Day 204 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Beres Hammond - Rockaway

Judging by the past history of Distinctly Jamaican Sounds you'd think that reggae as a genre didn't produce anything worthwhile after 1985 but nothing could be farther than the truth.  The fact of the matter is that with a backlog of musical history still being discovered on a daily basis by yours truly, I personally have not had the time to keep in touch with "what's hot" and "what's new."  Personally a lot of it can be traced to the general downturn in dancehall which happened in the mid 90s when the music went from upbeat lyrics discussing a multitude of topics, to Jamaican deejays emulating American rappers with nearly continual gangsta talk of guns, violence, murder and punanny... no longer were artists content with "killing a sound" they wanted to literally pump a few bullets into an actual living human being and I for one found it both disturbing and unlistenable.  But while dancehall took a trip to the gutter, there were the occasional gems in reggae that I wanted to highlight this week.  Take for example Beres Hammond's "Rock Away" from 2001... his homage to the "way life used to be" is both beautiful and bittersweet.  Taken from his album Music Is Life on VP this is a great tune!  Score points for Beres for taking a stand against the disposable, heartless music that marked so much of the 90s and early 2000s and which left a bad taste in many reggae fan's mouths.  

The 29th Week Mix In All Of Its Uninterrupted Glory!

Here it is... the 29th Week Mix, complete and uninterrupted for your listening pleasure.  What you're gonna hear...

1.  Lynn Taitt & The Jets - Nice Time

2.  Augustus Pablo - African Queen

3.  Ernie Smith - Duppy Gunman

4.  Ian Gardiner - Father's Call

5.  Ronnie Davis - Tradition

6.  Little Joe - Tradition Skank

7.  U Roy - Rightful Reggae

DOWNLOAD & ENJOY!

Day 203 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - U-Roy - Rightful Reggae

Let's wrap up this week with a tune from the Godfather, the great Daddy U-Roy!  This one is called "Rightful Reggae" and it comes from his album Right Time Rockers recorded at Channel One in 1976 but never released to the general public until it was put out as a CD in 1998 on the Sound System label.  The story was that the tunes on the album were recorded as "specials" for exclusive use on Jamaican sound systems and weren't ever intended to be pressed and sold but I'm glad they were; U-Roy was in top-form!  Happy Saturday folks!

Day 202 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Little Joe - Tradition Skank

Settling into Day 201 in the 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge!  This is one is a direct follow-up of yesterday's Ronnie Davis track and it's the deejay version by the man Joseph Jackson AKA Little Joe AKA Ranking Joe and just like the day before it is pure joy!  "Tradition Skank" was cut in 1976 and originally released as a 7" on the Hot Stuff label... I lifted it from the classic 1994 Blood & Fire CD compilation If Deejay Was Your Trade (The Dreads At King Tubby's 1974-1977)!  

Day 201 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Ronnie Davis - Tradition

We have reached the big 2-0-0 and the train keeps on rollin'!  Ronnie Davis started his singing career by entering talent contests in the early 1960s and by the end of the decade was singing in the vocal group the Tennors.  The group achieved some success by Ronnie Davis really wanted to pursue a solo career, and in 1975 he realized that dream by recording the classic song "Won't You Come Home" for producer Lloyd Campbell.  By 1977, he released his first solo LP Hard Times for Bunny Lee before working with Scratch Perry and Phil Pratt.  Today's tune "Tradition" was one of the songs Ronnie Davis recorded for Lee in 1975 and with its super upbeat, horn-driven rhythm it is a song that always puts a smile on my face!

Day 200 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Ewan "Ian" Gardiner - Father's Call

Today's tune, the 199th in the 365 Day Challenge, is "Father's Call" and it is one that is shrouded in mystery.  On countless releases this song has been incorrectly attributed to Little Roy when it was actually sung by a singer from a duo known as Ian & Rock which featured Ewan "Ian" Gardiner and Anthony "Rocky" Ellis.  It seems Gardiner was a 12 Tribes Bredren and a musician not known for his singing but regardless he did an absolutely killer job with this one!  I had originally written this up as a Little Roy tune but when I realized the mysterious backstory I had to start over again.  It comes from the excellent compilation album of early 70s Glen Brown productions called Boat To Progress: The Original Pantomine Vocal Collection originally released in 1989 on Greensleeves.  It is a helluva tune!

Day 199 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Ernie Smith - Duppy Gunman

Let's do a "duppy tune" in mid May!  Ernie Smith, born Glenroy Anthony Michael Archangelo Smith, had aspirations of being a radio announcer but soon showed an interest in songwriting and eventually began recording the songs he had written.  When the first tracks didn't go anywhere he resorted to selling life insurance.  In the late 60s, Ernie Smith got back in the studio and what followed were a string of "easy-listening" style hits for producer Richard Khouri at Federal that cemented his career as a singer.  Today's track "Duppy Gunman," recorded in 1974 and released on the Wild Flower label in Jamaica and Attack in the UK, was featured in the 2009 Spooktacular... you can click on the link to read about the tune's backstory.  I love this one, regardless of the season!

Day 198 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Augustus Pablo - African Queen

Keeping it short today... today's track in the 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge is from the late great Augustus Pablo and it's called "African Queen."  Produced by Joe Gibbs and originally released in Jamaica on his Jogibs label in 1973, I lifted this track from an excellent 2002 CD named Skanking With Pablo (Melodica For Hire) on the Trojan label.  A nice upbeat tune for the most depressing day of the week, Happy Monday folks!

Day 197 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Lyn Taitt & The Jets - Nice Time

Born Nerlynn Taitt in San Fernando Trinidad in 1934, Lyn Taitt got started playing in steel drum bands before picking up the guitar at age 14.  In 1962, Taitt formed his own band and came to Jamaica to join-in with the independence celebrations, afterward he decided to stay in Jamaica.  He worked with a handful of groups throughout the ska era and in 1966 he formed The Jets along with Hux Brown, Headley Bennett, Hopeton Lewis, Gladstone Anderson and Winston Wright, the group in which his name would become synonymous.  It was during the rocksteady age that Lyn Taitt & The Jets became some of the busiest musicians in Jamaica, sometime performing up to five sessions a day for producers like Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, Sonia Pottinger, Joe Gibbs and Bunny Lee.  It's interesting to note that fans of rocksteady have pondered which song was actually the first of the new genre... some say it was Hopeton Lewis' "Take It Easy," Alton Ellis' "Girl I've Got A Date" or Derrick Morgan's "Tougher Than Tough" but regardless of which track holds the distinction one thing is certain; Lyn Taitt played guitar on all three of them!  Today's track "Nice Time," an instrumental version of the Bob Marley classic, originally came as a 7" on the Merritone label in 1967 and it serves as a nice showcase of Taitt's unconventional though highly in-demand rhythmic guitar playing that made rocksteady sound so damn good.

The 28th Week Mix In All Of Its Uninterrupted Glory!

The 28th Week Mix in all its uninterrupted glory... here's what you're gonna hear!!

1.  The Ethiopians - Mother's Tender Care

2.  Phyllis Dillon - Don't Stay Away

3.  The Pioneers - Give Me A Little Loving

4.  Rudy Mills - I'm Trapped

5.  The Wrigglers - The Cooler

6.  Roy Shirley - Get On The Ball

7.  The Three Tops - It's Raining

Download & Enjoy!

Day 196 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - The Three Tops - It's Raining

Happy Saturday!  If you're like me, living in the mid-Atlantic region here in the States, the month of May hasn't been particularly helpful in allowing us to embrace the end of winter.  It has been raining here continually nearly every day this month and I won't even go into complaining about April because it sucked too.  So today's song "It's Raining" by the Three Tops and originally released in 1967 on the Treasure Isle label, is dedicated to the lousy start of 2016's spring... the hope is that this sweet tune, which really has less to do with inclement weather than with navigating those "muddy ruts" in our daily lives, will soothe Mother Nature a bit and allow the sadly absent sun to shine through those gray, inhospitable and ugly clouds.  Dig it!

Day 195 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Roy Shirley - Get On The Ball

Ainsworth Roy Rushton Shirley AKA Roy Shirley, with his distinctive style and delivery, was definitely one of Jamaica's greatest voices... starting out in talent contests in Kingston when he was a teenager, Roy Shirley was discovered by Byron Lee who got him work with his band in the early 1960s.  His first tune "Oh Shirley," produced by Leslie Kong and co-mixed by his friend Jimmy Cliff,  was released in 1965 and became a hit.  The next year he recorded "Hold Them," which many consider to be one of the first rocksteady records, for Joe Gibbs and again he had another huge hit.  Well to make a long story short, Roy Shirley's career lasted from the ska era, through rocksteady and well into reggae... in fact all the way up until his final performance at the Sierra Nevada Music Festival in June of 2008, a month before he passed away.  Today's tune, the 194th in the 365 Jamaican Music Challenge, is "Get On The Ball,"  originally recorded and released in 1967 as a single on the Caltone label.

Day 194 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - The Wrigglers - The Cooler

Produced by Coxsone Dodd in 1968 and originally released as a 7” on the Giant label, today’s tune by The Wrigglers called “The Cooler” is one of the baddest rocksteady tunes to come out of Brentford Road!  And as you probably already know, Studio One produced tons of timeless music during the era so that is actually saying a lot!  The 7" record itself is one of those tunes that commands a huge price tag and one that I wish I could claim to have nestled in my collection but I am just as satisfied having it on the various artists collection Rock Steady Scorchers on the Coxsone label.  Dig it!

Day 193 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Rudy Mills - I'm Trapped

Rudy Mills was part of Derrick Harriott's stable in the late 60s and early 70s and today's tune "I'm Trapped" comes from the rocksteady era and was originally recorded and released as a blank single in Jamaica and internationally on both Island and Crab in 1968.  This is a great song and while it's unfortunate that I don't own any of the aforementioned vinyl copies I do have a great various artists CD compilation from 1993 called From Chariot's Vault Volume 1 - 16 Rocksteady Hits on the Jamaican Gold label which includes this track. 

Day 192 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - The Pioneers - Give Me A Little Loving

Brothers Sydney and Derrick Crooks and Winston Hewitt formed the Pioneers in 1962.  Their first recordings were self-produced at Treasure Isle and made their way onto vinyl on Ken Lack's Caltone label.  Unfortunately the songs and a few other they had cut were not successful and by 1966 Hewitt had left the group and emigrated to the United States.  The Crooks Brothers replaced him with former Heptone Glen Adams but even that didn't improve things and by 1967 the Pioneers had disbanded; Sydney taking a job as a concert promoter and brother Derrick getting a gig with the Alcoa Bauxite Company.  A year later while Sydney Crooks was working at Joe Gibbs' record shop he got a chance to get back into the studio and since the other members had gone their separate ways he "recruited" a young singer by the name of Jackie Robinson mere moments before he was due to step into the studio.  Today's track "Give Me A Little Loving" was recorded in that first session and released on Gibbs' Amalgamated label and it is an absolute scorcher!

Day 191 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Phyllis Dillon - Don't Stay Away

Hopping into another week of tunes and we're starting off with a rocksteady classic...  Discovered by Duke Reid's session guitarist Lynn Taitt, Phyllis Dillon recorded her first song and today's featured track "Don't Stay Away" in 1966.  Her singing of this tune has been described as "perhaps the finest female performance in Jamaican music," and I would tend to say that I may wholeheartedly agree.  In my opinion, "Don't Stay Away" is one of the sweetest love songs ever recorded regardless of genre, Dillon's voice is absolute perfection and the soothingly smooth backing by Tommy McCook & The Supersonics makes for an all-around amazing tune!

Day 190 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - The Ethiopians - Mother's Tender Care

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there!  When I saw Mother's Day on the calendar I didn't even have to think about which song I was going to use, this was the only song I could think of using!  An all time favorite tune and one of the Ethiopian's greatest, recorded and released in 1970 on Duke Reid's Treasure Isle label... a classic early reggae rhythm coupled with Leonard Dillon and crew delivering some absolutely beautiful heartfelt lyrics, a near perfect tune!  Happy Mother's Day Mom, I love you!

The 27th Week Mix In All Of Its Uninterrupted Glory!

Here it is... the 27th Week Mix for your listening pleasure!  What you're gonna hear...

1.  The Gaylads - May Be For Long

2.  Morwells - Let Me Remind You

3.  Winston Jarrett & The Righteous Flames - Chuky Hark & The Shark

4.  King Tubby & Harry Mudie - Drifting Dub

5.  Lee Perry & Augustus Pablo - Mexican Skank

6.  Well Pleased & Satisfied - Walla Walla

7.  Junior Reid - There Will Be No Darkness

Enjoy!

Day 189 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Junior Reid - There Will Be No Darkness

Short and sweet today... Junior Reid, born Delroy "Junior" Reid, recorded his first song "Speak The Truth," at the age of thirteen for Hugh Mundell and had it released on Augustus Pablo's Rockers label.  By the time the 80s rolled around Reid was in the studio with Sugar Minott, Junjo Lawes and Prince Jammy before starting his own label Jr Productions which even released three of the first tunes by Black Uhuru... the band in which Junior Reid's name would almost become synonymous.  Today's tune is called "There Will Be No Darkness," which comes from the album Boom Shack A Lack, produced by Prince Jammy and released on Greensleeves in 1985.  Enjoy, and happy Saturday!

Day 188 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Well Pleased & Satisfied - Walla Walla

Founded by Ephraim "Jerry" Baxter in the early 70s, Well Pleased And Satisfied recorded for Sonia Pottinger's High Note label and scored a hit in the UK with the tune "Pickney A Have Pickney" in 1977.  Comprised of Baxter, Hugh Lewis and David Paul Johnson, the trio had a sound that I have admired for decades!  Jerry Baxter's voice is one of the most distinctive in the roots era of reggae... so much emotion put into every song and always with a pleasant upbeat/uplifting quality no matter how harsh the subject matter at hand, makes me feel at ease every time I hear a Well Pleased And Satisfied tune!  Today's tune "Walla Walla" was released on the aforementioned High Note label and in my opinion it is an absolute classic!

Day 187 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Augustus Pablo & Lee "Scratch" Perry - Mexican Skank

Happy Cinco de Mayo to any of the readers of this blog in Mexico!  In keeping with this day, in which about 50% of stupid Americans think was created for drinking too much Corona and eating tortilla chips, I have selected an appropriate tune in celebration.  But before we get to the music I have to admit that Cinco de Mayo, much like St. Patrick's Day here in the U.S., is an embarrassment... every year it gets touted as a "drinking holiday" or reason to get shit-faced at the local tavern on tequila instead of a celebration of the country's vibrant culture, music, food and traditions in which it should be.  But I'll stop there... today's tune "Mexican Skank" relies heavily on the stereotypical Mexican Bandito speak that was so prevalent in popular Western films of the time and would be construed by some as being offensive but that was not my intention in selecting this one.  "Mexican Skank" comes from a 2001 CD on the Rhino label called Augustus Pablo Meets Lee Perry At Black Ark and it is a baaad tune!

Day 186 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - King Tubby & Harry Mudie - Drifting Dub

Let's get into a sweet dub track... the 185th track in the 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge is from the 1977 album Harry Mudie Meets King Tubby's In Dub Conference Vol. 2 originally released on the Moodisc label.  Mixed by the great Tubby and distributed by Mr. Mudie, this, inna combination with Volume One is in my opinion, two of the greatest dub albums from the '70s.  Today's tune is called "Drifting Dub" and it is Tubby's badass take on the completely badass Drifter riddim... dig it!

Day 185 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Winston Jarrett & The Righteous Flames - Chuky Hark & The Shark

Winston Jarrett started out in music as one of Alton Ellis' The Flames in the early 1960s, when Ellis' original partner Eddie Perkins emigrated to the United States.  In 1967 he parted ways with Ellis and formed The Righteous Flames and started recording for Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd.  In 1969 they got in the studio with Lee Perry and by that time they were generally billed as Winston Jarrett And The Righteous Flames.  In the 1970s Jarrett grew tired of recording for others and began producing his own music on his own Attra, Human Rights and Humble labels.  Today's track "Chuky Hark & The Shark" was produced by Tony Shabazz and comes from a 1978 7" on the Canadian Karazor label and it's a damn sweet roots tune!

Day 184 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - Morwells - Let Me Remind You

The Morwells AKA Morwell Unlimited was put together by Maurice "Blacka Morwell" Wellington and Eric "Bingy Bunny" Lamont in 1973.  They became a trio the next year later when they recruited arranger Louis Davis and in 1977 they added bassist Errol "Flabba" Holt.  After some successful releases during the era, including the album Presenting The Morwells and its masterful dub counterpart mixed by King Tubby called Dub Me, but parted ways in 1980 when Lamont and Holt formed the Roots Radics.  Today's track "Let Me Remind You" was taken from their 1979 album Cool Runnings produced by Blacka Morwell and recorded at Channel One.

Day 183 of 365 Day Jamaican Music Challenge - The Gaylads - May Be For Long

The Gaylads, originally comprised of Harris "B.B." Seaton, Winston Delano Stewart and Maurice Roberts, got their start in the early 1960s and after a brief hiatus in 1964 when Seaton decided to pursue a solo career, they started recording for Studio One in 1966... later they went on to work with Sonia Pottinger, Leslie Kong and Rupie Edwards.  After Seaton and Stewart left the group in the early 70s, Maurice Roberts went on to recruit brothers Randall and Hopeton Thacker to keep the Gaylads alive.  One would assume that today's track, serving as a roundabout tribute to the first day of May, "May Be For Long," likely contains the vocals of the Brothers Thacker and Maurice Roberts because it was simultaneously released in 1984 both on the Roy Cousins produced album on the Culture Press label Cornell Campbell Meets The Gaylads With Sly & Robbie and as a 7" on the Wambesi imprint.  It's a good tune, dig it!