. I played the other usual theme music too.
Is it on Bandcamp?
No you can’t put covers on Bandcamp.
I never knew that. I wonder how Independent Country get away with it?
I don’t know how actively they enforce it. You can’t on SoundCloud either but I’ve got some covers on there so they can’t be that rigorous.
Amazing. Great stuff, Twang. My mind is blown!
Thanks for that, appreciated. There’s a full length version! Version!!!
“Stop That Mystery Train To Zion, I’m Leaving”.
Elvis’s version was a cover. Junior Parker did it first.
Elvis Scotty and Bill did an excellent tidying-up job on it, but Parker’s version has a better train rhythm in my opinion.
Yes. I didn’t realise that, Twang. Brilliant work for both pieces! Well done.
You should make a dub album.
Mmmm, dub country rock anyone?
It would be number one in American for twenty weeks at least! 😀
Could be the new thing!
Or even a new ting.
Ok, I’m going…
UK roots from Bristol, Black Roots – On The Ground & dubs:
There’s loads of great reggae from Bristol
The jazz keys to Ernest Ranglin’s guitar, Monty Alexander, has done a couple of Marley covers albums. Try this live cut from Yard Movement, Exodus. Crank it up!