Reggae, Ska, Dub, Ragga and Dancehall
820 articles
Millie, Prince Buster: It's the Blue-Beat Craze
Report by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 15 February 1964
A LOOK AT THE LATEST CRAZE TO TAKE THE RECORD INDUSTRY BY STORM ...
Derrick Morgan, Prince Buster, Duke Reid, Sir Coxone: It's Ska — but we call it Blue Beat!
Report by Maureen Cleave, The Evening Standard, 7 March 1964
I SUPPOSE we'd all reckoned without Jamaica. Since the failure of that embarrassing calypso which we were told would sweep the nation — the nation ...
Millie: A Blue Beat Bombshell!
Interview by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 4 April 1964
A DARK-SKINNED very feminine ball of fire named simply, Millie. A Jamaican-born bombshell who is an old trouper at the age of 16... and could ...
Mickey Finn & the Blue Men: Peter Jones's New Names: Mickey Finn's East End Image
Profile by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 18 April 1964
SOME GROUPS get dozens of big hits, but never manage to put an image, or at least an atmospheric image over to the public. But ...
Millie, Prince Buster, Toots & The Maytals: Atlantic Label Releases Hot on Jamaica Ska Disks
Report by uncredited writer, Billboard, 23 May 1964
NEW YORK — Atlantic Records will soon release several dozen Jamaica Ska disks. ...
Millie: Little Topper — Little Chart Topper Millie
Report by uncredited writer, Top Boys, 23 May 1964
A WEEK OF MILLIE ...
Lulu, Millie: In this business where you're old at 20, Millie and Lulu are the Younger Fry
Profile and Interview by Maureen Cleave, The Evening Standard, 4 July 1964
WHILE THEIR elder sisters, Kathy Kirby, Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black sing moving songs about love and desertion, Millie and Lulu are to be found ...
Review by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 22 April 1967
Top class, dramatic newie from Bee Gees, and a not so commercial Tremeloes — slow soul from Sam & Dave, & delicate new P. P. ...
Review by Peter Jones, Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 6 May 1967
Some sophisticated new Motown albums ...
Desmond Dekker: On The Trail Of Desmond Dekker
Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 12 August 1967
A FEW years ago Bluebeat, that simple jogging West Indian pop, was all the rage among the mods of Britain. ...
Laurel Aitken, Bees, The (Jamaica): Bluebeat!! A New EMI Label For Blue Beat Devotees
Report and Interview by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 14 October 1967
BLUE BEAT, Ska, West Indian sounds generally — if the pundits of pop are right, we'll be getting more and more of it in the ...
Live Review by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 21 October 1967
IT WAS A 'soul show' at the Saville last Sunday, in the very widest sense of the term. Jimmy Cliff started off, and when he ...
Jackie Edwards: Premature Golden Sands (Island ILP.960)
Review by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, December 1967
JACKIE IS one of the "in" singers at the moment, and although still without a hit in this country, this album could make quite an ...
Johnny Nash: Rock-Steady is Coming
Interview by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 7 September 1968
JOHNNY NASH arrived in London on Tuesday for six days to promote his hit single, 'Hold Me Tight', with the message that Rock-Steady is on ...
Johnny Nash and the Need for a New Image
Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 14 September 1968
AMERICAN SINGER Johnny Nash flew into London last week with a problem: his act. "For a start, I've got no charts (arrangements) with me," he ...
Donnie Elbert: Soul Singer in the Suburbs... Donnie Elbert
Profile and Interview by Wesley Laine, Record Mirror, 14 December 1968
EDGWARE, MIDDLESEX, in the vibrant heart of London'ssuburbia isn't quite where you'd expect to find a soul singer who has had hits all over the ...
Reggae: A Night at Count Suckle's and Reggae
Film/DVD/TV Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 1969
JUST WHEN all hope had been abandoned, the ITV Network surprised us. ...
Desmond Dekker: The New Testament Goes 'Soul'..
Interview by uncredited writer, Record Mirror, 5 April 1969
LAST TIME he was in the charts visions of James Bond were conjured up. This time: visions of the New Testament perhaps. Quite a difference ...
Interview by Richard Green, New Musical Express, 26 April 1969
Island Records boss CHRIS BLACKWELL talks to Richard Green ...
Desmond Dekker: Dekker Dekkos* London
Report and Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 26 April 1969
IT WAS going to be one of those "day-in-the-life " adventures, with photographer Stuart Richman and I showing excited tourist Desmond Dekker the sights of ...
Desmond Dekker, Errol Dixon: Reggay: Son of R & B
Overview by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 10 May 1969
THERE WERE two kinds of reaction when Desmond Dekker's 'Israelites' started up the hit parades in March: blimey, I heard that before Christmas; and, the ...
Max Romeo: This Is The Record That Will Give The BBC Troubles — If It Reaches The Top...
Report by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, 21 June 1969
HOVERING AROUND the lower end of the charts is a record that has had no plugs, and certainly no air plays – nor is it ...
Max Romeo: 'It's Not A Dirty Song At All,' says Max Romeo
Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 5 July 1969
THE ENGLISH have got dirty minds, thinks Max Romeo, the young 19-year-old singer from Kingston, Jamaica, whose provocatively-titled single 'Wet Dream' is currently in the ...
Desmond Dekker: Sister's Fall Inspired Des' 'It Mek'
Interview by Richard Green, New Musical Express, 19 July 1969
AS A CHANGE from Which came first, the chicken or the egg? — which came first, the 'Israelites' or the 'It Mek'? ...
Desmond Dekker: What is the secret of rock-steady's success?
Interview by Royston Eldridge, Melody Maker, 19 July 1969
THE SUCCESS of the strangely titled 'It Mek', which made a mammoth jump into the higher reaches of the chart last week, means that Desmond ...
Desmond Dekker: Sweetened Ska Beat Could Sweep The Country Claims Desmond Dekker's Producer
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 26 July 1969
ARE DESMOND Dekker's 'Israelites' No. 1 and his latest release 'It Mek' only flashes in the proverbial pan, man... or could a hybrid mix of ...
Live Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 4 October 1969
Jamaica triumph ...
Report and Interview by Richard Green, New Musical Express, 1 November 1969
JUST HOW firm a hold reggae is taking on the charts is demonstrated this week by the arrival in the NME Top Thirty of three ...
Desmond Dekker, The Pioneers: Ska's Mysterious Lyrics Explained
Profile and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Record Mirror, 5 November 1969
Desmond Dekker talks to Roger St. Pierre ...
Harry J All Stars, The Pioneers, Max Romeo and the Upsetters: Reggae — is it a new art form?
Comment by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 8 November 1969
A critical appraisal by Christopher J Welch ...
Owen Gray, Pat Kelly: Various Artists: Reggae Convention, Lyceum, London
Live Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 15 November 1969
FOLLOWING up the great success of last month's Caribbean Festival at Wembley, the first Reggae Convention at the Lyceum promised to be at least as ...
Jimmy Cliff: Respectability to Reggae
Interview by Royston Eldridge, Melody Maker, 22 November 1969
JIMMY CLIFF is the hip young Jamaican who's brought respectability to reggae. His 'Wonderful World, Beautiful People' is a development of the simple ska sound ...
Interview by Royston Eldridge, Melody Maker, 29 November 1969
...on the current Reggae boom ...
Jimmy Cliff: Jimmy Cliff (Trojan stereo TRLS 16; 37s. 5d.)
Review by Richard Green, New Musical Express, 13 December 1969
JIMMY CLIFF has done well out of reggae after a couple of years without much activity and he's following up his hit, 'Wonderful World, Beautiful ...
The Pioneers: 'Longshot' Never Let Them Down. Will 'Ramases' Do The Same?
Profile and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Record Mirror, 3 January 1970
'Long Shot, Kick The Bucket' brought pop fame and a trip to Britain for the Pioneers; 'Poor Ramases' is their latest disc and to give ...
Byron Lee & The Dragonaires: Byron Lee is Jamaican Idol
Profile by Richard Green, New Musical Express, 14 February 1970
RELATIVELY unknown in this country, except to West Indians, Byron Lee is one of Jamaica's biggest attractions. In fact, he is to the Jamaicans what ...
Bob and Marcia: 'Why Marry? Our Way's Okay' says Bob Smiling While Marcia Frowns
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 21 March 1970
Reggae stars in London ...
Bob and Marcia: Young & Gifted
Interview by Val Mabbs, Record Mirror, 28 March 1970
HARRY J., THE man who together with his All Stars, helped greatly to promote the reggae boom, as far back as October last year, is ...
Bob and Marcia Take Plenty Preparation Time
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 4 April 1970
DON'T BELIEVE all that stuff about black artists just jumping up on a stage and doing their thing without a moment of preparation. It happens... ...
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 8 August 1970
NICKY THOMAS came to town the other day, all happy and rarin' to reggae. He smiled a lot and laughed a lot and sat in ...
Jimmy Cliff, Cat Stevens: Jimmy Cliff Has No Plans To Do Another Stevens Song
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 22 August 1970
WHEN I ARRIVED at Island Records' outpost, which is just a stallholder's cry off the colourful Portobello Road street-market in West London's Notting Hill Gate, ...
Desmond Dekker Is To Reveal His Two Sides On Double LP
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 26 September 1970
THE WHOLE economical structure of pop music is to seek out an acceptable format and then market it for mass appeal and consumption. So what ...
Reggae: The Real Underground Music
Report and Interview by Mark Williams, Strange Days, 23 October 1970
FORGET YOUR Edgar Broughtons and your Pink Floyds and your three million other 'underground' groups, ('underground' that is, until they start selling lottsa albums, when ...
Interview by Alan Smith, New Musical Express, 1 May 1971
NME's Alan Smith endeavours to interview this week's chart toppers ...
Dave and Ansell Collins: Ansell Plays It Cool While Dave Searches For His Mum...!
Profile and Interview by Phil Symes, Disc and Music Echo, 8 May 1971
DAVE BARKER is a well-built Jamaican who talks fast and enthusiastically and punctuates his sentences with finger-clicking and hearty slaps of his right thigh. Ansell ...
Dave and Ansell Collins: 'Double Barrel' — A High Calibre Hit?
Interview by Mark Plummer, Melody Maker, 8 May 1971
CRITICS PUT it down, musicians loathe it — and mention reggae to a progressive music fan and a string of abuse will follow. It appears ...
Dave and Ansell Collins, Desmond Dekker, Alton Ellis: Reggae
Report and Interview by Mark Plummer, Melody Maker, 22 May 1971
"Send a reggae band for my wedding reception" said Mick Jagger. The unpredictable move by a Stone symbolised the final acceptance of the music as ...
Comment by Roger St. Pierre, West Indian World, 23 July 1971
"REGGAE" – JAMAICA'S own form of pop music – has made a dynamic impact on the pop scene around the world and yet an amazing ...
The Pioneers: A high-class comeback for the Pioneers of reggae
Interview by David Hughes, Disc and Music Echo, 28 August 1971
'LET YOUR Yeah Be Yeah' marks the return of the Pioneers to the chart after a two-year absence. It was in 1969 they came into ...
Judge Dread: Here comes the Judge
Profile and Interview by Caroline Boucher, Disc, 22 July 1972
AFTER RECEIVING three stab wounds in the stomach, an axe wound on the head and a broken bottle in the face, Alex Hughes gave up ...
Jackie Edwards, Harry J All Stars: Various Artists: Tighten Up Volume 6 (Trojan)
Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 2 September 1972
THIS CONSISTS mainly of the pop side of reggae. Tunes like Isaac Hayes's 'Do Your Thing', Dandy Livingstone's 'Suzanne, Beware Of The Devil' and the ...
Review by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 9 September 1972
THIS IS the full soundtrack of the film of the same name. Needless to say, with the present move towards "gentrifying" reggae music it's bound ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Toots & The Maytals: Reggae: Black Gold of Jamaica
Report by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 30 September 1972
Reggae – in its more commercial form – has won the battle for mass acceptance, and has gone on to influence rock and soul musicians ...
Jimmy Cliff: Various Artists: The Harder They Come
Review by Charlie Gillett, Let It Rock, October 1972
HOW TO GET into reggae in two easy stages. First you go to see the film The Harder They Come, which will engross you with ...
Johnny Nash: I Can See Clearly Now
Review by Charlie Gillett, Rolling Stone, 12 October 1972
AT LAST, REGGAE as all-around entertainment, whose rhythms will still generate movement in a crowded basement discotheque but whose arrangements and moods shift often enough ...
Johnny Nash, Billy Paul: The Bitter End, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Dove, The New York Times, 17 November 1972
JOHNNY NASH HEARD; BILLY PAUL ON BILL ...
Island Records: Reggae to Riches
Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 25 November 1972
IF YOU WORK for Island Records, nobody minds if you take your dog into the office every day – or even if it misbehaves on ...
Prince Buster: Reggae Part 1: Jamaica
Report by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 20 January 1973
WHENEVER I've gone home to America in the past couple of years, the question I'm always asked is "What's happening in England?" And okay, I ...
Greyhound: Reggae Part 2: Reggae in Britain
Report by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 27 January 1973
WHEN LABOUR IN England was becoming hard to come by during the 1950s, enticing proclamations were urgently sent to the West Indies. "Your Mother Country ...
Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Johnny Nash, Paul Simon: It's Here — Reggae Rock
Overview by Loraine Alterman, The New York Times, 4 February 1973
WHEN ANYONE mentions West Indian music, steel bands and calypso instantly echo in the mind, but Jamaica's most popular music is reggae (rhymes with old) ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: The First Genius of Reggae?
Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 24 February 1973
BOB MARLEY, slightly-built and quiet to the point of diffidence, is a leader. He's the master of Reggae, the man who's about to give it ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Wailers: Catch A Fire (Island)
Review by Colman Andrews, Phonograph Record, March 1973
THE WAILERS is/are a sort of senior, "safe" reggae group, in the same way that the Roiling Stones are a sort of senior, "safe" perverto-bizarro ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, The Wailers: The Wailers: Catch A Fire (Island)
Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 29 March 1973
SOME TIME during the coming summer, Reggae will become a vital force in pop music — perhaps, for a while at least, the force. For those who ...
Jimmy Cliff and Various Artists: The Harder They Come
Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, April 1973
IT'S REGGAE, MON, sweet as cola wine and m'bopo supremo. No lectures, no history lessons, if ya don't know about that sound from Jamaica by ...
Profile and Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 13 April 1973
"REALLY WEIRD" is how Johnny Nash describes the acceptance and success he's recently received in the States via his major CBS hit 'I Can See ...
Don Covay: Are You Reggae For Don Covay?
Report and Interview by Roger St. Pierre, New Musical Express, 21 April 1973
AMERICA JUST had to catch on to reggae. After all, the roots of Jamaican music lie in the '50s out-put of Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis ...
Jimmy Cliff et al: The Harder They Come
Review by Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 26 April 1973
THE REGGAE GROUNDSWELL that cups Jamaica's potential as a pop force has been heralded for many moons now, yet despite several breech-opening successes from a ...
Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come (Starring Jimmy Cliff, Dir. Perry Henzell, New World Pictures)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1973
THE POSTERS that appeared in the New York subways a few weeks before the film premiered were natural killers. They showed Jimmy Cliff, dressed in ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Catch a Fire (Island)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Creem, May 1973
WELL I SUPPOSE it serves you — America — right. For five years some of the best music has been coming out of little studios ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Wailers: Catch A Fire (Island SW9329)
Review by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 5 May 1973
TRUTH TO tell, I think that reggae is a lost cause in Britain. It's an entirely popular music and unless it makes it from the ...
Judge Dread: Working Class Hero And The Robin Hood Of Reggae
Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973
NICK KENT SPECIAL interview (snigger, snigger) with the man who's rude (snigger) but heaven forbid – not crude ...
The Wailers: Speakeasy, London
Live Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 26 May 1973
IF YOU FOUND the Wailers' debut Island album, Catch A Fire, an uncomfortable sidestep to your usual tastes, I'd strongly advise you to witness a ...
Overview by Penny Reel, International Times, 31 May 1973
WHITE MAKES his move. Black makes his move. White moves and Black reciprocates. Black moves and White reciprocates. The players perpetuate the game for the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Wailers: Catch a Fire (Island)
Review by Penny Reel, International Times, 31 May 1973
WITH THE Wailers presently heralded as the reggae band by music acclaimants, I expect to see Catch a Fire amongst those record collections where Eddie ...
Profile by Bob Merlis, Words & Music, June 1973
IT SHOULD blow many a rock and roll mind to realize that Johnny Nash, the man who brought reggae to the top of the charts, ...
Will Reggae Make It? Jamaica Says It Will!
Overview by Greg Shaw, Crawdaddy!, June 1973
THE STONES, Aretha, Traffic, Paul Simon and Roberta Flack have all made celebrated pilgrimages to the island and bandwagon trend-watches are beginning to mutter about ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Wailers' Simple Message
Profile and Interview by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 9 June 1973
BOB MARLEY looks as though he could be a heavy. Though he's of average height and spare build, he has the gleaming eye of a ...
Johnny Nash: My Merry Go Round (CBS)
Review by Charlie Gillett, New Musical Express, 16 June 1973
LISTENING TO this record the first time through is as frustrating as trying to see a beautiful woman through a steamed-up window. But the third ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: In The Studio With The Wailers
Report by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 23 June 1973
THE ROLLING STONES are upstairs in Studio 1, where they've been for the past five weeks. ...
Toots & The Maytals: Funky Kingston (Dragon)
Review by Penny Reel, International Times, 28 June 1973
Jamaican Rock'n'roll ...
The Wailers: Bruce Springsteen, The Wailers: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 19 July 1973
Rock and reggae ...
Report by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 21 July 1973
Scores of reggae records sell enough copies to qualify as pop hits. But you won't see them on the charts and you won't hear them ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Dove, The New York Times, 23 July 1973
Waiters Serve Up Genuine Reggay ...
Big Youth: Screaming Target (Trojan).
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 28 July 1973
BIG YOUTH is the latest sensation in the Jamaican market for disc-jockeys who improvise spoken lyrics (rhymes, exhortations, etc) over backings tracks. Taking over from ...
Live Review by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 11 August 1973
Wailers fail to catch afire ...
Toots & The Maytals: The Maytals: From The Roots (Trojan)
Review by Roger St. Pierre, New Musical Express, 8 September 1973
IF EVER a group deserved recognition beyond the realms of its chosen music form, then it's the Maytals. ...
The Wailers: the Matrix, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 30 October 1973
Reggae — active and complex ...
I Roy, Toots & The Maytals: The Maytals: From The Roots (Trojan)/I ROY: Presenting... (Trojan)
Review by Charlie Gillett, Let It Rock, November 1973
THIS STUFF IS even harder to understand than Jethro Tull's Passion Play, but nobody's going to stop singing because some dumb reviewer can't work it ...
Jimmy Cliff: From Reggae To Riches
Interview by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 17 November 1973
IT MUST BE almost three years since the last hit record. God, that's an artistic lifespan for many people, but somehow he manages to suggest ...
Jimmy Cliff: Country Boy Jimmy Cliff
Report by Martin Hayman, Sounds, 18 May 1974
Martin Hayman meets one of reggae's mainmen ...
Jimmy Cliff: Struggling Man (Island)/ Music Maker (Reprise)
Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, August 1974
LAST YEAR, 'the word' was that reggae was all set to become the next big thing. Once radio program directors and listeners heard that irresistibly ...
Jimmy Cliff: Skanking In Exile
Interview by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 7 September 1974
I'VE BEEN living in Stoke Newington for about six months. The area's one of the most cosmopolitan in North-East London, with an immigrant population that ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots and the Maytals: In The Dark
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 14 September 1974
This, Toots, was made for dork-ing ...
Ken Boothe ...On the Kingston Line
Interview by David Hancock, Record Mirror, 2 November 1974
UNLESS YOU'RE a committed reggae freak you probably think Ken Boothe is a bit of an overnight sensation. ...
Ken Boothe: Straight Down the Middle
Interview by Idris Walters, Sounds, 9 November 1974
A RASTAFARIAN rising to number one on a cover version with a soft reggae back beat. 'Everything I Own' must have sold a lot of ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Lively Up Yourself
Overview by Idris Walters, Let It Rock, December 1974
Idris Walters on the music, the history and the Rasta background of Bob Marley and The Wailers. ...
Toots & The Maytals: Fundamental reggae... that's Toots and the Maytals
Interview by Giovanni Dadomo, Record Mirror, 14 December 1974
"THE REAL meaning of reggae is that the roots come from the heart — if you don't have love you can't play reggae." Thus spake ...
Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Toots & The Maytals: Why Reggae Won't Be the Next Big Thing
Essay by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 16 December 1974
FOR A WHILE it appeared that reggae was Pop Salvation. This was determined by a small number of white music taste makers who'd seen Jimmy ...
Profile by Lenny Kaye, Hit Parader, January 1975
GIVEN THE commercial restrictions of the business we call music, it is the rare record company that is willing to lay itself on the line ...
Drums of Rasta: Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 3 May 1975
THEY START with a simple, slow double beat on the drums. There are between 20 and 30 of them spread across London's Roundhouse stage, all ...
Ras Michael & The Sons Of Negus: Nyahbinghi (Trojan Trls 113)
Review by Idris Walters, Sounds, 3 May 1975
THERE IS a story on the sleeve — which makes a change. It tells how Haile Selassie was the last in a line of 323 ...
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 17 May 1975
SEVEN YEARS ago, Desmond Dekker was a raw, gangling boy from St Thomas, Jamaica. ...
The Beatles, Bob Marley & the Wailers: Is Natty Dread better than Sgt. Pepper?
Essay by Idris Walters, Sounds, 24 May 1975
It doesn't matter, says IDRIS WALTERS. Rock's big enough, and the WAILERS are making waves... ...
Overview by Idris Walters, Sounds, 31 May 1975
...but can white rock and rollers sing the palm tree? wonders IDRIS WALTERS ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Wollman Skating Rink, New York NY
Live Review by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, July 1975
IT WAS THE first one of those muggy nights this season, when the air is so close it cuts down your breathing, that Bob Marley ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Roxy, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 12 July 1975
Magic of Reggae by Marley & Co. ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Lyceum Ballroom, London
Live Review by Philip Norman, The Times, 18 July 1975
BOB MARLEY and the Wailers reached the Lyceum two nights ago, in some style. By early evening, long before they were due to appear, the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley (1975)
Interview by Karl Dallas, Rock's Backpages audio, 19 July 1975
The day after his legendary Lyceum show, Marley expounds on Babylon, Rastafari, Jamaica, his universal message, and the meaning of 'I Shot The Sheriff'.
File format: mp3; file size: 11.5mb, interview length: 25' 01" sound quality: ****
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Third World: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Record Mirror, 26 July 1975
Trenchtown Experience ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: The Lyceum, London
Live Review by Idris Walters, Sounds, 26 July 1975
Wailers join rogues gallery ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Lyceum, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 July 1975
"HEY, MON... WHAT are all these whites doin' here? They not here last time the Wailers play..." ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Wailin'
Report and Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 26 July 1975
After two amazing gigs last week in London, Bob Marley is being universally hailed as reggae's first superstar. Karl Dallas watches the Wailers in action ...
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 26 July 1975
IF ANYONE wants to know where the underground is, from which British rock is to get its next and much-needed injection of musical energy, they ...
Review by Vernon Gibbs, Crawdaddy!, August 1975
IT HAS BEEN three years since The Harder They Come lifted reggae from obscurity to culthood and raised hopes that Jimmy Cliff would begin a ...
Johnny Nash: The Johnny Nash Story
Retrospective and Interview by Tony Cummings, Black Music, August 1975
POPULAR MUSIC is crammed with bizarre change-arounds: of pop singers who "go soul" of rock groups who "discover" the blues, even of R&B singers who ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Marley On The Mount
Interview by Idris Walters, Sounds, 16 August 1975
Last week you got the low-down on Bob Marley, King of the Rastafarians. But it goes a little deeper than that. For a start the ...
Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley & the Wailers: Letter from Britain: Johnny Too Bad's Kinky Reggae
Column by Jonh Ingham, Creem, September 1975
THEY SAY that reggae is breaking into America via discos. It would be nice to think so, because if ever a music deserved to gain ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 September 1975
"DENNIS BROWN," announces Trojan manager Webster Shrowder From the sleeve of the man's album, "is one of my favourite artists, who I put in the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: An Herbal Meditation with Bob Marley
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Rolling Stone, 11 September 1975
LOS ANGELES – This Bible is not the arcane, apocryphal version you might expect to find in the possession of these mysterious Rastas, but a ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 13 September 1975
Marley No Woman No Cry No Opposition Mon ...
Overview by Kevin Allen, Record Mirror, 27 September 1975
You either love it or hate it. It's either boring, and all the same, or the most exciting thing you've ever heard. No other current ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley et al: Jamaica
Overview by Mitchell Cohen, Phonograph Record, October 1975
FIRST DAY, RAIN. Thick clouds and then more rain. It is, I'm told, the wetter of Jamaica's two wet seasons. ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots' Soulful Reggae — Direct from Jamaica
Profile by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 October 1975
THE FIRST American album by Toots and the Maytals, Funky Kingston (Island 9330) introduces Jamaica's most soulful reggae to this country virtually as well as ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1 November 1975
THIS ONE'LL SORT out the liggers. ...
Rupie Edwards, King Tubby, Niney the Observer, Augustus Pablo: Dub: Reggae's Cutting Edge
Overview by Idris Walters, Street Life, 1 November 1975
RIGHT NOW, Dub is at the cutting edge of reggae. ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Live at the Lyceum (Island) 35 mins.*****
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 29 November 1975
IN THESE troubled times of ours there's very few things you can be sure of. ...
Review by Idris Walters, Let It Rock, December 1975
DEAR MAILBAG, I would have expected these two titles to sail away, hand in hand, into a black sunset. But they don't. Yours SR Gibbs, ...
Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 6 December 1975
IF EVERYONE HAD a pair of disco turntables as well as a telly, this record might sell a million. ...
Burning Spear: Man In The Hills (Island)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 1976
Spear’s album is a staggering success. It's a big challenge to follow up Marcus Garvey (I don't count Garvey's Ghost), which from the instant of ...
Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Dr. Feelgood, The Faces, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Slade: Introduction
Book Excerpt by Mick Gold, 'Rock on the Road' (Futura), 1976
THE IDEA OF doing a book of photo-essays about live music was sparked by a desire to examine two areas: what the job of being ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, January 1976
SINCE HE ELECTRIFIED audiences In The Harder They Come, Jimmy Cliff has been his own worst enemy. His songs in that film bristled with passion, ...
Toots & The Maytals: Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin, Texas
Live Review by Joe Nick Patoski, Phonograph Record, January 1976
DESPITE THIS city's reputation as a comfy little haven for country and progressive-country backwoods folksiness, its music audiences — at least in relation to the ...
Toots & The Maytals, The Who: The Who, Toots and the Maytals: The Summit, Houston TX
Live Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 1 January 1976
The Who: Losing the Spark after a G-G-Generation? ...
Junior Byles: From the Dread Depths of Despair
Report by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 7 February 1976
JUNIOR BYLES emerged as the supreme talent of the year, if not of the decade. His moving 'Bur O Boy' was without peer. ...
Burning Spear: Ruby's Dub Gems
Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 21 February 1976
REGGAE IS in many ways a producer's music. More than any other ethnic music since Twenties hillbilly, it is a music that has been created ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots Hibbert: The Man Who Would Be God
Profile and Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 21 February 1976
Rasta revelations courtesy of FREDERICK "TOOTS" HIBBERT of Toots and The Maytals, who'd rather incarnate here and now than talk about old times with PENNY ...
Johnny Clarke: Where are the songs of Spring?
Profile by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 28 February 1976
Ay, where are they? PENNY REEL looks at the erratic career of JOHNNY CLARKE, the star should have been. ...
Burning Spear: Jack Ruby: Mono Reggae For The Ghetto
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 March 1976
"WE’RE CALLING this Garvey’s Ghost," explained Jack Ruby, gesturing expansively towards the reel-to-reel, from whence issued sweet, sweet music. ...
Toots & the Maytals: Toots Got Soul
Profile and Interview by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 6 March 1976
FIRST BOB Marley and the Wailers. Then, Toots and the Maytals. ...
The Twinkle Brothers: Rasta Pon Top
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 March 1976
EVER SINCE ITALIAN propagandists began spreading false rumours concerning the demise of the Emperor, Negus Ras Tafari, Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Conquering Lion ...
Toots & the Maytals: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 27 March 1976
GOD, I JUST can't take it any more! Where is all this incredible music coming from? It's getting more than flesh and blood can stand, ...
The Heptones: Double Trouble: The Story of Leroy Sibbles and the Heptones
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 3 April 1976
LEROY SIBBLES is the nearest thing I've ever encountered to a Jamaican reggae man acid casualty. That is to say, while obviously intelligent, he twitches ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots And The Maytals: Reggae Got Soul (Island)***
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 3 April 1976
SAD TO say, there's no track on this album that measures up to the quality of the classic tracks on Toots' last two 'rock-oriented' albums, ...
Mike Dorane: The Lone Arranger
Interview by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 10 April 1976
"Say, stranger...who's that masked man who just wrote those songs, played all the instruments, sang all the harmonies, mixed the tracks in his home studio ...
The Heptones: Night Food (Island ILPS 9381) ****
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 17 April 1976
YUP; THERE is a four-star album, despite the fact that there is an aching feeling throughout that screams the Heptones should be achieving more than ...
Dr. Alimantado: The Curious Case of Dr. Alimantado
Profile by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 24 April 1976
"Ere Jah Man!""Ites!""Whadda word Babylon mean, dread?" ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Rastaman Vibration (Island ILPS 9383)
Review by Sam Sutherland, Phonograph Record, May 1976
Top 40 Rasta: Marley at his most Mischievous ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Rastaman Vibration (Island)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 1 May 1976
"Chase them crazy bald heads out of town" ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley and the Wailers: Rastaman Vibration
Review by Simon Frith, Street Life, 15 May 1976
I DON'T KNOW how this music will be rated but my word would be mellow. This is a very uncluttered album – the rhythms are ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Beacon Theatre, New York NY
Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 22 May 1976
NEW YORK: Bob Marley needs an enthusiastic audience to light his particular fire, but his show at the Beacon Theatre lacked this essential ingredient and ...
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 29 May 1976
THE MIGHTY DIAMONDS emerged in the wake of the resurgence of interest in Burning Spear – "I and I, son of the Most High – ...
Joe Higgs: The Fastest Left Hook in Rock Steady...
Profile by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 29 May 1976
...was not JOE HIGGS. He was the one on the receiving end of Coxsone Dodd's mighty fist. But then that's all in a day's work ...
Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 26 June 1976
The roar of a BMW ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 26 June 1976
RIOTS LAST NIGHT they said, marauding hordes of smart, mean kids swarming around getting illegal all over the place with property and the concession stands ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 26 June 1976
THERE WERE EXACTLY four things wrong with the final show by the Wailers at Hammersmith last Friday. ...
Ras Michael & The Sons Of Negus With Jazzboe Abubaka: Tribute To The Emperor (Trojan)
Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 26 June 1976
THIS ALBUM is designed to cash in on the recent mini-tour by the Rastafarian group, and with its colourful sleeve (green, red and gold stripes ...
Martha Velez: Escape from Babylon
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 31 July 1976
WHATEVER HAPPENS, no way can Martha Velez bitch about never getting the breaks. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Ras Michael & The Sons of Negus, Peter Tosh: Bob Marley with a Bullet
Report and Interview by Ed McCormack, Rolling Stone, 12 August 1976
Man to man is so unjust You don't know who to trust... Who the cap fit Let them wear it — 'Who ...
Burning Spear: Schaefer Music Festival, Wollman Skating Rink, Central Park, New York NY
Live Review by Wayne Robins, The Village Voice, 23 August 1976
Burning Spear Overkills Message ...
Review by Rob Partridge, Melody Maker, 28 August 1976
IT HAS been a remarkable year for reggae, a year which has seen the full flowering of the music as a vehicle for social, political ...
Mighty Diamonds, U-Roy, Delroy Wilson: Mighty Diamonds, U Roy, Delroy Washington: Lyceum, London
Report by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 28 August 1976
THIS SHOULD be a review of the Diamonds' and U. Roy's appearance at London's Lyceum on Wednesday night, but back here in the tiny ghetto ...
Peter Tosh, The Wailers: Peter Tosh: The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 28 August 1976
'Legalise it' says roots rock reggae hero Pete Tosh 'Yeah!' says Sounds gal VIVIEN GOLDMAN 'Evenin' all' says the man from the drugs squad ...
Burning Spear: Man In The Hills
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 11 September 1976
NEXT TO THE current crop of wild-eyed wired-op weird-asses coming out of JA these days, Burning Spear sound almost conservative. ...
Mighty Diamonds, U-Roy: Mighty Diamonds/U-Roy/Delroy Washington: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 11 September 1976
The Lyceum rockers wore dreadlocks, the Aldwych wouldn't do the Strand; the rude bwoys were on a ballroom blitz; and PENNY REEL reports on a ...
Burning Spear: Man in the Hills (Island ILPS-9412)
Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 23 September 1976
THANKS TO this summer's marketing blitz, virtually the entire spectrum of reggae is now available in America, although not in any depth. ...
The Gladiators: Trenchtown Mix Up
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 2 October 1976
RED HOT IN BABYLON OR MAUVE IN THE GROVE ...
Aswad, The Cimarons: British Reggae: Prejudiced Vibrations
Comment by Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 9 October 1976
ON THE SURFACE it looks as though there has been something of a major breakthrough for reggae in Britain. ...
Bunny Wailer: Reincarnated Soul Makes Year's Best Album
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 16 October 1976
"WHY DO THEY regard me with awe? I didn't know that people think of me as superhuman. I've never flown or anything of that type. ...
Burning Spear, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer: Reggae: Black Punks On 'Erb
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 16 October 1976
"Youth is the first thing that hits you about the musicians...reggae is still a young music, further progress is made every day." * ...
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 23 October 1976
We've got wars and rumours of war...('Armagedon' by Bunny Wailer) ...
Max Romeo & the Upsetters: War In A Babylon
Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 6 November 1976
I WAS a soft-porn-skankin' rude boy in a mohair suit until I discovered RASTAFARI!!!! ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 6 November 1976
I-CENSE IS SWEET, but rockers is sweeter yetter; as the good brother I King Tapper Zukie would say. The man from Bosrah came to High ...
Peter Tosh: Tosh Spreads the Message
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 13 November 1976
"REGGAE IS black. It was held back but you can't keep a good man down. It was just a manifestation but it had to happen. ...
Junior Murvin: Steal Away With Success
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 22 November 1976
JUNIOR MURVIN’S ‘Police And Thieves’, currently bubbling under the chart and selling up to 1,000 copies a day some five months after its release, a ...
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 4 December 1976
"I think it’s only now people really see it — we suffer here as well." ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, Black Echoes, 29 January 1977
Let's hear it for some real talent ...
Profile and Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 26 March 1977
Unfortunately, we don't have Patti or Lenny here to tell us. We DO have Penny Reel, who INSISTS he use this space to lord the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley And The Wailers: Exodus
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 21 May 1977
From a purely marketing point of view, this is the one. With Rastaman Vibration’s appearance, there weren’t many music fans on the planet unaware of ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley And The Wailers: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 21 May 1977
And I went in there feeling conscientious, like I really wanted to take notes. But believe me when I tell you, nothing seemed less important ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Exodus (Island)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 28 May 1977
THE REVOLUTION may not be televised, but sure as death and taxes it'll be packaged... the sleeve of this album looks like a Cecil B. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Movement Of Jah People
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 28 May 1977
"ISN'T IT A NICE feeling... isn't it a nice day...isn't it a nice feeling..." Bob Marley croons, strumming on an acoustic guitar. He's glowing, planted ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 11 June 1977
THE TENSION in the Rainbow was almost painful, the only relief the appearance of the Wallers. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Jahve, Mon
Comment by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 11 June 1977
We know where we're going,We know where we're fromWe're from Babylon Bob Marley – 'Exodus' ...
The Abyssinians: The Abysinnians: Forward On To Zion (Klik)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 2 July 1977
IN THE SOUNDS Top Ten of ’76 I voted this album (then known as Satta A Massagana) number two. ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 23 July 1977
FIRST OF all, the obvious. Why review two albums with the same name? ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 6 August 1977
IT ALL DEPENDS whether you're a sucker for the Burning Spear Sound. It hasn't changed too much through all their Island albums, and certain key ...
The Heptones: Party Time (Island MLPS 9456)
Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 11 August 1977
LEROY SIBBLES is one of the finest singers reggae has produced, and one of its best songwriters. In consequence, the Heptones' second American album has ...
Aswad: The Other Cinema, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 20 August 1977
ASWAD PLAYED on an Other Cinema music night, a reggae special, following a showing of Horace Ore's Reggae and Step Forward Youth and a documentary ...
The Slits, Steel Pulse: Slits, Steel Pulse: Clouds, Brixton, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 August 1977
Once more the NME asks the question on the lips of thousands: Is this woman a prat? Yup, 'fraid so says PENNY REEL ...
Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, September 1977
DRY AND Heavy indeed. The title says it all. This album is pure magic from start to finish and, in my opinion, his best yet, ...
Profile by Robin Banks, ZigZag, September 1977
I FIRST SAW Steel Pulse the night Elvis Presley died. I was soaking wet from the pouring rain, couldn't afford a drink, and my equilibrium ...
Jah Punk: New Wave Digs Reggae
Report by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 3 September 1977
'We're gonna have a punky reggae party...the Wailers will be there, the Slits, the Feelgoods, and the Clash...' – BOB MARLEY SONGS LYRIC ...
Aswad, Black Slate, The Cimarons, Matumbi, Rico Rodriguez, Steel Pulse: Jah Punk: The Black New Wave
Overview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 10 September 1977
ASWAD: Drummie, drums, vocals: George Oban, bass: Chaka Forde, rhythm guitar, vocals: Donald Guiti, lead guitar, vocals. Courtney Hennings, keyboards, vocals. ...
Stephen Davis & Peter Simon: Reggae Bloodlines (Doubleday/Anchor, $6.95)
Book Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 20 October 1977
Reggae Bloodlines: an essential portrait of Jamaican masters ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Judy Mowatt: Judy Mowatt: The Grateful Dread
Profile and Interview by Susin Shapiro, Viva, November 1977
IN CORNERS cut off from the rude-boy violence in poor black Jamaican communities, reggae music took seed, an offshoot of calypso, ska, R&B, and, further ...
Burning Spear: Dry and Heavy in the Ozone: Burning Spear at the Rainbow
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 12 November 1977
IN THAT it (a) got me truly into reggae, and (b) has continued to stand as a symbol of the truth and beauty that all ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Marley Beats the Devil
Report and Interview by John Swenson, Rolling Stone, 17 November 1977
A Rasta recovery ...
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 19 November 1977
TALK ABOUT being stood up. The first time I met Winston Rodney/Burning Spear he was eight hours late. And this was, mind you, after having ...
Dennis Bovell, Matumbi: Dennis Matumbi in dub: a step by step guide.
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 3 December 1977
1. I'M PATCHING in the 16-track machine, the echo machine and the reverb into the plugboard. That brings the tape off the 16-track machine behind ...
Overview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 3 December 1977
Dub = Surprise Dub = Strobe (it flash your eyes/hypnotise) Dub = Pulse Dub = Frontier When you listen to dub:- ...
Burning Spear: Winston Rodney is Burning Spear
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 10 December 1977
Is The Man In The Hills, is The Sound Of The Present Age ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 13 December 1977
LISTEN, going to the movies is cheaper than going to Jamaica. Am I right or am I wrong? As Dillinger used to say before he ...
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 17 December 1977
IN WRITING his plays, Bertolt Brecht operated according to a Roamin Rolland maxim: "Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will". Burning Spear's music works ...
Althea & Donna: Althea And Donna: Why It's A Hit Beyond Words...
Report by Robin Katz, Daily Mail, 2 January 1978
See mi in mi heels and thing Them check say we hip and thing True them no know and thing We have them going and thing Nah pop no ...
Dr. Alimantado: Doctor Alimantado Meets His Duppy Uptown
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 7 January 1978
A DIAGNOSIS OF NEAR-DEATH ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 14 January 1978
HAVE THE Black Slate group been taking their cue from Glitterbest Promotions? ...
Keith Hudson: A Better Brand Of Dub
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 14 January 1978
YOU MAY recall reading, a couple of years ago, an NME recommendation of Keith Hudson's Pick A Dub LP, on the now sadly defunct Atra ...
Tapper Zukie: Tapper Zuckie: Man Ah Warrior
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 14 January 1978
AN ALBUM full of dignity, grandeur and pride: Smokey swirls intertwining to form a chord of steel... ...
Johnny Clarke: Don't Stay Out Late (Penguin)
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 21 January 1978
THIS IS the second album from Johnny Clarke since the sudden termination of his Virgin contract, and it marks the general decline in standard and ...
Althia & Donna: Nah Pop No Style, A Strictly Roots…
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 28 January 1978
IF YOU don't like talking to strangers, don't walk through Kingston with Donna or Althia. ...
The Equators: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 28 January 1978
DURING RECENT months we have been witness to increasing media interest in the indigenous UK reggae scene, especially as focussed upon Matumbi, Black Slate, Steel ...
Don Letts: Cramp and Paralize Them and Those Who Worship Babylon
Interview by Robin Banks, ZigZag, February 1978
DON LETTS shares a comfortable flat in Forest Hill with three Rastafarian friends, a ferret named Brian, and various other permanent or transient guests. The ...
Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 11 February 1978
FAITH, HOPE AND HIP ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: A Lickle Love An' T'ing
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 18 February 1978
Interview CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY. From the Court of the Ranking Dread. ...
Dillinger: Central London Polytechnic, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 25 February 1978
ON THIS opening night of his first full-length tour of the UK college circuit, Lester Bullocks better-known as Dillinger maintained an impressive, large and volubly ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: T'ings Could Be Worse
Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 4 March 1978
"Talking to no-one is strange, Talking to someone is stranger." – Kevin Coyne ...
Jacob Miller, Tapper Zukie: Jamaica: Peace Conference In A Western Kingston
Report by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 11 March 1978
ON JANUARY 10 of this year, Samuel Dreckett — JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) Councillor for the Western Kingston district of Tivoli Gardens — entered the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Kaya (Island)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 18 March 1978
Marley runs on the spot ...
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 18 March 1978
"THIS IS cactus. You can wash your hair with it. You pick it," running his finger nail down the cactus bud till a creamy sap ...
Reggae Regular: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 25 March 1978
CONSIDERING THE brevity of its existence, seven-piece outfit Reggae Regular has caused considerable stir in this man's town in recent months. ...
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 1 April 1978
The Love Story Of Leroy Smart ...
The Congos: Heart Of The Congos
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 1 April 1978
HEARING THE Congos is like recognising your favourite nursery rhyme, the one you'd forgotten. Or had knocked out of you. Like the purest folk songs, ...
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 8 April 1978
REVELATION TIME. Aswad hadn't played any dates to speak of, and the audience were Aswad-starved, raring to rave. ...
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 8 April 1978
PLENTY PEOPLE don't know the other half of Tapper Zukie. "If they knew the other half of me, they'd see me different. Right now me ...
Patti Smith, Tapper Zukie: Tapper Zukie: Music Machine, London
Live Review by Jane Suck, Sounds, 15 April 1978
OH WELL, head for new horizons, I suppose. ...
Steel Pulse: No Jah-Babble In-A Birmingham
Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 22 April 1978
REGGAE IS HIP. Punks said it was OK way back and how the parasitic shower of hustlers and sycophants who comprise the music biz are ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: One Love Peace Festival
Report by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 29 April 1978
SUNDAY AFTERNOON Bob Marley relaxed on his front stoop. Everybody is still discussing the One Love peace show the previous day, on the night of ...
The Gladiators: Proverbial Reggae
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 29 April 1978
LEAFING THROUGH an ancient copy of the once-revered American fanzine Shakin' Street last night I finally chanced on the solution to the difficulties – "it's ...
The Gladiators: Soul Originators
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 29 April 1978
ALBERT GRIFFITHS has interesting hands. The fingers are stubby, square but deft, workman's hands. His manner is straightforward, workmanlike, direct, too. And if you do ...
15, 16, 17, Fred Locks: 15, 16 and 17: Balham Dance Studio; Fred Locks: Liberty Cinema, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 13 May 1978
15, 16 AND 17 appeared at the Balham Dance Studio, a large, pretty empty room. (It was virtually an unadvertised gig). 15, 16 and 17 ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 13 May 1978
ALL ROADS LEAD to the 100 Club in London's West End every Thursday night, where – "in tune to Silver Camel Sound" – the weekly ...
The Gladiators, Reggae Regular: Rafters, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 13 May 1978
OF LATE, I and I have been nursing a nagging ambivalence towards reggae. ...
The Cimarons: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 20 May 1978
FIVE LIVE Cimarons is generally cognate with an agreeable evening's entertainment, such as this duly proved. ...
Junior Murvin, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Tapper Zukie: Jamaica: The Young Lion Roars, part 1
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 27 May 1978
"WELCOME TO REMA," reads the spray-can graffiti down by 7th Street in Trenchtown. "Peace, Love And Unity". Over on the other side of the Calamite ...
Culture, Peter Tosh: Jamaica: The Young Lion Roars – The JA Connexion Part 2
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 3 June 1978
SURROUNDED on three sides by a raw, harshly primal terrain that combines austere Bronte-evoking moorland with a dense near-Northern Californian verdancy, the Jamaican Tourist Board ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 10 June 1978
IF THE word hadn't grown flabby through over-use, I'd say that Culture were strictly roots. ...
Steel Pulse: Black Pride Don't Mean Black Racism... Meet — The Handsworth Klan
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 10 June 1978
Steel Pulse guitarist DAVID HINDS talks to ROY CARR about the joys and vexations of a British reggae band. ...
Mighty Diamonds: The Mighty Diamonds: There's No Ganja In Nassau
Report by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 10 June 1978
DAWN FLUSHED the sky like tomato juice infiltrating a shot of vodka, as a precarious caravan of dreadlocks weaves between stately lines of towering palm ...
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 17 June 1978
JUDY MOWATT of Wailers' I Three fame is wearing a blue denim button-through skirt, and her hair is hidden under an elaborately rimmed scarf tied ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Bingley Hall, Stafford
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 29 June 1978
BETWEEN I AND I, a writer's relationship with his reader is a balance of equal power: the former dictates terms, but only at the latter's ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: So Much Things to Say
Interview by Glenn O'Brien, Interview, July 1978
BOB MARLEY, one of the original members of the group, The Wailers, founded the group 13 years ago along with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: A Puff Away from Huge
Interview by Fred Schruers, Circus, 6 July 1978
Bob Marley and the Wailers Gain Fans Near and Far with Kaya ...
Black Slate: Music Machine, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 15 July 1978
THE ACCOMPLISHED Black Slate roadshow has reached just about the limit of its capabilities without coursing a drastic change of direction. ...
Culture: Support the New Ministry of Culture
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 29 July 1978
Better Living Through Roots Reggae! Harder Than The Rest! ...
Gregory Isaacs: Presenting Mr Isaacs
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 12 August 1978
PRIOR TO the glorious advent of soulful lover Pat Kelly in more recent weeks, lean, laconic crooner Gregory Isaacs was recognised as possibly the most ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Poet And The Roots: Dread Beat An' Blood
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 26 August 1978
'All oppressionCan do is bringPassion to de heights of eruptionAn' songs of fire we will sing'– 'All Wi Doin' Is Defendin' ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Poet Of The Roots
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 2 September 1978
"The one crowded space in Father Perry's house was his bookshelves. I gradually came to understand that the marks on the pages were trapped words. ...
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 30 September 1978
SINCE THEIR appearance in 1975, Third World have always seemed the most likely candidates to follow Bob Marley through the gates marked Reggae/Pop Crossover. ...
Dr. Alimantado: Dr Alimantado: Best Dressed Chicken In Town
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 7 October 1978
INTRODUCING THE august surgeon of ital nourishment on a ten track album of selected singles dating from 1973-6. ...
Report by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978
ONE NIGHT I AM standing outside the Jamaican pattie shop in Portobello Road partaking of the same when a car pulls up on the street ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 14 October 1978
I LEARNT to love the Abyssinians at the kitchen sink, age 7 or so. As I sang Beatles tunes in three-part harmony doing the washing ...
Steel Pulse: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 4 November 1978
THE RAINBOW Theatre seemed a poor venue for Steel Pulse's Big London Gig, but reconsidering during this performance, it was probably second choice only to ...
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 11 November 1978
The attention nowgiven to British reggae bandsis largely due to the pioneering work of Aswad, who invented live dub and played alongside the early punk bands. But, ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: A Lost Leader? Bob Marley & the Wailers’ Babylon By Bus
Review by Simon Frith, Melody Maker, 18 November 1978
THE BEST RECORD Bob Marley ever made was the live single version of ‘No Woman, No Cry’. The reasons for its success were complex, but ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Babylon By Bus
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 18 November 1978
ALL THE points are easily made. You have your join-the-dots special Christmas present package. Bob Marley and The Wailers skank in and out the Western ...
Third World: Now That We've Found A Hit
Profile and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 18 November 1978
BY JAMAICAN STANDARDS, Third World are pretty unique. Going against the run of the studio-dominated JA music scene, founder members guitarist Stephen "Cat" Coore and ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 25 November 1978
IT IS surely not coincidental that now Island seem to have relegated Bob Marley and company to the status of lampoonery with joke titled albums ...
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, December 1978
HE'S BEEN ON the stage for twelve years, eight of those rarely out of the Jamaican charts. He's a major reggae ambassador to Canada, the ...
Peter Tosh: The Bush Doctor's Dilemma
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 9 December 1978
GAME-RULES for life: tall people have a natural advantage. Or look at it this way: tall people stand out. They're obvious targets. If you're very ...
Peter Tosh: Rainbow Theatre/Venue, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 16 December 1978
Tosh in monotone ...
Sly & Robbie: The Reggae Heartbeat – Freedom Into Form
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 23 December 1978
"Mr. Bassie, please sing your song to me." – Horace Andy, Rasta Rabbi in his own words ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley & the Wallers: Babylon By Bus (Island ISLD 11)
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Free Press, 31 December 1978
MARLEY'S BUS NEEDS MORE GAS ...
Dennis Brown: Words Of Wisdom (Laser)
Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 1979
THE WHITE listener who came to reggae through Bob Marley may have been puzzled by the emergence of Dennis Brown, who at first seems to ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards (and Anita Pallenberg) (1979)
Interview by Chris Welch, Rock's Backpages audio, January 1979
Holding court at London's Ritz Hotel – and with frequent interjections from Pallenberg – the Rolling Stones guitarist talks about the band's most recent tour; why he's back in London; being in tax exile; punk and the Pistols; Keith Moon's death; working with Peter Tosh, and reggae and Jamaica in general; the etymology of the terms "Blood Claat"; his Canadian drug bust and being a junkie; writing with Mick Jagger and the Stones' Some Girls; how he and Mick became known as "the Glimmer Twins"; Edith Grove flatmate Jimmy Phelge; Bill Wyman; his various house fires, and... enter son Marlon! (Read the resulting Melody Maker piece "An Outlaw at the Ritz")...
File format: mp3; file size: 82mb, interview length: 1h 25' 24" sound quality: ***
The Ruts: support your local punk band
Profile and Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 6 January 1979
FOR EXAMPLE, TAKE THE RUTS. PLEASE. (OI, I'LL DO THE JOKES — G. BUSHELL) ...
Burning Spear: Social Living (1 Stop)
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 13 January 1979
Majestic, Mysterious: Burning Spear's Celestial Music Shimmers On ...
Israel Vibration: The Same Song (Top Ranking)
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 13 January 1979
CURRENT CULT item on the local reggae scene, this debut album from the Israel Vibration trio augurs well for Jamaican music in 1979, with an ...
Jimmy Cliff: Give Thanx (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 13 January 1979
THIS RETURN to commercial visibility from the fated Mr Cliff has been well-received in certain corners, but unfortunately seems little more than a muddled, embarrassing ...
15, 16, 17: Living For The Weekend
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 20 January 1979
15, 16, 17 are the best-known of British reggae's new crop of female vocal trios. ...
Overview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 January 1979
Say hello to the schoolgirl revolution and the shortest cut to cleaning up in UK reggae. And ya thought reggae was all about guns, ganga, ...
Jimmy Cliff: A Pioneer Returns
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 3 February 1979
Jimmy Cliff, wholesome and handsome as a ripening ear of corn, radiates on the couch. The night before, he had made a triumphant return to ...
The Heptones: Home of the Hits
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 17 February 1979
THE BIGGEST surprise of the week was the fact that the Black Echoes Reggae Awards started on time. Last year's was a typical reggaematic shambles: ...
Inner Circle: reggae's final breakthrough?
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 24 February 1979
Bobby the Em aside, JA roots music has achieved no significant market penetration outside its own country. VIVIEN GOLDMAN suggests that, by 'going disco', the ...
Dennis Brown: The Cool Runnings Of Dennis Brown
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 24 February 1979
Never far from reggae charts and hearts, Dennis Brown wakes up the UK's frozen airwaves. ...
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 3 March 1979
ALL PRAISE must go to John Cooper Clarke for transforming the freezing, bored alcohol-starved Mancunians into a warmly responsive audience. ...
The Gladiators: Naturality (Virgin/Front Line), Presenting The Gladiators (Studio One)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 3 March 1979
NOT A great week for the Gladiators, all round. First of all, the lead singer, Albert Griffiths, is shattered to learn over the phone that ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: A Day Out At The Gun Court
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 17 March 1979
SET IN maybe half an acre of ground, 56 Hope Road, Kingston 6 is a sprawling, wood-fronted, two-storey detached house, its flaking cream paint seeming ...
Peter Tosh: Roxy, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 17 March 1979
A LONG LINE snaked round the corner from the squalid end of Santa Monica Boulevard. Disinterested-looking cops in riot helmets were scattered all around. People ...
Boney M: A hit almost everywhere but here
Profile and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 18 March 1979
THEY'VE BEEN No. 1 in Germany and Japan, Israel and Kuwait, France, Peru, Portugal, Kenya and dozens of other countries. One of their singles recently ...
Culture: The International Dub
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 24 March 1979
Like Bob Marley before him, Culture's Joe Hill is spreading Jah-message, international-style. But how long can he keep his roots pristine in the hotels and ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Forces Of Victory (Island ILPS 9566)*****
Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 24 March 1979
Stricker ishion (Roughly translated, some of the finest reggae ever made in England) ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Roots Inna Inglan?
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 7 April 1979
Linton Kwesi Johnson, black poet and activist, sees the Rasta dream of Ethiopian exodus as irrelevant ganja-talk. His life and his art deal with reality: ...
Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 14 April 1979
"THEY THINK THEY'RE FIGHTING FASCISM ON BEHALF OF BLACKS, BUT THEY'RE FOOLING THEMSELVES" ...
Japan, Reggae Regular: Japan, the Regulars: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by David Hepworth, Sounds, 28 April 1979
Hype springs eternal ...
Misty In Roots: Misty: One more victim of the Southall riot
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 May 1979
"The scale of the violence in Southall, where 340 were arrested and more than 40 people were injured, has ensured that whichever party wins the ...
Sly Dunbar: Sly, Wicked And Slick (Virgin Front Line)
Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 5 May 1979
REGGAE'S ONE of the youngest contemporary musical forms, but it's growing up fast, and in all sorts of directions. ...
Misty In Roots: The Price Of Hate
Report by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 5 May 1979
Among the casualties of last week's confrontation between the police and anti-racist demonstrators in Southall was the Peoples Unite Centre, a haven for local musicians, ...
Dennis Brown: Enter A Good Man
Profile and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979
Dennis Brown comes of the race of Joseph; and he means that seriously, 'I am Joseph, here to do the things Joseph has done in ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Rico Rodriguez: Marquee, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 June 1979
EVERY REFERENCE to cops getting hurt elicited cheers of approval from a largely white audience on Sunday. Is that the kind of solidarity that back-and-proud ...
Review by Simon Frith, Melody Maker, 23 June 1979
I ALMOST didn't make it through the title-track. Two female trios do the I Threes jobs for Tosh, and here their effect is extra-irritating. They ...
Peter Tosh, The Wailers: Peter Tosh: The Bush Doctor is in
Interview by Howard Wuelfing, Unicorn Times, August 1979
FIRST TACTICAL error: having arranged earlier in the day to meet with a long admired reggae legend at a given place and hour, I trust ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley In His Own Backyard
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 11 August 1979
AS YOU DRIVE through the white-pillared gates into the grounds of 56 Hope Road, the first thing you notice is that the road doesn't have ...
Dr. Alimantado: Doctor Alimantado: King's Bread (Ital Sounds)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 September 1979
Doc 'Tado I&I Presume ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 September 1979
IT'S EASY TO feel alienated by certain aspects of reggae, not the least of which is the idolatry afforded it by impressionable whites: 'Milky Bar ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Survival (Island)
Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 29 September 1979
SOME PEOPLE mellow as they get older. Bob Marley gets angrier and wiser. Following the relaxed, self-fulfilled Exodus and Kaya, Survival marks a surprising but ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 29 September 1979
THE LAST time I talked about the Slits was centred around a disorientating weekend in Liverpool at the beginning of this year — a shaky ...
Madness, The Selecter, The Specials: 2-Tone: Ska Authentic And More.
Report by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 6 October 1979
GARRY BUSHELL CHECKS OUT 2-TONE ...
Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Toast
Profile and Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 6 October 1979
WITH TRINITY, Clint Eastwood, Prince Hammer, Jah Lion and Prince Far I here in London town it's like a DJ Jambo-r-r-r-r-r-ee and the chance to ...
Madness: One Step Beyond (Stiff)
Review by Deanne Pearson, New Musical Express, 27 October 1979
Blue Feat ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Apollo Theatre, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 10 November 1979
BOB MARLEY had to change his approach. He had a virtual patent in the international arena on the stance of the mad-shaman reggae icon, the ...
Rock's Fiery Jamaican Connection
Report by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 11 November 1979
REGGAE MUSIC was widely tabbed as pop's Next Big Thing five years ago. With fiery lyrics of social protest wedded to a catchy dance rhythm, ...
The Police are the best reggae group in America
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 15 December 1979
A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON JAMAICAN MUSIC BY SYLVIE SIMMONS ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Confrontation (Island)
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 1980
MOST RECORD COMPANIES waste little time in emptying the vaults when a major artist dies, but Island has refrained from pursuing that course with the ...
Jamaican Sunrise: The Promise, Problems and Ethos of Rasta Reggae
Essay by Carol Cooper, The Black American, 1980
AS A BAROMETER of social pressure, and an indicator of public opinion, reggae music has no peer in the modern world of multi-media. As an ...
Judy Mowatt: Black Woman (Ashandan pre-release).
Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 5 January 1980
JUDY MOWATT, apart from being an I-Three (the women who sing behind Marley), is a respected songstress and label-owner down in Jamaica. Her solo album ...
Misty In Roots: Misty: Survival in Jah glory
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 5 January 1980
Survival's the operative-word in Misty's case. Harassed for their prominent role in the Southall immigrant community, in and out of the magistrates' courts, you'd think ...
The Bodysnatchers, The Selecter: The Selecter, The Bodysnatchers: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Deanne Pearson, New Musical Express, 12 January 1980
THE LAST thing I heard in 1979 and the first thing I heard in 1980 were rocksteady ska rhythms from two bands connected with what ...
Mikey Dread: Who's The Dread At The Hub Of Dub? Michael Campbell
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 19 January 1980
"Zzzzzz-z-z-z pheeeww zzzzz-z-z-z pheeeeww zzzzzzzzzz-z-z-z" "Wake up Jonathan, wake up!!" "Cho 'lef me nuh, can't you see I man waan sleep?" "Wake up nuh man, ...
Mikey Dread: Who's The Man Plays Dubwise Selection Without Objection? Mikey Dread, Of Course
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 2 February 1980
MICHAEL CAMPBELL is a man of many parts. Producer of numerous dub, toasting and vocal sides he has also worked for such luminaries as King ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: a poet turns to reggae
Interview by Mick Brown, Rolling Stone, 7 February 1980
Summoning Forces of Victory in Britain ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Bed Jamming Is A Must!
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 16 February 1980
While the great "Is Lee Perry Nuts?" debate rages on in JA, ol' Scratch is jiving away in Amsterdam, houseguest of Black Star Liner Records, busy with plans to recreate the universe and hijack the Earth with ...
Dennis Brown: Joseph's Coat Of Many Colours (DEB pre).
Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, 22 February 1980
Dennis got soul ...
Prince Buster: Fabulous Greatest Hits (Melodisc) ****
Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 1 March 1980
1966 BEING 1966, a couple of light and bitters in the Sussex (a good two years underage) was the strongest refreshment to hand. Weed was ...
The Beat, Laurel Aitken: The Old (Rude) Boy Network: The Return Of Laurel Aitken
Profile by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 1 March 1980
SUNDAY NIGHT at the Lyceum and Laurel Aitken, the 'high priest of reggae' (remember that one, boot boys?) the king of Jamaican blues, whose musical ...
Battle Of The Sound Systems: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 5 April 1980
PERSONALLY, I have seen more wonderful sound system contests playing out of a freezing November evening at the Stratford Municipal Hall. ...
Medium Medium, Prince Far I: Prince Far I, Medium Medium: Rock Garden, Middlesbrough
Live Review by Ian Ravendale, Sounds, 5 April 1980
Prince Far I 'a joke' claim ...
Laurel Aitken, Spartacus R: Laurel Aitken, Spartacus: The Venue, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 April 1980
THIS CONCERT was billed as a comeback but it proved to be a travesty. Poor old Laurel Aitken. He was the original ska king back ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 26 April 1980
BASSIST LLOYD Parks carries a superior band of musicians to these shores on every occasion of his visit. As leader of Skin, Flesh & Bones ...
Sugar Minott: Youthman Promotion
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 26 April 1980
Sugar Minott leads JA's younger generation forwards. ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Hour Of The Electric Rebel
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, May 1980
Muzik of blood Black reared Pain rooted Heart geared('Bass Culture' by Linton Kwesi Johnson) ...
Judge Dread: Music Machine, London
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 7 June 1980
WAS A TIME eight years ago when Judge Dread could sell a million singles and shock the snobby self-appointed guardians of public morals with the ...
Burning Spear: A Talk with Burning Spear
Interview by Don Snowden, L.A. Weekly, 13 June 1980
"HELLO, DON. Burning Spear is in town, in Los Angeles, and I'd like very much for you to do an interview with him." ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Crystal Palace Bowl, London
Live Review by Roy Hollingworth, New Music News, 14 June 1980
AS MARLEY got more and more into it, a controlled zombie look-alike waded slowly, mechanically, into the pond until the fetid, oily liquid washed heavily ...
Bad Manners: Roll Over Yul Brynner... ...And Tell Bad Manners The News
Interview by Mark Ellen, New Music News, 14 June 1980
MARK ELLEN Meets The UK's Answer To The Fordham Baldies. ...
Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 26 June 1980
Mike Stand takes his 2HB and a C90 up the M6 to meet UB40 ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: All The Way With LKJ
Interview by Deanne Pearson, The Face, July 1980
Whenever it rains/I think of you And I always remember that day in May When I saw you walking in the rain I know not what it was nor why For ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley and the Wailers: Uprising (Island)
Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 5 July 1980
"But even without the forceful pressures of the slaves, the slave system was collapsing surreptitiously from within..."(The Caribbean: Franklin W Knight: Oxford University Press) ...
Misty In Roots: Live At The Counter-Eurovision ‘79
Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 26 July 1980
IT SEEMS POINTLESS to divorce Misty's music from their well-known context as Southall youth organisers whose People Unite self-help organisation was badly damaged by the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The I Three: The 3 Wise Is
Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 9 August 1980
VIVIEN GOLDMAN checks out the Rastafarian way of feminism with the I Three ...
Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 22 August 1980
FOR ALL its enjoyable effects, the ska-punk blend of 2-Tone music may have done lasting damage to another, potentially even more valuable fusion: local reggae, ...
Grace Jones: The Devil in Ms Jones
Interview by Ronnie Gurr, Record Mirror, 23 August 1980
GRACE JONES asked for a massage. RONNIE GURR warmed the leatherette. ...
Black Uhuru: Sinsemilla (Island)
Review by Chris Salewicz, The Face, September 1980
THE THREE-piece vocal group has always been one of the strongest archetypes of reggae. Commencing some two years ago, and operating for a short period ...
Desmond Dekker, Laurel Aitken: Desmond Dekker and Laurel Aitken: Old Rude Boys Never Die
Profile and Interview by Chris Salewicz, The Face, September 1980
DESMOND DEKKER and Laurel Aitken are two Jamaican vocalists who, in earlier musical incarnations, helped lay the ground for the eventual acceptance of reggae music ...
Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, September 1980
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Bass Culture (Mango); Blackbeard: I Wah Dub (UK, More Cut); Matumbi: Point of View (EMI America); Sugar Minott: Black Roots (Mango); Toots ...
The Selecter: Beyond Black And White
Interview by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, September 1980
JERRY DAMMMERS must be reeling. The Specials' gap-toothed leader created a movement when he started the 2-Tone label, figuring that his own band would be ...
The Specials: More Specials (2-Tone)*****
Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 20 September 1980
TO BET or not to bet, that is the question. Whether it be nobler to sit pretty with a winning formula or take a gamble ...
Gregory Isaacs: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
TAKE ANY moderate gathering of citizens intent on peaceable pursuit and out comes the Babylon in force. I am growing altogether more and more disgruntled ...
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
VETERAN JAMAICAN singer Jimmy Cliff finally achieved international status for his leading role in the seminal reggae film The Harder They Come in the early ...
Burning Spear: Searching for the Spear
Interview by Peter Murphy (British), The Face, October 1980
WINSTON RODNEY, a.k.a. the Burning Spear, is the enigma of the Jamaican music scene. In a dark and brooding voice that is the essence of ...
Black Uhuru: Last Exit to Brooklyn
Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
Brooklyn is definitely a dread neighbourhood. A neighbourhood of brownstone buildings and trees, Selassie’s Herbal Groceries store and the Cool Runnings Candy Store. ...
Rico Rodriguez, The Specials, Eddie "Tan-Tan" Thornton: Rico Rocks Tout Soul
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
Big day for JA precludes Specials occasion ...
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
Cross-over cupboard love ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots And The Maytals: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 11 October 1980
Toots Comes Home To Roots ...
Burning Spear Debuts At The Roxy
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 24 October 1980
THE WEST COAST debut of Burning Spear before a packed house at the Roxy Tuesday night may not have matched the excitement of Bob Marley ...
Review by Don Waller, New York Rocker, November 1980
THIS IS The Rap on The Rap, Part I: On the day you're born the doctor smacks your butt, then you start to rappin' and ...
Judy Mowatt: Black Woman (Island ILPS 9649)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 6 December 1980
THIS ALBUM is an explicit statement of spirituality and of strength — a black woman's survival. The title offers the record as a statement and ...
Review by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, January 1981
THE MUSICAL trend of the year in Britain, a nation which obviously relishes its fads, was the emergence of the neo-ska bands. Buoyed by a ...
Burning Spear: The Venue, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 10 January 1981
I CAN REMEMBER literally crying with feeling at only one concert, and that was Burning Spear at the Rainbow in '78. That kind of high ...
Mikey Dread: The Dread Man Tells His Tale
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 17 January 1981
From radio star to toaster to production and recording star, Mikey Dread Campbell is still well in control ...
Basement 5: 1965-1980 (Island ILPS 9641) **
Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 24 January 1981
This album degrades women ...
Dennis Bovell's Dub Band: Commonwealth Institute, London
Live Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 24 January 1981
"DUB," SAID Dennis Bovell, dubmaster, "you just — do it. Spontaneous. That's the effect I wanted to create onstage." ...
Joe Higgs, the X-Streams: Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 29 January 1981
JOE HIGGS: LESSON FROM A REGGAE LEGEND ...
Aswad, Linton Kwesi Johnson: Aswad/Linton Kwesi Johnson/New Regulars: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 31 January 1981
MONDAY NIGHT in the Palais: forward and upful all the way. Aswad's 'Warrior Charge' as featured in Babylon and Brinsley Forde's performance in the principal ...
Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 14 February 1981
SPACE INVADERS STYLEEEE! In every arcade throughout the land, the youth just shake that mechanical hand, they like to see the meteors shatter, they just ...
The Congos: Heart Of The Congos (Go-Feet)
Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 14 February 1981
ONE OF THE seminal reggae albums of the late 70s, Heart Of The Congos has been available in this country on pre-release since early 1978, ...
Jah Shaka: Hail Brethren And Sistren: A Big Big Sound System Splashdown
Special Feature by Paul Bradshaw, Vivien Goldman, Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 21 February 1981
WHERE REGGAE really begins — in tune to the sound system. Here is the heart of the music: groups of youth, each with their different philosophies, ...
Burning Spear: The Spear Guide to Higher Stepping
Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 28 February 1981
Burning Spear on tour. In the dressing room at the Birmingham Odeon, certain thick-set members of Spear's Burning Band mutter that they want to kill ...
Musical Youth: Under-Age Culture Shock
Report and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, New Musical Express, 28 February 1981
These kids have just done their first tour. Their average age is 11... Report: SHERYL GARRATT ...
The Specials: More Specials (Chrysalis/2-Tone)
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, March 1981
SO HOW would you like to be sitting on top of the Specials' 2-Tone global music empire right about now? You can bet it's a ...
Culture, Far Image: Friars, Aylesbury
Live Review by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 11 April 1981
BRINGING CULTURE TO THE MASSES ...
Sly & Robbie: Reggae Titles: Footlong Skanking
Review by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, 22 April 1981
IN RECENT MONTHS Riffsters have written paeans to the gritty nudisco and rapperound 12-inch song-and-dances now heard blasting from the shiny boxes on the street ...
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 25 April 1981
THE CULMINATION of Culture's brief tour of Britain that features only flashes of the old Cultural genius and falls somewhere between showbiz and a testifying ...
Bunny Wailer: Bunny Wailer Sings The Wailers
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, May 1981
THE PRODIGIOUS travesty of our time may be that rock bands rooted in reggae like the Clash or the Specials are more familiar to white ...
Misty in Roots: Must It Be Total Destruction
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 9 May 1981
...brimstone, fire, death in a Sodom and Gomorrah?... Reasoning with Misty In Roots By Penny Reel ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: A Personal Remembrance
Memoir by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
"I don't believe in death – neither in flesh nor in spirit..." ...
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
MR. DENNIS Brown is a distinctive voice in reggae this past decade and longer, and is regarded as such by all and sundry and many ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
IN WHICH we welcome back to these pages that perennial guest: the vexed question of white attitudes towards black music. More specifically, the expectations brought ...
Report and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, New Musical Express, 21 May 1981
AFTER A wait of nearly a quarter of an hour, I was admitted to the hotel room to find the subject of my journey loudly, ...
Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 23 May 1981
Tolerance, Peace, Life ...
Black Uhuru: Red (Island ILPS 9625)*****
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 30 May 1981
THE KING of reggae may be at rest, but the beat he spent his life supporting lives on. While the media have paid their varied ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley's Final Return Home
Report by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 30 May 1981
King of Reggae laid to rest in Jamaica ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Death of a Prophet
Report by Richard Williams, Rock & Folk, June 1981
THEY BURIED Bob Marley on 21 May 1981 at Nine Mile, the Jamaican hamlet where, 36 years earlier, he had been born. His heavy bronze ...
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 6 June 1981
Paulo Hewitt goes to New York and tries to find some common ground with BLACK UHURU's crucial three. ...
Special Feature by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 6 June 1981
THE DEATH of Bob Marley last month robbed reggae music of its foremost ambassador, the man who more than any had turned outside ears and ...
Dennis Brown: Roxy, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 13 June 1981
Dennis Brown Set Danceable, but Routine ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Terrorists: Lee Perry comes in for a landing
Interview by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, July 1981
HE GOES by many names. Scratch, the Upsetter, Super Ape, Pipecock Jackson. Lee Perry is one of the (some would say the) foremost producers of ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee 'Scratch' Perry: Curse of the Vampires
Interview by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, July 1981
Legendary Jamaican producer Lee "Scratch" Perry raps and rants in New York. Richard Grabel listens to his method and madness. ...
Peter Tosh: The Stepping Razor
Interview by Peter Murphy (British), International Musician & Recording World, July 1981
PETER TOSH has a self-made reputation as a hardman. His songs proclaim, "I'm the toughest", "I'm a Stepping Razor...I'm dangerous". He also has a habit ...
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, July 1981
PETER TOSH was in London for two days to promote his new album, Wanted Dread And Alive. ...
Black Uhuru: Stepping On The Dragon
Report and Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 18 July 1981
THE COACH journey from London to Bristol went quicker than I had originally expected. It hardly seemed five minutes since we were stepping aboard the ...
The Congos: Fighting In The Congos
Interview by Sheryl Garratt, New Musical Express, 18 July 1981
ALTHOUGH Black Uhuru's Red will most probably come out top, Heart Of The Congos is definitely one of the finest reggae albums to be released ...
Sly & Robbie: The Reggaedelic Experience
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 18 July 1981
A.K.A. SLY 'N' ROBBIE, THE ALMOST LEGENDARY DREADLY RHYTHM TEAM BEHIND THE SOUND OF BLACK UHURU, GRACE JONES AND THEIR OWN TAXI LABEL. WORDS CHRIS ...
Report and Interview by Peter Silverton, Smash Hits, 23 July 1981
HE HAS EATEN THIRTY BIG MACS... BUT NOT ALL AT ONCE. DOUG TRENDLE DROPS THE FACADE AND TALKS ABOUT A BAND IN NEED OF A ...
Dennis Bovell: Brain Damaged Goods
Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 15 August 1981
THE FINAL, apocalyptic scenes of Franco Rosso's excellent Babylon are based on a 1976 police raid on Cricklewood's Carib Club during a sound system session ...
Black Uhuru: Black Sounds Of Freedom The Wailing Souls: Firehouse Rock Toyan: How the West Was Won
Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 29 August 1981
THE Greensleeves label, tucked under the concrete arm of the motorway at Hammersmith Roundabout, seems to still be carrying the swing – chart-wise too, now ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley
Obituary by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, September 1981
BOB MARLEY and the Wailers were the group that turned me, and many other Americans, on to reggae music. For that, they have a permanent ...
The Wailing Souls: Breada Gravilicious
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 5 September 1981
LLOYD "BREAD" McDONALD tells the Wailing Souls story to EDWIN POUNCEY ...
Black Uhuru: My Father's Place, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, October 1981
I HAD TO choose between this and the Palladium show (the entire Black Uhuru American Tour) and I figured this was the show to see. ...
Grace Jones: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
Live Review by Richard Williams, The Times, 9 October 1981
AN AMAZONIAN former mannequin of Jamaican extraction, Grace Jones has become the toast of the jeunesse dorée lately arisen from the ashes of late-Seventies punk ...
The Twinkle Brothers: It Dread, It Dread, It Dread But... It Gwine Dreada
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 10 October 1981
THE RURAL RUNNINGS OF THE TWINKLE BROTHERS. LIFELONG COUNTRYMAN NORMAN GRANT TALKS TO PENNY REEL, COUNTRYMAN OF SIX WEEKS STANDING ...
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 31 October 1981
MARK COOPER talks to the 'cool ruler', Gregory Isaacs ...
Profile and Interview by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, November 1981
SEE BLOOD! ...
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, November 1981
Peter Tosh: Wanted Dread And Alive (Rolling Stones Records/EMI America) The "King" Kong Compilation (Mango) Melodians: Sweet Sensation (Mango) Black Uhuru: Red (Mango) ...
Interview by Hugh Jarse, ZigZag, November 1981
CONGO MAN Cedric Myton must be one of reggae's nicest geezers. Ask him a question and he thinks about it, smiles a bit, answers articulately ...
Aswad, Linx: Linx and Aswad: Shades of Black
Profile and Interview by Richard Williams, The Times, 26 November 1981
THERE IS A special role in British life for young black pop musicians, involving a task more serious than could ever be demanded of their ...
Aswad, Creation Rebel: Creation Rebel: Psychotic Jonkanoo (STAT IP4); Aswad: New Chapter (CBS 85336)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 28 November 1981
Aswad — home grown Roots ...
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, Summer 1981
WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE RAINBOW ...
Gregory Isaacs: Savoy, New York NYC
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, January 1982
SMOOTH IS the word for Gregory Isaacs. So smooth, and so suave. The cool king of that gentle, romantic Jamaican reggae called lover's rock. ...
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, 2 January 1982
Sounds kinda progressive ...
Lone Ranger: Rose Marie (Black Joy)****
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 2 January 1982
THIS BRAND new selection without objection is the first released album in this country from the Lone Ranger since he last bared fangs on the ...
Carroll Thompson: Simply, hopelessly in love...
Profile and Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 9 January 1982
A post-Christmas Carroll by PENNY REEL ...
Bunny Wailer: Tribute (Solomonic import)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 16 January 1982
"...and we know we shall win because we are confident of the victory of good over evil." ...
Ras Michael & The Sons Of Negus: Disarmament (Trojan)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 16 January 1982
DISARMAMENT IS a surprise – perhaps the first reggae album to openly confront the threat of nuclear warfare with the power of Jah Love while ...
Grace Jones: Orpheum Theatre, Boston MA
Live Review by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 21 January 1982
Amazing Grace ...
Fun Boy Three, Rico Rodriguez, The Specials: Rico Rodriguez: Rastaman
Profile and Interview by Deanne Pearson, The Face, February 1982
From the Wareika Hills to Top of the Pops. A profile of Rico, the Specials trombone ace, with a side order of oaths for the ...
Black Uhuru: Tear It Up (Island)
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 13 February 1982
BLACK UHURU'S tour of English provinces last year took place at a time when the streets were torn with riot, ironically the perfect setting for ...
UB40: "UB40 is just a normal bunch of blokes. But people ask us heavy political questions"
Interview by Lesley White, Sounds, 20 March 1982
LESLEY WHITE is one of them ...
The Viceroys: We Must Unite (Trojan)
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 20 March 1982
THE CULT phenomenon, as with other realms of popular music, is also almost predominantly featured in the world of reggae. The Viceroys, a mysterious trio ...
Steel Pulse: Steel Pulsing After All These Years
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, New Musical Express, 1 May 1982
Lloyd Bradley takes the temperature of Handsworth's long distance dreads. ...
Black Uhuru, The Police: The Police, Black Uhuru: Byrne Arena, East Rutherford NJ
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 8 May 1982
IT LOOKS intriguing from a distance, the Byrne Arena, glowing in the darkness of the New Jersey Meadowlands. But it starts to look scary as ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots and the Maytals
Interview by Julie Panebianco, Boston Rock, 20 May 1982
HE SEEMS overwhelmingly tired, huddled in the corner of the dressing room smoking a chillum. He is dressed like a champ: satin boxing shorts and ...
Third World: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 22 May 1982
OBVIOUS I know, but it seemed more than a coincidence that Third World should kick off their opening night in London on the first anniversary ...
Burning Spear: Farover (Radio)***
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 29 May 1982
TWO YEARS on from his last collection finds Winston Rodney, the African teacher, aka Burning Spear, relating the same universal message of cultural education through ...
Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 29 May 1982
Edwin Pouncey spars with TOYAN ...
Black Uhuru: Tear It Up (Island) ***½
Review by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1982
MOST OF THE songs on this live LP date back to Black Uhuru's early days and, as a result, may not be familiar to American ...
Black Uhuru: Chill Out (Island)****1/2
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 12 June 1982
AFTER THE blistering scorch that came out as Red, things in the Uhuru camp just had to cool off before the next major assault could ...
Dennis Brown: Dennis the Menace
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 26 June 1982
DENNIS BROWN talks high finance with MARK COOPER ...
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 3 July 1982
The Black Uhuru dilemma — they're hard, but is their militancy also a weakness? ...
Sly & Robbie: Sly and Robbie: Laying Reggae's Bottom Line
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 7 August 1982
QUESTION: WHAT do chic chanteuse Grace Jones. English rockers Joe Cocker and Ian Dury and reggae power house. Black Uhuru have in common? ...
Aswad: Stepping Across the Front Line
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, New Musical Express, 21 August 1982
Lloyd Bradley finds out why Britain's foremost reggae rockers still aren't satisfied. ...
Gregory Isaacs: Night Nurse (Island ILPS 9721)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 28 August 1982
FOLLOWING A brief sojourn on Pre, the 'Cool Ruler' now elects Island to release the latest fruits of his labours. A change of label does ...
Gregory Isaacs: Night Nurse (Island)
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 4 September 1982
IT'S SINGULAR how Gregory Isaac releases a better number of tunes as good as 'Night Nurse' over the past decade and longer, and as good ...
Clint Eastwood & General Saint: Bishops Park, Fulham, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 18 September 1982
Fruit for thought ...
Explainer: Man From The Ghetto (Sun Burst SB/LP05)****
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 2 October 1982
SOCA it to me ...
Dennis Brown: Hornsey Town Hall, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 16 October 1982
THE PARANOID inside can't help wonder if there is some kind of conspiracy going on... ...
Michael (Mikey) Smith, Mutabaruka, Oku Onuora: Dub Poets Of The Eighties
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 30 October 1982
Jamaica '82: the DJs rule the nation's charts and hearts but alternative voices are making themselves heard in the roots poetry of artists like MUTABARUKA and MICHAEL SMITH. PAUL ...
Michael (Mikey) Smith: Michael Smith: Mi Cyaan Believe It (Island)
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 13 November 1982
Keep on believing ...
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 20 November 1982
CONTRAST: "Biddy-biddy bong-bong, biddy bong-bong, biddy bong-bong, biddy men. Bong bong, biddy bong-bong, biddy bong-gong, biddy geng, biddah-men ahwooy biddy-men. Ehyaaah!" (Rough translation of intro ...
Musical Youth: Youth Of Today (MCA)
Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 20 November 1982
AND SO in the wake of a government that's introduced the repressive British nationality bill, caused Britian to become involved in her first war since ...
Gregory Isaacs: Gregorian Rants
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 4 December 1982
The elusive Mr Isaacs tracked down by Jack Barron ...
Culture: University Of London Union, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 11 December 1982
HAVING RUPTURED with cultural brothers Walker and Paley, and with a new album Lion Rock booming out from the city's more select record shops, Joseph ...
Yellowman: Meet The Years Most Unlikely Sex Symbol
Interview by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 25 December 1982
"I THINK I know what's coming..." ...
Dennis Bovell, Matumbi: The Dennis Bovell Dub Band; Matumbi: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Lloyd Bradley, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983
DUB AT THE BLACKBOARD ...
The Gladiators: Commonwealth Institute, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983
THE INSTITUTE repays a visit. A central space enclosing stage and with surrounding access on tiered levels subdivided into small areas pertinent to the respective ...
Prince Far I & Creation Rebel: Dingwalls, Liverpool
Live Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 19 February 1983
Enough is enough ...
Musical Youth: The Youth of Today
Report and Interview by Neil Tennant, Smash Hits, 3 March 1983
No different from the Musical Youth of the day before. Neil Tennant meets five young professionals taking worldwide success in their stride. ...
Amazulu: Daughters of the Nation
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, New Musical Express, 5 March 1983
So what's an (almost) all girl reggae combo from London with a fake African name doing singing about Egypt? Lloyd Bradley finds out. ...
Interview by Simon Witter, Rock's Backpages audio, 9 March 1983
Brinsley Forde, Tony "Gad" Robinson and Drummie Zeb discuss the sufferation of Brit reggae acts, Rastafari and much more.
File format: mp3; file size: 45.1mb, interview length: 49' 19" sound quality: ***
Interview by Simon Witter, Rock's Backpages audio, 9 March 1983
Walford 'Puck' Tyson and pickney dem reason with Simon Witter about Africa, Rasta, Soundsystem culture and a whole lot more.
File format: mp3; file size: 50.9mb, interview length: 55' 25" sound quality: ****
Live Review by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 30 March 1983
FOR A MAN who is both producer, writer, performer and engineer, Dennis Bovell's career progresses at a frustrating and slow pace. As producer he seems ...
Black Uhuru: Pure Mad People Live In This Place
Profile and Interview by Richard Grabel, Creem, April 1983
WHEN BOB Marley died, there was some loose talk going around about Michael Rose, Black Uhuru's lead singer and songwriter, being groomed to be "the ...
Carroll Thompson: First Lady of Lovers Rock
Interview by Sheryl Garratt, New Musical Express, 2 April 1983
SHERYL GARRATT FINDS OUT JUST WHAT MAKES CARROLL THOMPSON'S WORLD GO ROUND ...
Clint Eastwood & General Saint: Action Stations
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 23 April 1983
JACK BARRON jumps aboard the EASTWOOD AND SAINT express ...
The Members: Members of Punk-Reggae Wedding Claim Not Always Bridesmaids
Profile and Interview by Richard Riegel, Creem, May 1983
WE'RE DOWN in Bogart's new dressing room, a concrete-block bunker beneath the stage, and as I retrieve a Budweiser from the tub on the amenities ...
The Equals, Eddy Grant: Eddy Grant: A Reggae Popster Makes His Own Breaks
Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, June 1983
REMEMBER D.I.Y.? Remember all those fierce and earnest punk rockers who vowed to bypass the corporate monopoly and conquer the rapidly devolving Western world? It ...
Musical Youth: Out Of The Mouth Of Babes
Profile and Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, June 1983
IT'S A BITTERLY cold and gusty February day that finds me scampering through the remnants of New York's blizzard of '83 on my way to ...
Yellowman: Pickett's Lock, Edmonton, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 23 July 1983
...
Review by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 6 August 1983
Of Mice and Yellowmen ...
Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 10 August 1983
YES MI FRIEND, mi good friend, them set me free again... ...
The Cimarons, Winston Reedy: Winston Reedy: Reedy Steady Go
Profile and Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 20 August 1983
GIVEN ALL antecedents the renaissance of Winston Reedy during the past 18 months is a remarkable tale of the prodigal. ...
Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh: Peter Tosh and Dennis Brown: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 24 August 1983
REGGAE RAUCOUSLY RECEIVED AT GREEK ...
Michael (Mikey) Smith: Michael Smith: Jamaica Killing
Report by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 26 August 1983
MICHAEL SMITH, internationally acclaimed as Jamaica's foremost "dub" poet, was murdered last week, apparently a victim of Jamaica's turbulent and violent political climate. Smith, who ...
Michael (Mikey) Smith: Dub Poet Michael Smith Murdered
Report by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 27 August 1983
MICHAEL SMITH, Jamaica's foremost dub poet, was murdered last week, stoned to death by thugs suspected of being activists from the ruling Jamaica Labour Party ...
Aswad, Neneh Cherry, Rip Rig and Panic: Notting Hill Carnival '83
Report by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983
CARNIVALS ARE crucial — all the best cultures have 'em. But the world has a way of perverting the simplest pleasures, and since 76, Carnival ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983
"I'D JUST love somebody to do an interview or review that had naff all to do with politics..." ...
Report and Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 10 September 1983
I WAS STILL trying to figure out what UB40 had done with all the money they'd earned – there just had to be an interesting ...
Dennis Brown: The Prophet Rides High
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 17 September 1983
WITH THREE singles constantly bubbling in the reggae charts, and The Prophet Rides Again riding high in the soul charts as well as being the ...
UB40: Labour Of Love (DEP International)
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 17 September 1983
DREAD DREAD WHINE... ...
Judy Mowatt: I-Three with a Message
Profile and Interview by Carol Cooper, Musician, October 1983
WHEN PETER Tosh briefly joined Judy Mowatt on stage towards the end of her New York debut at First City, it felt for a moment ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Making History
Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, October 1983
A LOT OF polluted water has flowed under the bridge since Bass Culture, Linton Kwesi Johnson's last album of poems, was released to rave critical ...
Eek-A-Mouse: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 22 October 1983
UNEEK! ...
Peter Tosh: Peter Be Good Tonight!
Interview by Richard Grabel, Creem, November 1983
NEW YORK — Peter Tosh's new album Mama Africa is the strongest he's made in years. Aside from its clever reggae reworking of 'Johnny B. ...
Review by John Morthland, Creem, December 1983
UB40, A MULTIRACIAL reggae group whose name derives from the code on British unemployment cards, emerged from Birmingham in 1980, right around the time the ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, January 1984
ALTHOUGH IT'S doubtful Nancy Reagan listens to either rap or reggae records (or anything more soulful than Ray Anthony, for that matter), she ought to ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Bunny Wailer: Bunny Wailer: The Bright Soul of the Blackheart Man
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
From his boyhood friendship with Bob Marley and the foundation of The Wailers, to a solo career that's produced a wealth of inspired (and under-rated) music, BUNNY WAILER remains ...
Aswad: Conquering Lions Of The Concrete Jungle
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 28 January 1984
IF REGGAE is dying, how curious that my interest in it is just coming to life. Years of comparative indifference (and ignorance) pass and suddenly ...
Burning Spear: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 25 February 1984
BURNING! ...
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 3 March 1984
SHAKA ALL OVER ...
Josey Wales, Yellowman: Yellowman versus Josey Wales: Two Giants Clash (Greensleeves)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 10 March 1984
EGOS ON TOAST ...
Johnny Osbourne: The Musical Chopper
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 17 March 1984
I AM USHERED into Johnny Osbourne's dressing room just as he is winding down an interview with someone else. "Exactly how old are you anyway?" ...
Tune In If You Rankin': Night Of The Living Dread
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 24 March 1984
A ROOFTOP RENDEZVOUS WITH THE DREAD BROADCASTING CORPORATION ...
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 7 April 1984
BACK IN THE STUDIO WITH DENNIS BOVELL AND THE DUB BAND, BLACKBEARD IS HUNGRY TO PLAY, PAUL BRADSHAW READY TO LISTEN ...
Barrington Levy: Electric Ballroom, Camden, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 14 April 1984
DEADLEE! ...
Dennis Brown: Mr Brown Enters The Promised Land
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 21 April 1984
JAMAICA'S WARMEST VOICE AIMS FOR GLOBAL HEIGHTS! SEAN O'HAGAN ROOTS! ...
Eek-A-Mouse, Yellowman: Yellowman: King (CBS); Eek A Mouse: Mouseketeer (Greensleeves)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 21 April 1984
AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A MOUSE PARTY ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 28 April 1984
"Jamaica jus' an island in the Caribbean, and Jamaica produce a lotta champion, like Bob Marley and I Yellowman." — 'Jamaica Nice' ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Legend
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984
ONE STRANGE THING. Naturally, we group Bob Marley with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Dennis Brown, Michael Jackson: black music-makers with the stature of giants. Yet ...
Ziggy Marley: The Melody Makers: Jah Makers
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 12 May 1984
Colin Irwin meets the MELODY MAKERS, children of the legendary Bob Marley. ...
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 19 May 1984
Philip Levi chats up Jack Barron ...
Steel Pulse: Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 21 May 1984
STEEL PULSE'S strong performance before a capacity audience at the Hollywood Palladium Friday night confirmed the veteran British sextet as one of the leading contenders ...
Gregory Isaacs: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Max Bell, The Times, 31 May 1984
SUCH IS the flexibility of Gregory Isaacs's vocal prowess that he does not deserve to be typecast to a particular style. Isaacs is first and ...
Interview by Deanne Pearson, No. 1, 2 June 1984
Eddy Grant is an independent pop star, if ever there was one. A self-made man, he has risen from humble beginnings in North London to ...
Alton Ellis: A Reggae Pioneer Who Preceded Marley
Retrospective by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 1 July 1984
Artist: Alton Ellis. Personnel: Ellis, vocals, backed by local reggae musicians. ...
Interview by Chris Salewicz, Time Out, 5 July 1984
That Aswad are The Greatest Reggae Band In The World is the principal theme of Island Records' campaign to give the London-born trio the commercial ...
Black Uhuru: International Anthem
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 7 July 1984
SO...WHAT is life? A location and time? Hardly. We could be almost anywhere, but... ...
The Skatalites: Return Of The Big Guns (Island White Label)****.5
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 14 July 1984
KA-BOOM. KA-BOOM. Ka-boom. This is where it all began and has now returned to, more or less. ...
Aswad, Jimmy Cliff: Jimmy Cliff, Aswad: Crystal Palace Bowl, London
Live Review by Mary Harron, The Guardian, 30 July 1984
THE ANNUAL Nelson Mandela festival was held in perfect sunlight in the secluded grassy amphitheatre at Crystal Palace. Unfortunately one reason why it was so ...
Dennis Brown, Sly & Robbie, Yellowman: Sly & Robbie: Night of the Living Dread
Report and Interview by Roy Trakin, Musician, August 1984
The Riddim Twins Celebrate Ten Years ...
Smiley Culture, Papa Levi, Asher Senator: Smiley Culture, Papa Levi and Asher Senator: Three Baad DJ
Profile and Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
A NEW GENERATION OF BLACK BRITISH TOASTERS ARE SETTING THE PACE OF REGGAE RUNNINGS. SMILEY CULTURE, PAPA LEVI AND ASHER SENATOR TALK IN DOUBLE TIME TO PAUL BRADSHAW. ...
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 13 September 1984
THREE YEARS AFTER Bob Marley succumbed to cancer, his old Wailers band and three backing vocalists — including his widow — are embarking on an ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee Perry: Presents Megaton Dub 2 (Seven Leaves)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984
PUT THIS IN YOUR PIPE, COCK! ...
Aswad, Wah!: The Mighty Wah!, Aswad, High Five: Peoples Festival, St George's Hall, Liverpool
Live Review by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 29 September 1984
"THIS IS the first Liverpool gig I've ever enjoyed," announced Pete Wylie at the end of the set, and it was probably the one that ...
Augustus Pablo.: A Shadowy Reggae Legend
Report by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 30 September 1984
Personnel: Pablo, keyboards-melodica; Liebert (Gibby) Morrison, lead guitar; Fazal Prendergast, rhythm guitar; Anthony (Asher) Brissett, Errol (Tarzan) Nelson, keyboards; Christopher Meredith, bass; Harry (Harry T) ...
The Roots Radics: Roots Radics: Cheque It! (please!!)
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 6 October 1984
The ROOTS RADICS — the session trio — talk about run (how they never seem to run into any pay) All ears, SEAN O'HAGAN ...
Interview by Deanne Pearson, No. 1, 20 October 1984
Aswad have been Britain's top reggae band for years. Yet for some reason only now are they making their chart debut with '54 46 Was ...
Aswad: Rebel Souls (Island)****
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 27 October 1984
GETTING A sense of perspective on Aswad is difficult at the best of times, and it's even worse with the release of this elpee because ...
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 30 October 1984
SINCE THE DEATH of Bob Marley, the union of message music and popular appeal that he forged for reggae has undergone a widespread breakdown. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Aston Barrett: Rhythm Behind The Reggae
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 2 November 1984
THE BARRETT BROTHERS may be the most influential unsung heroes in pop music. ...
Clint Eastwood & General Saint: White Bread Toasters
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
Wha 'appen to give Clint Eastwood & General Saint so much chart action? Sean O'Hagan asks is this a sell-out or are they just starting ...
Janet Kay: Do Actors Sing Better Lovers?
Interview by Paul Bradshaw, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
JANET KAY comes offstage to talk to PAUL BRADSHAW ...
Yellowman: Reggae's Clown Prince
Interview by Roy Trakin, Creem, January 1985
NEW YORK — Winston Foster not only escaped the oppressive poverty of his Trenchtown youth, but also overcame the psychological effects of childhood taunts about ...
Josey Wales: Josey "The Colonel" Wales: No Way No Better Than Yard (Greensleeves)
Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 5 January 1985
WHEN IT comes to yard style repartee — hard, fast and brutal lyrics bouncing off equally persuasive riddlms — Josey Wales has staked a place ...
Smiley Culture & Bobby Boom: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 5 January 1985
THE INTERPRETER of reggae mirth who says he MCs not for treasure but for pleasure inverted frowns to dental crowns, sore feet to blue beat, ...
Overview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 12 January 1985
From the raw to the pure, from the sublime to the meticulous — BARNEY HOSKYNS sings the praises of 24 of music's most glorious voices. ...
Eek-A-Mouse: Reggae For The Fun Of It
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 18 January 1985
REGGAE ARTISTS usually strive to appear as visionary prophets in concert, but Eek-A-Mouse will bring a more light-hearted approach to the Music Machine on Saturday ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 2 February 1985
NAME: Smiley Culture CHARGE: Dread Bodily Harm SENTENCE: A Spell in the Charts REPORT: Sean O'Hagan ...
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 9 February 1985
DUB CRAWL ...
Barrington Levy: The Mellow Canary
Interview by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 16 February 1985
Here comes Barrington Levy... Penny Reel listens to the sense and sensibility, trials and tribulations of a man on the verge of international stardom. ...
Barrington Levy: Here He Comes... Barrington Levy
Interview by Deanne Pearson, No. 1, 23 February 1985
Deanne Pearson talks to Barrington Levy, the reggae star who's following Smiley Culture up the charts ...
Roland Alphonso: Kingston 12, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 25 February 1985
THE START of saxophonist Roland Alphonso's second set at the Kingston 12 Friday brought to mind those uncomfortable evenings with aging blues legends where the ...
The Skatalites: Scattered Lights (Alligator)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 26 February 1985
FOUR YEARS AGO, the Two-Tone ska revival raced through America as another Anglo hip trip, a six-month passing fancy that disappeared in a swirl of ...
Alton Ellis: Skabeana in Soho: Alton Ellis at Gossips, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 27 April 1985
ROCKING STEADILY to the dogged rhythms of Studio One spiced with ska, the crowd tonight are in appreciative mood to welcome Alton Ellis onstage, where ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Reggae's Mad Scientist
Profile and Interview by Chris Salewicz, Spin, May 1985
WHEN PEOPLE said to Bob Marley that his friend Lee "Scratch" Perry was mad, Marley would reply, "Him not mad, him just Scratch." ...
Augustus Pablo: The Kitchen, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 4 May 1985
PIPING HOT! ...
Live Review by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 22 May 1985
"All Dayers" have been going for years. They're marathon sessions of dancing to reggae and soul records with live appearances from the singers who made ...
Barrington Levy: Top Rank, Brighton
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 1 June 1985
INSIDE THE Barrington Levy coach to Brighton everything is bubbling. Bubbler plays dominoes with Bassie and Bertie. Benson makes short work of a box of ...
Eek-A-Mouse: Eek A Mouse: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 1 June 1985
EVERYTHING ABOUT The Eek is a little weird: his name, his height (6' 6"), his dress sense and, of course, his unique vocal style. One ...
Maxi Priest: The Mini Rise Of Maxi Priest
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 20 June 1985
Hot shot of Lovers Rock and inventor of "new vogue reggae", MAXI PRIEST is poised to breakthrough to pop success. SEAN O'HAGAN joins the priesthood. ...
Burning Spear: Resistance (Heartbeat)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 28 June 1985
A FULL DECADE after the landmark Marcus Garvey (Island) album, the voice and vision of Burning Spear (the nom de stage of Jamaican singer/songwriter Winston ...
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 29 June 1985
"Slim was a builder, soul singer, and a very good entertainer, and I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, Slim had to leave us, leave us ...
Film Fest To Offer Jazz, Reggae Documentaries
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 12 July 1985
THE PAIR OF 1981 documentaries making their local premieres this weekend as part of the Fox International Theater's ongoing Summer Music Film Fest offers an ...
Aswad: The Palace, Los Angeles
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 1985
STEEL PULSE spearheaded the charge of British reggae artists to America, but Aswad served notice at the Palace on Wednesday that it's ready to claim ...
Mutabaruka: Reggae Star Is More Than A Poet
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 26 July 1985
"I DON'T LIKE being classified as a dub poet because dub poetry is a limit to one's expression," Mutabaruka declares. "It's like saying that you're ...
Interview by Don Snowden, Spin, August 1985
He's been a musketeer in London and a buccaneer in New Orleans. "People want to see you in costume," explains reggae star Eek-A-Mouse. ...
Bernard Fowler, Sly & Robbie: Sly & Robbie: Hand in Glove
Interview by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 10 August 1985
Paul Mathur, scribe about town, ambles on down to the Kensington Hilton to meet Jamaica's supreme rhythm team, SLY DUNBAR and ROBBIE SHAKESPEARE. Rock, reggae ...
Joe Higgs Seeks Reggae 'Triumph'
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 14 August 1985
"IF I WAS A prophet, I wouldn't have left the Wailers, but I didn't know they were going to become this monstrous," Joe Higgs said ...
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 24 August 1985
At last AMAZULU have a hit. But can they hang on to their sanity? Caroline Sullivan talks to Claire and Nardo ...
Alton Ellis, Prince Lincoln Thompson & the Royal Rasses: Notting Hill Carnival: Calypso Factor
Report by Nick Coleman, New Musical Express, 7 September 1985
Hustling herbman NICK COLEMAN ventured into the red-striped fog and filed this emotional report on the frenzied Notting Hill Carnival. ...
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 22 September 1985
DAVID HINDS was not in the mood to mince words. The lead singer and chief songwriter of Steel Pulse was furious over the delay in ...
Chaka Khan, Third World: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by David Sinclair, The Times, 30 September 1985
Not her moment ...
Various Artists: Best of Studio One, Vol. 2 — Full Up (Heartbeat)
Review by Richard Gehr, Spin, October 1985
THE FURTHER adventures in the multifaceted, knob-twirling career of seminal reggae producer Clement ("Sir Coxsone") Dodd. When we last left our hero, Heartbeat Records' two ...
Frankie Paul: Ripe Mango (Blacker Dread)
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 11 January 1986
OF THE GLUT of fine new singers to have emerged from the Jamaican dancehall sound during the past few years, Frankie Paul is probably the ...
The Bloodfire Posse: Are You Ready? (Synergy)
Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 18 January 1986
POSSE POSES ...
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 13 February 1986
BUNNY WAILER, who formed the creative nucleus of the Wailers with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh when the group became Jamaica's reigning pop heroes in ...
Judy Mowatt: Mowatt's Winding Path To Success
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 13 February 1986
JUDY MOWATT'S Working Wonders album has received a Grammy nomination, but that isn't the only reason she'll remember the record. A succession of studio disasters ...
Ariwa Posse, The Mad Professor: Ariwa Posse and The Mad Professor: The Wild Bunch
Interview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 15 March 1986
Keen young sociologist Frank Owen grabs a stetson and pursues ARIWA POSSE and their mentor THE MAD PROFESSOR. Reggae will never be the same again. ...
Audrey Hall: Dance Hall Revolution
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, New Musical Express, 22 March 1986
"WE'VE HEARD what the men can do, it's time to hear the women. You can't keep us in the background for ever. There are loads ...
Augustus Pablo: Rising Sun (Greensleeves GREL 90)***⅝
Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 29 March 1986
IN THE Chinese puzzle box of sound that comprises reggae's radiological dubstream, there are two types of artist: Augustus Pablo and The Rest. ...
Bunny Wailer: Wailers 'Together Again'
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 20 April 1986
THE UPCOMING Wailers album Together Again isn't just your average reunion record. Besides Bunny Waller, Peter Tosh, Junior Braitwaithe and Constantine Walker, the lineup will ...
Ziggy Marley: Marley's Children
Profile by Vernon Gibbs, New Look, May 1986
UNLESS YOU are a true fan of reggae, you probably missed the most eerie coincidence of 1985. In the same year that Julian Lennon hit ...
The Skatalites: The Fathers Of Ska
Profile by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 1 June 1986
Personnel: The 11-man lineup will include charter members Johnnie Moore (trumpet), Lester Sterling (alto sax), Roland Alphonso and Tommy McCook (tenor sax), Rico Rodriguez (trombone), ...
Interview by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 2 July 1986
Ali and Robin Campbell have a lot in common: 1) They've both got the same parents; 2) They both spent almost their entire "youth" stealing ...
Ziggy Marley: Marleys' Melodious Messages
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 19 July 1986
REGGAE FANS may still mourn the death of Bob Marley from cancer five years ago, but the next generation of the Marley clan is already ...
Audrey Hall: One Hit Won't Do!
Interview by Stuart Bailie, Record Mirror, 26 July 1986
Yup, it's get out your history books time again. This here is the story of how Audrey Hall became the first female reggae singer to ...
On-U Sound System, Adrian Sherwood, Tackhead: Adrian Sherwood: Ministry of Dub
Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 16 August 1986
Producer ADRIAN SHERWOOD has spent a decade deconstructing and rebuilding music dubwise, from Ministry and New Age Steppers to Mark Stewart, Tack Head and Keith ...
Smiley Culture: Confessions of a Reformed Used Car Salesman
Interview by Stuart Bailie, Record Mirror, 23 August 1986
SMILEY CULTURE is still one of the flyest blokes south of the Thames... But he's got a bit serious with it as well ...
Notting Hill Carnival '86: Everybody Wet Wet Wet
Report by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 6 September 1986
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO I back up on my first Carnival almost by accident. ...
Smiley Culture: Pop-up Toaster
Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 6 September 1986
Colin Irwin takes a trip into childhood with Tulse Hill's favourite son, SMILEY CULTURE. ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 6 September 1986
TIPPA IRIE, wide boy wonder and cultural chameleon, now finds himself torn between reggae's dub-swamped dance-halls and the glitterdome. SEAN O'HAGAN risks an ear in the rapid fire ...
Floy Joy, Carroll Thompson: Carroll Thompson: Life After Joy
Interview by Paul Sexton, Record Mirror, 13 September 1986
Weren't Floy Joy s'posed to be Big In '85? Well, erm, yes... but now they're no more and singer Carroll Thompson's doing very nicely on ...
Augustus Pablo: Man from the Hills
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 11 October 1986
For over a decade, and through the endless changes in the music's style, the melodica musings of AUGUSTUS PABLO have drifted across reggae, haughty and ...
Smiley Culture: Tongue In Cheek (Polydor)
Review by Lucy O'Brien, New Musical Express, 11 October 1986
FROM CHRONICLING his days playing conkers at Tulse Hill Secondary School to running up against police officers Smiley has always been the charmer cheeking his ...
Sugar Minott: Inna Reggae Dance Hall (Heartbeat)
Review by Don Snowden, The Boston Phoenix, 23 October 1986
BOB MARLEY'S international breakthrough spawned a glut of Jamaican journeyman scrambling for the reggae rainbow's seemingly attainable pot of gold but an inevitable byproduct of ...
Freddie McGregor: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by Penny Reel, New Musical Express, 25 October 1986
THAT FREDDIE McGregor has been the best and the most consistent reggae artist working in a traditional vein outside the strictures of the dancehall since ...
Freddie McGregor: "The ladies tend to have a very close relationship with my love songs"
Interview by Stuart Bailie, Record Mirror, 8 November 1986
That's Freddie McGregor speaking. You probably haven't heard of him, but at the moment he's the sweetest crooner on the reggae scene. And he's something ...
Smiley Culture: Word Party, Y'all
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 22 November 1986
Rabbit on, SMILEY CULTURE! STEVEN WELLS ties tongues wiv the mouf movin' fast frew the language barriers. ...
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 8 December 1986
"My life is like a joke but to me it isn't funny..." ('All I Want To Do') ...
Burning Spear: Redemption Song
Interview by Mark Cooper, City Limits, 19 March 1987
"Music for your children and my children and their children" is how Burning Spear looks at his 15 years in reggae. In Europe and America ...
Sly & Robbie: Musclefunk Throwdown
Interview by Simon Witter, i-D, May 1987
i-D meets Sly and Robbie, whose communal, all-star jam sessions have produced Rhythm Killers, the year's most enjoyable, perfectly formed dance album. ...
Sly & Robbie: Rhythm Killers (Island)
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 2 May 1987
BONDED BRILLIANCE ...
Fats Comet, Mark Stewart, Tackhead: Fats Comet, Tackhead, Mark Stewart: Astoria, London
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 16 May 1987
AS MARK Stewart, seven foot of laconicism, sang quoting Burroughs, tonight was the time to "Play it all, play it all, play it all back. ...
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 16 May 1987
Legends of world rhythm SLY & ROBBIE have responded to advances in all musics by making a technological masterpiece of an LP. SEAN O'HAGAN meets ...
Curiosity Killed The Cat, Sly & Robbie: Sly & Robbie
Interview by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 20 May 1987
They've played with Curiosity Killed The Cat, Cyndi Lauper, Grace Jones and now they've got their own hit single with 'Boops (Here To Go)'. "You ...
Sly & Robbie: Popstars and the Strange Things They Own: Sly & Robbie
Interview by John Aizlewood, No. 1, 25 July 1987
"MUSIC IS with us all the time. We don't take holidays. I even dream about music." ...
Sly & Robbie: Can the Riddim Twins Rock the Mainstream?
Interview by Alan di Perna, Musician, August 1987
AS SUPPORTING players, they've become as recognizable and popular as comic book superheroes. Is there anyone who isn't familiar with Sly Dunbar's brightly-colored tams and ...
Aswad, Toots & The Maytals: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Push, Melody Maker, 19 September 1987
THE HOMECOMING. The hope coming. Aswad are undoubtedly the most prestigious band who could assist in the revival of a genre whose popularity has flagged ...
Peter Tosh, The Wailers: Reggae: Can The Beat Go On?
Comment by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 27 September 1987
THE DEATH OF Peter Tosh, gunned down Sept 11 at his Kingston, Jamaica, home during an apparent robbery, is only the latest tragedy in the ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by Push, Melody Maker, 3 October 1987
PRESIDENT Abraham Perry appears in full ceremonial dress. Long red socks, stars upon his breeches, fairy lights around his head, a mirror strapped to his ...
On-U Sound System, Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee Perry: Revenge Of The Totally Bananas
Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 3 October 1987
Dub President LEE SCRATCH PERRY holds court with DELE FADELE, and predicts the apocalypse. ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee 'Scratch' Perry: The 30 Year Itch
Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 3 October 1987
"I AM the first black Jew you've ever seen," he says. Later he declares, "I am Hitler! I rule the swastika!" ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Peter Tosh: Reggae great Peter Tosh murdered
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 22 October 1987
THE REGGAE star Peter Tosh, a founding member of the Wailers, was gunned down during an apparent robbery when three men invaded his home near ...
Peter Tosh, The Wailers: Peter Tosh: 'Volatile'
Obituary by Lloyd Bradley, Q, November 1987
Bitter, violent, a few bricks short of the load, Peter Tosh was a hard man to love. Lloyd Bradley investigates the gangland connections that resulted ...
Interview by Stuart Bailie, Record Mirror, 7 November 1987
British reggae's freshest star, Maxi Priest, gets stylish with Stuart Bailie, and confesses that he wouldn't mind ending up in Phil Collins' shoes ...
Freddie McGregor: Town and Country Club, London
Live Review by Paul Sexton, Record Mirror, 5 December 1987
THE SECOND of three Town-and-Countries for Freddie had the upstairs closed and a definite spot of sparseness in the crowd downstairs, which suggested that he'd ...
Bad Brains: An Interview with HR
Interview by Al Quint, Suburban Voice, Winter 1987
PROBABLY THE MOST unusual interview I've ever encountered in my 4 years of doing this 'zine. In a haze of marijuana smoke, surrounded by several ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee 'Scratch' Perry: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 16 January 1988
SOMETIMES there are concerts that leave your mind so thoroughly evacuated, that the only way to galvanise your diminished sense of being is to work ...
Peter Tosh: Andrew Tosh Shoulders Reggae Legacy
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 7 April 1988
"YEAH, I ALWAYS think that I might be a target," said Andrew Tosh, son of gunned-down reggae star Peter Tosh. "I keep a good watch ...
Review by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 9 April 1988
DEEP JOY is in my heart that Aswad have had a giant hit single, a corking little pop reggae soul tune of some upliftingness. However, ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Bunny Wailer, The Wailers: A Wailer Surfaces to Claim Reggae's Crown
Interview by Mark Cooper, The Guardian, 26 August 1988
After Marley, what price reggae? Mark Cooper on Bunny Wailer's musical crusade ...
Interview by Mark Sinker, Rock's Backpages audio, October 1988
The erstwhile Neville O'Riley Livingston ruminates on the Wailers' legacy; on returning to England after 16 years; on the poor state of reggae today and the serious side of the Jamaican genre; on Ziggy Marley as a successor to his father Bob; on political violence in Jamaica and Peter Tosh's untimely death; on the rise of African reggae and his new album Liberation.
File format: mp3; file size: 37.3mb, interview length: 38' 49" sound quality: *** (background noise)
Aswad: The genial face of reggae
Interview by David Sinclair, The Times, 23 December 1988
Having recognized that music is a business, Aswad have at last won the recognition they deserve, David Sinclair writes. ...
Audio transcript of interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1989
This is a transcript of John Tobler's 1989 audio interview. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Island Records' Chris Blackwell (1989)
Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 1989
Following the sale of his Island label to Polygram – and the end of his relationship with Sweden's Sonet Records – Blackwell gives a (slightly Scandinavian-centric) history of the label, from 'My Boy Lollipop' to U2 via, amongst others, Jimmy Cliff, King Crimson, Cat Stevens, Bob Marley and Marianne Faithfull. He ends by explaining the difficulty of remaining independent in the now-global music business, and the need to sell the company.
File format: mp3; file size: 51.5mb, interview length: 53' 36" sound quality: *****
Sly & Robbie: Silent Assassin (Island)
Review by Don Snowden, unpublished, 1989
HMM, HMM, HMM, let's see here...looks like Sly & Robbie & KRS-One are on to something here but I don't think it's what most people ...
Interview by Penny Reel, Music Week, 14 January 1989
Penny Reel prowls Miller’s Terrace with Super Cat ...
Burning Spear, Judy Mowatt, Pato Banton: Second Generation Picks Up the Torch From Bob Marley
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 7 February 1989
Bob Marley Day: Long Beach Arena, Los Angeles ...
Half Pint Making a Splash With Rebellion
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 26 May 1989
HALF PINT'S 'Greetings (to All Ragamuffins)' was the Jamaican equivalent of Tone Loc's 'Wild Thing' — a record that went beyond hit status to become ...
Soul II Soul: The Palladium, New York
Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 5 August 1989
SQUEEZED BETWEEN the hard core Hip-hop of Red Alert and DJ Mark The 45 King, the US dance remix of 'Keep On Movin'', holds its ...
Ziggy Marley Livelies Up Himself in the Nick of Time
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 7 August 1989
ZIGGY MARLEY did not wait a minute too long to dip into his father's songbook for 'Lively Up Yourself'. ...
Burning Spear Aims to Stay True to Roots Reggae
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 11 September 1989
THERE IS no more pure exponent of roots reggae than Burning Spear. Reggae has gone through a number of permutations in the 15 years since ...
Review by Lloyd Bradley, Q, January 1990
THE SECOND VOLUME of classic reggae songs – the first album, released in 1983, spawned the group's first Number 1 single ('Red Red Wine'), topped ...
Report by Frank Owen, Spin, February 1990
On the dance floors and radio stations of New York City, reggae is stronger than ever. ...
Marcia Grifiths, Ziggy Marley: The Resurgence of Reggae
Report by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 3 February 1990
Pop music: Major labels sign more artists and watch sales rise. The Jamaican style enjoys renewed popularity with a new generation of performers and fans. ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Reggae's Pioneer Poet Has Picked Up His Pen Again
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 6 March 1990
Music: Linton Kwesi Johnson took a break because he was afraid he'd run out of things to say, but Europe thought otherwise. ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee Perry: Man, myth and magician
Profile and Interview by David Toop, The Times, 13 April 1990
Jamaican musician Lee Perry, re-emerging after a long period of semi-retirement, talks to David Toop ...
Various Artists: King Tubby’s Fast Car (Serious Business)
Review by Penny Reel, Black Echoes, 26 May 1990
THE MAN WHO own the Serious Business record label also drives a gleaming scarlet Mercedes-Benz sports car bearing the famous registration number JAH 50N, or ...
Bim Sherman: Too Hot (Century)
Review by Push, Melody Maker, 16 June 1990
EVEN BIM Sherman isn't sure how many solo LPs he's released, but Too Hot must take him up to around the 20 mark. Add to ...
Gary Clail, On-U Sound System: Gary Clail: Heard It Through The Bovine
Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 14 July 1990
Alter supporting Happy Mondays at Wembley and a performance at Glastonbury, GARY CLAIL releases a new single, 'Beef', on Paul Oakenfold's RCA-financed Perfecto label. PUSH ...
Bim Sherman: Subterania, London
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 11 August 1990
BIM SHERMAN'S reputation precedes him: either as the slinky-voiced singer on a host of Jamaican 45s in the 70s, his numerous collaborations with Adrian Sherwood ...
Aswad: Too Wicked (Mango LP/Cassette/CD)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 22 September 1990
ANYONE FAMILIAR with the sussed militancy of Aswad's early 'Three Babylon' period would never have expected them to take an easy option and 'go commercial'. ...
Review by Lloyd Bradley, Q, October 1990
Confrontational classics from Bob Marley ...
Review by Carol Cooper, The Village Voice, 13 November 1990
THIS YEAR'S New Music Seminar featured a panel called ‘Reggae in the ‘90s: Does Dancehall Rule?’ Both Jamaican and New York’s regional enthusiasm for dancehall ...
The Equals, Eddy Grant: Eddy Grant (1991)
Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 1991
Eddy Grant talks about forming the Equals with school friends in Tottenham; their hits 'Baby Come Back' and 'Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys'; his heart attack, and leaving the band; contractual issues with manager Edward Kassner, and regaining his copyrights; building his own studio; dying his hair white; his solo albums, and hits 'Walking on Sunshine' and 'Living on the Front Line'; moving to Barbados and building his Blue Wave studio, and about his sporting heroes and friends.
File format: mp3; file size: 131.5mb, interview length: 2h 17' 01" sound quality: *****
Alton Ellis: Alton and Hortense Ellis: Alton and Hortense Ellis
Review by Penny Reel, Select, January 1991
THE COMMANDING voice of Alton Ellis has been a constant feature in popular Jamaican music for over a quarter of a century and his classic ...
Tippa Irie: Original Raggamuffin (Mango LP Only)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 5 January 1991
FORTUNE HASN'T exactly smiled on Tippa Irie recently. After falling victim to the biggest tragedy the pop charts can offer — reggae toasters having novelty ...
Maxi Priest: Reggae's Maxi Priest Wins Mainstream Favor
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 21 February 1991
Pop music: The British singer adds an R&B flavor to the Jamaican sound. He and his band play San Diego and Long Beach this weekend. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Talkin' Blues
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, March 1991
IT IS A popular truism that the obsessiveness with which popular culture picks through the bones of its most illustrious dead is the sign of ...
Scritti Politti, Shabba Ranks: Scritti Politti: Do The Gart, Man
Interview by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 16 March 1991
THE DANCEHALL FOUNDATIONS are shaking and there's outrage in the ragga ranks. A white pop star has plundered their culture with the aid of Lennon ...
Adrian Sherwood, On-U Sound System: On-U Sound: Circus Attractions
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 13 April 1991
This week, the On-U Sound takes its show on the road with 36 acts and five hours of murderous rhythm every night. IAN GITTINS joined ...
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, July 1991
AS THE REIGNING king of Dancehall, Rexton Gordon aka Shabba Ranks is a major Jamaican sex symbol, ambitious enough to crush his rivals at Sunsplash ...
Maxi Priest, Shabba Ranks: Shabba Ranks: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Lloyd Bradley, The Independent, 24 September 1991
Send for a Priest: Lloyd Bradley on some baggy clothes and some sloppy delivery from Shabba Ranks at Brixton Academy ...
Shabba Ranks: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 5 October 1991
LIKE THE herbsman grassed upon by his neighhours, some nasty rumours have been circulating recently about Shabba Ranks. To wit: that he's completely lost the ...
Horace Andy, Massive Attack: Keep on Runnings
Report by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 15 February 1992
Bob Marley's music is not the young music in Kingston today. Ragga not reggae is king. And that took the British group Massive Attack to ...
Dennis Brown: Reggae crooner highly respected
Report and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Toronto Star, 19 February 1992
REGGAE ARTISTS seem to have a knack for taking well-known pop songs, transforming them with reggae's distinctive, loping rhythm – what Bob Marley called "the ...
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 25 May 1992
The Musical Diversity Is as Broad as the Quality Is High at Reggae Sunsplash at Greek Theatre. ...
Super Cat: Don Dada (Columbia 471570 2);
Review by David Sinclair, The Times, 25 July 1992
A quick 'toast' to reggae tradition ...
Shabba Ranks: Rough & Ready — Volume 1 (Epic 471442 2)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 13 August 1992
CONTINUING ITS desperate, doomed quest to bring ragga to the masses, Epic offers another album by Shabba Ranks, on the back of a single hoisted ...
Shabba Ranks: Dancehall Invasion
Report by Richard Gehr, Newsday, 27 August 1992
CURRENTLY MAKING impressive inroads into the American market, dancehall reggae may be the most challenging--and, many would say, irritating--style of popular music since rap, which ...
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 19 September 1992
IN THE grey area between barrow-boy techno and lumpen flannel-rock, there exists a community of enthusiasts who refuse to let their output be dictated by ...
Shabba Ranks: Taking Reggae Beyond Marley
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 4 October 1992
Dancehall is the sound of young Jamaica, modern reggae in a faster, electronic style, and it's winning a once-elusive African-American audience ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Songs For Freedom
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, November 1992
WHEN LITTLE RICHARD stood up at his piano and hollered 'Tutti Frutti', he sounded like a man who'd just broken out of prison. ...
Apache Indian: Big Bhangra Theory
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 23 January 1993
He's been called the voice of Asian youth, the pop Gandhi and a politician but, according to APACHE INDIAN, his music just reflects the sound ...
Apache Indian, Cornershop, Fun-Da-Mental: Real Lives: Rock of Asians
Report and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 March 1993
Britain's Asian community has long hosted a thriving pop scene, operating in a lucrative parallel universe to the chart mainstream. Now, CAROLINE SULLIVAN reports, radical ...
Interview by Amy Linden, Creem, April 1993
SNOW, HIS mixer Prince, their manager, their publicist, and myself are seated around a table trying to figure out what it is we have ordered ...
Buju Banton, Shabba Ranks: "Using Guns. That's Nothing To Do With Any Sort Of Music."
Report and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, The Independent, 17 April 1993
A man was hurt in a shooting at a ragga concert. Is violence taking over? Lloyd Bradley looks for some answers ...
Apache Indian: No Reservations (Mango 1625399324)
Review by Amy Linden, The New York Times, 25 April 1993
A 25-YEAR-old disk jockey and first-generation Briton from the Punjab Province of India, Steve Kapul has been inspired by the music of the West Indies. ...
Profile and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's, 3 May 1993
AS A TEENAGER growing up in the housing projects of north Toronto, Darrin O'Brien did not seem to have much of a future. An indifferent ...
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, 13 May 1993
THE ONLY THING you can say for sure about 'Informer', the unsinkable Number One reggae novelty by white Toronto toaster Snow, is that it somehow ...
Shabba Ranks: Ragga: The Experience
Report by uncredited writer, Smash Hits, 26 May 1993
18-year-old Massie from Croydon is a regular at a South London club that's known for its ragga nights. Here she tells of a typical Thursday ...
Shabba Ranks: Ragga Bragger — Shabba Ranks: Maestro Club, Bradford
Live Review by Simon Warner, The Guardian, 28 May 1993
Shabba Ranks, the bad boy of ragga, in Bradford ...
Buju Banton: Young Slack Teenager
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 14 August 1993
Two years ago, BUJU BANTON caused a furore with his single 'Boom Bye Bye', advocating the killing of homosexuals, a controversy further fuelled when his ...
Buju Banton: Voice Of Jamaica (Mercury/All formats)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 21 August 1993
THE FURORE provoked by Buju Banton's virulently anti-gay lyric to 'Boom Bye Bye' last year has had lasting repercussions on music in general and raggamuffin ...
Report and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, Q, September 1993
After 35 hit singles and 13 big-selling Lps, UB40's secret is out – they're a load of idle layabouts! Their new album is making the ...
Interview by Siân Pattenden, Smash Hits, 27 October 1993
Apache Indian has a message for you. And you don't have to be Asian to hear it. ...
Report and Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 25 December 1993
Just as grunge crossed over from the streets to the catwalk, RAGGA made the shift from underground to mainstream in 1993. Laying siege to the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer: The Wailers: Pirates Yes They Rob I
Report and Interview by Larry Jaffee, Vibe, March 1994
Three decades after cutting his first record, Bob Marley still ranks as one of the most exploited artists in the history of recorded music. Larry ...
Chaka Demus and Pliers: Chaka Demus & Pliers: Maestro's, Bradford
Live Review by Simon Warner, The Guardian, 10 March 1994
AFTER THE brooding intensity of Shabba Ranks and the controversies engulfing ragga and dancehall generally, it is easy to forget that while reggae has frequently ...
Chaka Demus and Pliers: The Rolls Royce of Ragga
Report and Interview by Mark Cooper, Q, May 1994
"ANY QUESTIONS then?" ...
Jah Shaka: Dub It Up: A Whistlestop Tour Through Reggae's Echo Chambers
Guide by David Toop, The Wire, May 1994
A is for Alpha & Omega The odd couple of '90s roots and culture. Bassist Christine Woodbridge and melodica puffer John Sprosen conjure cultural spirits ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Early Wailers: Fussing & Fighting
Report by Larry Jaffee, Billboard, 18 June 1994
Marley Catalog Is A Source Of Strife, Suits ...
General Levy: Jungle fever — hot heavy and here
Report and Interview by David Toop, The Times, 24 June 1994
Rap, reggae, ragga and soul have combined in a heady brew. David Toop talks to toastmaster General Levy ...
Chaka Demus and Pliers, General Levy: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 18 July 1994
THE RANKS of policemen who materialise outside Brixton Academy during shows by black artists were absent Friday night. Clearly, they had been informed that no ...
Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 3 September 1994
From their early militant days to today's mellowed-out elder statesmen, ASWAD have hauled British reggae into the '90s, sidestepping genres and influencing everyone from Ace ...
Overview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 15 October 1994
Ask yer proverbial suburban kid on the street, and chances are they won't be into Blur, Suede, Nirvana or Oasis — they'll be hardcore JUNGLE ...
Interview by Nick Coleman, The Independent, 18 November 1994
DJ Derek is not your standard turntable spinner: he used to be an accountant, has a major cardigan habit and is 60 years old this ...
Teddy Dan: United States Of Africa (Rootsman)
Review by Penny Reel, Black Echoes, December 1994
IT IS CURIOUS how, having lain dormant in reggae music throughout the length of the Eighties, Rasta ideology should once again be making its presence ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Can't Fight The Youth: Bob Marley's Early Years
Retrospective by Chris Salewicz, MOJO, March 1995
1945. THE PREGNANCY WAS PROBLEM-FREE. On the first Sunday of February, 1945, Cedella Marley went to church as usual. The next day she hoped to ...
Obituary by Penny Reel, MOJO, July 1995
In January, Penny Reel witnessed the last British appearance by Delroy Wilson. Here he pays tribute to the reggae ruler famously namechecked by The Clash. ...
Shaggy: Palace Theater, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 21 October 1995
Shaggy Wraps Past Into Fun, Sexy Package ...
Björk, Goldie: Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 3 November 1995
Björk Plays to Her Strengths With Reflective, Lyrical Style ...
Memoir by Penny Reel, Black Echoes, 13 January 1996
Penny Reel at the pool table meets a man from creation. ...
The Congos: Heart Of The Congos (Blood And fire/LP/CD)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 20 January 1996
THAT WAS the mother lode year, 1977, set in timeless stone for reggae, and the year that, as Rastafarians would have it, two sevens clashed. ...
Review by Steffan Chirazi, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 April 1996
Mad Professor Mixes Some Magic ...
Live Review by Sylvia Patterson, New Musical Express, August 1996
IF YOU came all the way from Arbroath, which you probably didn't, you'd be calling it Bairns' Glasto. Only without the sex and drugs, but ...
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 7 September 1996
HOW THE WESTWAY WAS WON ...
Horace Andy, Massive Attack: Horace Andy: Put It All Down To His Quaver
Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 26 September 1996
Horace Andy has fathered 16 children. He's also had a long career in reggae. ...
LTJ Bukem, MC Conrad: LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad in... Mission Possible
Report and Interview by Emma Warren, Jockey Slut, October 1996
LTJ Bukem, the man behind the 50,000 selling Logical Progression album, the excellent Good Looking and Looking Good labels and drum 'n' bass classics 'Music', ...
Horace Andy: Subterania, London
Live Review by Paul Sexton, The Times, 9 October 1996
Massive respect ...
Report and Interview by Emma Warren, Jockey Slut, December 1996
More than any other British city Bristol has always had an identifiable musical sound. From Smith and Mighty, Massive Attack, Tricky and Portishead, to current ...
Mighty Diamonds, The Twinkle Brothers: The Mighty Diamonds/The Twinkle Brothers: The Forum, London
Live Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S A RARE THING THESE DAYS THAT Ralston Grant, the guitar-playing half of The Twinkle Brothers, leaves Jamaica, and for the last decade or so ...
Retrospective by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 18 April 1997
Lee "Scratch" Perry may not have invented dub, but, says Sean O'Hagan, he is its one auteur — his influence can be heard from trip-hop ...
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, August 1997
Junior Delgado: Dance A Dub (Big Cat); Augustus Pablo: Augustus Pablo Presents DJs From 70s-80s (Big Cat) ...
Shaggy: Midnite Lover (Virgin) ***
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 18 September 1997
WHEN SHAGGY had a global smash with his irresistible version of the Folkes Brothers' 'Oh Carolina', in 1993, and followed it up with the U.S. ...
King Tubby, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Yabby You: Blood And Fire Records: Simply Dread
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 7 November 1997
Mick Hucknall's devotion to the pioneers of dub and lovers' rock led him to form Blood And Fire records. Sean O'Hagan salutes them ...
The Anthill Mob, DJ Ride, KMA Productions, Skykap: Eastside Stories
Report by Bethan Cole, Muzik, December 1997
From the Krays to hardcore, London's East End has always nurtured its own club scene. A rawer, rougher, more honest flipside to the glitz you'll ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Celebrating Bob Marley at Studio One
Retrospective by James Maycock, The Independent, 6 February 1998
On the 35th anniversary of Studio One ...
Beenie Man: Many Moods Of Moses (Shocking Vibes/CD/LP)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 11 April 1998
TO CALL Beenie Man a prolific artist is an understatement. The self-styled 'ghetto president' normally records singles in the time it takes others to have ...
Horace Andy, Massive Attack: Horace Andy: Still massive after all these years
Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, The Independent, 19 June 1998
He was big 30 years ago, but Horace Andy is singing sweetly to this day. ...
The Skatalites: Ska: This dance carries a health warning
Retrospective by James Maycock, The Independent, 7 July 1998
Jamaican Ska, once scorned as 'ruffian music', is still alive and causing fatalities. ...
Jah Shaka: Metro & The Birth Of The British Sound System
Profile and Interview by James Maycock, The Independent, August 1998
"AMPLIFICATION AND records – if you have those 2 items, then you can go somewhere," states the man called Metro. Born with the slightly less ...
Mikey Dread, King Tubby, Duke Reid, Scientist, Sir Coxone, U-Roy: Blood & Fire's Steve Barrow (1998)
Interview by Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 10 September 1998
The reggae historian and Blood & Fire founder looks back on the evolution of Jamaica's sound system culture: early pioneers such as Count Matchuki; the selector/DJ split; Ruddy Redwood and the pre-release dub plate; sound system rivalry; Duke Reid and Coxone Dodd; and DJs and selectors becoming producers. Steve then explains how he got into reggae in the early-'70s and talks about Jamaica's relationship with hip hop. Finally, he talks about King Tubby and Scientist's dubs via an illustration of Bernard Purdie's 'Funky Donkey'.
File format: mp3; file size: 68.3mb, total interview length: 1h 11' 10" sound quality: ****
Sly & Robbie: Sly ‘n’ Robbie on Drum ‘n’ Bass
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 1999
Drum ‘n’ bass: it’s the foundation of popular music, the engine which drives rock, pop, soul, funk, jazz, reggae and anything else you care to ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Lee "Scratch" Perry: Lee Perry: Lost Treasures Of The Ark (Jet Star)
Review by Andy Crysell, New Musical Express, 2 January 1999
BOOTY RECALL ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 18 February 1999
For forty years, CHRIS BLACKWELL has survived on killer instincts, killer bud and tough business tactics. Along the way, he's changed the course of pop ...
Johnny Clarke: Busy Doing Nothing: Johnny Clarke, the Reggae Idler
Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, The Independent, March 1999
THE COMPETITIVE MUSICAL CLIMATE was so intense in mid-'70s Kingston, that Jamaica's capital city was given the soubriquet "Third World Nashville". Hundreds of aspiring ...
King Tubby: "This is a journey into sound"
Retrospective by Lloyd Bradley, James Maycock, MOJO, April 1999
Sonic visionary, dancehall supremo and obsessive money-launderer, he played the sliders like Jimi played a Fender. Lloyd Bradley and James Maycock chronicle the crowning glories ...
Obituary by Vivien Goldman, Rolling Stone, 8 July 1999
REGGAE LOST one of its most distinctive sounds with the death of producer and instrumentalist Augustus Pablo in Kingston, Jamaica, on May 18th. The cause ...
Horace Andy: Roots master — Horace Andy: Living in the Flood (Melankolic) ****
Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 22 October 1999
Thirty years into his career as a reggae singer, Horace Andy has hit paydirt, writes Sean O'Hagan ...
Retrospective by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 29 October 1999
Fresh out of young Jamaica in the 60s, ska became the defining sound of a vibrant music scene — in turn it influenced 70s reggae, ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Forum, Kentish Town, London
Live Review by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 30 October 1999
PUNK IS DEAD! LONG LIVE, ERM, PUNK! ...
Horace Andy: Heavenly Social, London
Live Review by Lucy O'Brien, The Guardian, 30 October 1999
After three decades as a singer, Horace Andy can still surprise. Lucy O'Brien reports ...
King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, Lee "Scratch" Perry: A Bluffer's Guide To Dub
Guide by John McCready, Jockey Slut, 2000
Note: This piece originally featured in Jockey Slut magazine and was written to serve as an introduction to those who had heard the word Dub ...
Review by Marc Weingarten, Vibe, May 2000
WHEN NO DOUBT emerged from the strip-mall hell of Orange County, Calif., with its sprightly ska-pop, many figured that the band's shelf-life would be about ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2000
THIS BOOK — a book I was avid to read, whose subject I revere; whose life is a gift to any halfway capable biographer — ...
Beenie Man: Bennie Man: Art & Life
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, August 2000
Flava floods out of dancehall ubermensch ...
The Clash, King Tubby, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Lee "Scratch" Perry: Reggae: Back to the Roots
Essay by Simon Reynolds, The Wire, September 2000
According to the remixologists' gospel, the dub virus was so successful, it took out the word and eradicated its reggae song hosts. Simon Reynolds rediscovers ...
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 2 September 2000
PEOPLE HAVE KEPT a safe distance from Sizzla in recent times. Since he made remarks at an open-air concert to the effect that he doesn't ...
Sizzla: And You Will Know Him By His Trail Of Dreads
Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 2 September 2000
Meet Sizzla, Rastafarian musical missionary and the biggest star to emerge from Jamaica in years. He does what he does, and if anyone emigrates to ...
Retrospective by Lloyd Bradley, The Evening Standard, 15 September 2000
This is the story of reggae in West London — from the sound systems of the Fifties to the Carnival of today. Lloyd Bradley celebrates ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, October 2000
Soup Is Blood! Tony Blair's Baby Was Born At Sea! Finley Ouaye Is Reborn As A Manic Street Preacher And He'll Smack You If You ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Into the Heart of the Ark: An Audience with Lee
Book Excerpt by Chris Salewicz, Rock's Backpages, November 2000
In an excerpt from his book Rude Boy: Once Upon a Time in Jamaica, Chris Salewicz recounts his February 1978 meeting with legendary reggae producer ...
Finley Quaye: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Max Bell, The Evening Standard, 7 December 2000
Not as other men ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
Bob Andy, b. Keith Anderson, 1944, Kingston, Jamaica; Marcia Griffiths, b. Kingston ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley and Dennis Morris: Marley's Ghost
Profile and Interview by Philip Norman, The Sunday Times, 2001
ONE DAY in the troubled winter of 1973, a 16-year-old wannabe photographer named Dennis Morris played truant from school in Hackney, east London, and took ...
Byron Lee & The Dragonaires: Byron Lee
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Ken Lazarus, Jamaica ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Robert Livingstone Thompson, 1944, Kingston, Jamaica ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. 1953, St Peter, Barbados ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. 1937, Kingston, Jamaica ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, 'Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music', 2001
b. Desmond Dacris, 16 July 1942, Kingston, Jamaica ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Wilfred Edwards, 1938, Kingston, Jamaica, d. 15 August 1992 ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. 1947, Kingston, Jamaica ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Osborne Lawrence, 28 January 1941, Kingston, Jamaica, d. 6 February 1989, Kingston ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
b. 1928, Cuba ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Maxwell Elliott, 1962, Manchester, England ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Rexton Fernando Gordon, 17 January 1966, Sturgetown, Jamaica, West Indies ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music, 2001
b. Ewart Beckford, 1942, Kingston, Jamaica ...
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 18 January 2001
From Radio Ethiopia to Dread Zeppelin...20 classics of Cod-Reggae ...
Heshima: Do the Harlesden Shuffle
Report and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, The Evening Standard, 16 February 2001
NW10 is a patch of London that suffers a reputation for drugs and violence — a "murder hotspot" according to the Met. But Harlesden has ...
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 24 February 2001
He's boombastic, totally fantastic, he'll do anything for love but he won't do that. Re-introducing Shaggy, the '90s pop dancehall king whose rude rhymes are ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Wardrobe, Leeds
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 23 March 2001
IT'S 26 years since Linton Kwesi Johnson became the world's first and foremost dub poet with the single 'Dread Beat An' Blood'. For this rare ...
LeAnn Rimes, Shaggy: Lure of Mr Lover Lover
Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 30 March 2001
Shaggy's breathless tales of sexual conquest will beguile pop fans who enjoy the simpler pleasures, says Lisa Verrico. ...
Big Youth: Natty Universal Dread; and, Various Aritists: A Jamaican Story
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2001
IN JAMAICA, the DJ isn't the guy who spins the records (that's the selector), it's the bloke who chats over the music. As misnomers go, ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley And The Wailers: Live!
Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, July 2001
ALONG WITH the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club and Prince at the Lyceum, these shows played in London by Bob Marley And The Wailers ...
Wyclef Jean: Brixton Academy, London **
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 10 July 2001
...
Sean Paul: Queens of calypso and men of steel
Report and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Evening Standard, 22 August 2001
MAURICE HAMILTON sighs heavily as he describes the series of events which has seen virtually all the proposed live performances at this year's Notting Hill ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley CD Reissues
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, November 2001
Catch A Fire*****Burnin'****Natty Dread****Live!****Rastaman Vibration***All Island Roots Of Passage: First instalment of definitive reissue programme ...
Shaggy: Mr Lover Lover (Virgin)
Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 1 February 2002
A 14-track compilation of Shaggy tunes is more than a sensible girl can handle, says Lisa Verrico ...
Book Excerpt by Penny Reel, Deep Down With Dennis Brown, 9 February 2002
Penny Reel was the pre-eminent reggae writer of reggae's '70s heyday, contributing regularly to NME, Black Echoes and other publications. His Deep Down With Dennis ...
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 20 February 2002
IF SHAGGY wasn't called Shaggy, his whole career might not have happened. Bonky would have been too rude, Rumpy not suggestive enough. ...
Little Axe, On-U Sound System, Adrian Sherwood: Adrian Sherwood (2002)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, April 2002
Producer/record company boss Sherwood talks about his huge array of projects: starting the On-U Sound label; projects and artists such as African Head Charge, Tackhead and Dub Syndicate; making dub records until his friend Prince Far-I's murder; working with Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald; remixing Primal Scream's Vanishing Point, and the perils and pleasures of remixing; working with Lee "Scratch" Perry, and artists like Sinead O'Connor; the 'Barmy Army' football songs; his solo album Never Trust a Hippy; recording and technology, and running a label, and quite a lot about kids' football!
File format: mp3; file size: 50.7mb, interview length: 52' 51" sound quality: ****
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Madman or Genius?
Interview by John Lewis, Time Out, June 2002
As the Jamaican dub pioneer curates his Meltdown Festival at the South Bank, John Lewis travelled to deepest Switzerland to ask him about Prince Charles, ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Change Is Gonna Come
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 2002
BY 1966, IT LOOKED LIKE THE WAILING WAILERS WERE FINISHED ON the Jamaican music scene. They had recorded numerous hits, eventually challenging The Maytals as ...
Retrospective and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, August 2002
ASK JAMAICA'S PRIME MINISTER ABOUT THE SKATALITES and he'll come over all misty-eyed. Never mind that, at the moment, PJ Patterson is running a country ...
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 1 August 2002
IT'S A SWELTERING Sunday night in London's West End, and inside this venue, a West Indian community meeting is in progress. ...
Beenie Man: Beenie There, Done That
Interview by Lulu Le Vay, The Guardian, 28 September 2002
One of the biggest stars of Jamaican dancehall, Beenie Man's outgrowing the reggae charts and going global. Lulu Le Vay meets him as he gets ...
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 5 October 2002
ARTISTS ARE usually content with whatever audiences they attract. Not so Beenie Man, a former child prodigy turned dancehall reggae veteran at the age of ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Faces and Windows: Asian Dub Foundation
Profile and Interview by David Stubbs, The Wire, January 2003
Community, collectivism, connection are keywords in Asian Dub Foundation's irresistible assaults on cultural apathy. From their Community Music roots they have established a broad popular ...
Guide by Will Hermes, Spin, April 2003
With rock'n'roll in an early-'70s hangover, what could've been more welcome than Third World soul at foot-massage tempos advocating cultural revolution and spliff-smoking? Coming after ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Night Bob Marley Didn't Play the Bouncing Ball
Memoir by Penny Reel, Rock's Backpages, May 2003
IT IS 1973, around the time of the release of Catch A Fire, that Bob Marley And The Wailers are booked to play at Admiral ...
Report and Interview by Mike Atherton, Record Collector, July 2003
Mike Atherton delves into the revitalised world of the renowned reggae label Trojan. ...
Live Review by David Stubbs, The Wire, August 2003
ON PAPER, what a line-up, what a dub melding of nonconformist minds: The Mad Professor (aka Neil Fraser), who through his remixes of Primal Scream ...
Ken Boothe: Everything I Own: The Best of Ken Boothe (Trojan)
Review by John Aizlewood, Q, September 2003
The soul-kissed voice of '70s reggae lovingly collected. ...
Review by Todd L. Burns, Stylus, September 2003
AT THE SAME TIME that ragga is making its presence known in the mainstream with the likes of Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder hitting the ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Community Music
Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 1 September 2003
ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION formed in the mid-nineties, the product of a government-sponsored scheme designed to teach young Asian men music technology, two teachers, their pupil ...
Jimmy Cliff: Hail Reggae's Lost King
Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 5 September 2003
MANY PEOPLE THINK Bob Marley stole his crown. But it was Jimmy Cliff who gave reggae to the world, when he starred in and wrote ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: The RC INTERVIEW: Lee "Scratch" Perry
Interview by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, 2004
LET NO ONE tell you otherwise. An hour with reggae maverick Lee "Scratch" Perry is a wondrous thing. His "madness", however stage-managed, is there, almost ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2004
DECEMBER 3, 1976. A mellow, starry Friday night at 56 Hope Road, Bob Marley's Kingston home. Children playing in the yard – three of them ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Shooting of Bob Marley
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2004
DECEMBER 3, 1976. A mellow, starry Friday night at 56 Hope Road, Bob Marley's Kingston home. Children playing in the yard - three of them ...
Bob Dylan: Is It Rolling Bob?: A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan
Review by Michael Gray, Observer Music Monthly, 15 August 2004
THE SUBTITLE CONFESSES that all we have here is a concept album – that despite the liner notes claiming that "Jamaica was into Bob Dylan", ...
Beenie Man: Tatchell v Beenie Man: Arrest This Development
Comment by Andrew Mueller, The Guardian, 4 September 2004
LET'S HOPE THAT no friends of the Jamaican dancehall artist Beenie Man have recently reminded him that the only thing worse than being talked about ...
Michael Franti: Various Artists: Reggae on the River
Film/DVD/TV Review by j. poet, Paste, October 2004
TWENTY YEARS AGO, the residents of Piercy, Calif., held a benefit concert to rebuild a community centre torched by a local arsonist. ...
Rico Rodriguez: Rico – Trombone Man: Anthology 1961-71 (TJDDD2222)
Sleeve notes by Mike Atherton, Trojan, 2005
FROM THE Duke Reid Group to the Jools Holland Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, from ghetto studios to the stage of Top Of The Pops, from ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers, The Wailers: The Wailers: Burnin’ (Deluxe Edition) (Tuff Gong/Island)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, January 2005
CATCH A FIRE set the world alight but Burnin’ got it blazing. By the time Eric Clapton took the album’s ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ to ...
Soul II Soul's Jazzie B (2005)
Interview by Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 2 February 2005
The original Funki Dread goes deep into his roots, from a family background in reggae sound systems to Soul II Soul at the Africa Centre, via bunking off school to go to Crackers; DJs like George Power and Paul 'Trouble' Anderson; setting up S II S, and the original warehouse parties. Riveting stuff.
File format: mp3; file size: 87.2mb, interview length: 1h 35' 15" sound quality: *****
Fabio, Grooverider: Fabio (2005)
Interview by Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 4 February 2005
The Drum & Bass pioneer talks about his Brixton background, blues parties and sound systems; his love soul as well as reggae, and lunchtime funk dances at Crackers; collecting records, and starting to DJ; Tim Westwood and the emergence of electro hip hop; pirate radio; Paul Oakenfold's house nights, and meeting future partner Grooverider; nights like Spectrum and Rage; techno, break beats and jungle; the dangerous jungle club nights; evolution of Drum & Bass, and Garage; taking the name Fabio, and his memories of the big outdoor raves like Sunrise.
File format: mp3; file size: 71.7mb, interview length: 1h 14' 39" sound quality: ****
Audio transcript of interview by Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 4 February 2005
This is a transcript of Bill and Frank's audio interview with Fabio. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Willie Nelson's Countryman (Lost Highway)
Report and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Harp, July 2005
HEARING WILLIE Nelson’s first reggae album, you’re bound to ask: What took him so long? There’s a rather sympathetic correlation between the Nelson’s rather lazy, ...
Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come: The Definitive Collection
Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2005
The man who paved the way for Marley ...
Ziggy Marley: Love Is My Religion **½
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, AllMusic.com, 2006
MORE THAN two decades into his successful career — yes, he has now been recording for more years than his dad Bob did — Ziggy ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Caribbean Shaman: Lee "Scratch" Perry
Retrospective by Vivien Goldman, New Statesman, 12 June 2006
ON THE NIGHT Lee "Scratch" Perry performed at the New York venue B B King's last month, the news came through that the 1960s ska ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: African Roots
Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 15 June 2006
Lee Perry's lost Congolese album and other global grooves. ...
Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Washington Post, 20 August 2006
The early years of a reggae superstar who gained worldwide renown. ...
The Skatalites: On The Right Track *** ½
Review by Jeff Tamarkin, AllMusic.com, 2007
THE SKATALITES' lineup on this new recording, cut in Australia in 2006 during their first tour there, consists of just two original members of the ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Keep On Moving
Retrospective by Vivien Goldman, New Statesman, 28 May 2007
Hailed as the best album of the 20th century, Bob Marley's Exodus is 30 years old next month. Vivien Goldman recalls the sessions that produced ...
Sean Kingston: Instant Messenger
Profile and Interview by Angus Batey, The Guardian, 31 August 2007
Three months ago, no one had heard of Sean Kingston. Now he has a No 1 single and a MOBO nomination – all thanks to ...
Dennis Brown: Joe Gibbs, 1943-2008
Obituary by Chris Salewicz, The Independent, 3 March 2008
Producer of a string of reggae hits ...
Guide by Joel Selvin, SF Gate, 23 March 2008
SKA EMERGED IN Jamaica as a kind of ham-fisted combination of American rhythm & blues and Caribbean folk styles, such as calypso and mento, in ...
The Clash, Mikey Dread: Mikey Dread, 1954-2008
Obituary by Alan Clayson, The Guardian, 25 March 2008
A pioneering reggae artist and broadcaster, he worked with the Clash and UB40 ...
Review by John McCready, The Word, April 2008
Imagined in London, bankrolled by pop hits and prog rock — the disco-dub collision at Compass Point Studios created shockwaves. ...
The Special AKA, The Specials: The Specials: Original Gangsters
Retrospective and Interview by Lois Wilson, MOJO, May 2008
Out of the inner-city misery and post-punk experiment of the late '70s came a group of black and white Coventry kids called the Specials who ...
Aswad, Jah Shaka: Franco Rosso's Babylon
Retrospective and Interview by Kieron Tyler, The Guardian, 4 October 2008
Kieron Tyler celebrates that rare thing – a British movie about reggae ...
Cabaret Voltaire, Kora: Kora: Kora! Kora! Kora! Cabaret Voltaire Mixes
Review by John Doran, The Quietus, 19 December 2008
THIS IS not to diminish the achievements of New Zealand/Maori dub band Kora, but I'm guessing for a lot of people the interesting name on ...
The Harder They Come: Playhouse Theatre, London
Review by Mike Atherton, Echoes, Summer 2008
AS AN OTHERWISE unmemorable comedian used to remark, it's the way you tell 'em. It's not much of a story on the face of it: ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Island Records turns 50
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick, The Times, 3 May 2009
NOTE: This is the original "director's cut" version of the piece that ran in the The Times ...
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, June 2009
The grand scheme of a gambler with a taste for chicken blood, Jamaican label Island Records introduced Bob Marley and U2 to the world. On ...
Review by Lloyd Bradley, bbc.co.uk, 2010
30th anniversary edition of the group's great debut album. ...
Aidonia, Mavado: This Month In... Dancehall: Why Only Jamaicans Should Use Autotune
Overview by Neil Kulkarni, The Quietus, 3 March 2010
Neil Kulkarni delivers a swingeing blow to the whingers. Imagine a glitter and blood encrusted Doc Marten stamping on the face of autotune for all ...
Max Romeo: The Best Of Max Romeo
Review by Lloyd Bradley, bbc.co.uk, 26 April 2010
A fascinating album which revisits Romeo classics and presents them in new ways ...
Damian Marley, Nas: Nas and Damian Marley: Distant Relatives (Def Jam)
Review by Mike Diver, bbc.co.uk, May 2010
WHEN NAS CONFIRMED this collaboration with Damian Marley, he mentioned how hip hop and reggae are intertwined. ...
Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 12 July 2010
Prolific Jamaican musician who was a pioneer of dancehall reggae ...
Adrian Sherwood: The Man Who Built Jamaica In The Midlands
Interview by Nick Coleman, The Independent, 27 February 2011
The founder of On-U Sound tells Nick Coleman that there is more to reggae than 'ooom-chicky...' ...
Smiley Culture: Mark Paytress Meets Smiley Culture On The Cusp Of Fame, 1984
Interview by Mark Paytress, Rock's Backpages, March 2011
AS BRITAIN'S first successful MC, whose fast, fluid style had more in common with rap than reggae, Smiley Culture's place in history is assured. He ...
Various Artists: The Story of Trojan Records
Review by Lloyd Bradley, bbc.co.uk, August 2011
An incredibly diverse five-CD set celebrating the legendary British label ...
Review by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 20 September 2011
ODD THAT TWO icons of dance music, Pet Shop Boys and Grace Jones, both had to wait years to get strong British albums released this ...
Adrian Sherwood is feeling the riddim
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Coleman, The New Zealand Herald, 25 November 2011
NOT MUCH reggae music came out of the Home Counties during the early 1970s, but an awful lot went in. More than you might think. ...
The Album Cover Art Of Studio One Records (Soul Jazz)
Book Review by Mike Atherton, Echoes, December 2011
WITHOUT STUDIO ONE there would still have been reggae music, but it might well have developed differently. ...
Noel Hawks and Jah Floyd: Reggae Going International 1967-1976 – The Bunny "Striker" Lee Story
Book Review by Mike Atherton, Echoes, 2012
IN 2002, BUNNY LEE asked seasoned music journalist Noel Hawks when he was going to write up his story in book form. In the best ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Marley (Original Soundtrack)
Review by Lloyd Bradley, bbc.co.uk, 16 April 2012
A collection strong enough to stand apart from its parent documentary. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: The Lost Prophet
Retrospective by Charles Shaar Murray, The Word, May 2012
A new documentary presents Bob Marley in the raw, in the round, in close-up and in perspective. CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY recalls their weed-scented encounter in ...
George Faith, Lee "Scratch" Perry: George Faith: Super Eight (Trojan)
Review by Mike Atherton, Echoes, May 2012
TROJAN RECORDS' resolution for 2012 was obviously to make all fans of creative, forward-looking, barmy producer Lee "Scratch" Perry very happy indeed, and so far ...
The Original Trustafarian: Chris Blackwell
Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, Sunday Telegraph, 8 May 2012
IT'S CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT, a sickle moon hangs low over the Caribbean Sea in the direction of Cuba, and Grace Jones is making her way ...
Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, July 2012
THERE IS exactly one reggae singer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame whose name is not Bob Marley. The truth, though, is that ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Marley: A Legend in Sharp Focus
Film/DVD/TV Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 16 August 2012
New documentary may be the definitive portrait of international pop's most potent star. ...
Various Artists: Reggae Golden Jubilee –50th Anniversary – Origins of Jamaican Music
Review by Lloyd Bradley, bbc.co.uk, 5 November 2012
A connoisseur-satisfying collection, yet completely accessible for novices. ...
Various Artists: Blue Beat 1962
Review by Mike Atherton, Secret Records, December 2012
NUMBER ONE in a field of one, and an increasingly fertile field at that, isn't a bad place to be. That's where the Blue Beat ...
Janet Kay: Lover Boys and Girls: Lovers Rock in the UK
Book Excerpt by Lloyd Bradley, Serpent's Tail Books, August 2013
GIVEN THE TIDAL wave of superb dance records that flowed out of Jamaica in the 1960s, and the growth of UK sound systems, the island's ...
The Clash, Joe Strummer: Don Letts on the legacy of the Clash and the girl Joe Strummer Stole Away
Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 29 August 2013
FILM AND VIDEO director Don Letts has a lengthy and varied resumé, but is most associated with the Clash. The new all-compassing band box set, ...
Book Review by Greg Wilson, electrofunkroots.co.uk, 9 October 2013
JUST FINISHED a captivating and, to my mind, long-overdue book, which covers the history of black music in the capital spanning (almost) 100 years, the ...
Bill Callahan: Have Fun With God
Review by Steve LaBate, Paste, 21 January 2014
AS THE TITLE suggests, this record is the ghost of Bill Callahan's Dream River, drifting hypnotic across the astral plane and breaking through the white ...
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 10 March 2014
Incorrigible showmen unite with a superb band in a smallish venue to give an enthusiastic young audience a treat ...
Obituary by Chris Salewicz, The Independent, 10 June 2014
DJ and club owner who came to Britain in 1954 and helped establish Jamaican music as a force in London ...
Retrospective by Neil Kulkarni, The Quietus, 26 August 2014
Commissioned by Kevin Martin as part of our Bug Week, Neil Kulkarni writes about the power, potency and legacy of the UK's premier dancehall sound ...
Bedouin Soundclash: Retrospective Reviews: Bedouin Soundclash: Sounding a Mosaic
Review by Juliette Jagger, Noisey, 14 October 2014
RECORDED AT DNA Studios in Montreal and produced by Darryl Jenifer of legendary hardcore punk band Bad Brains, Bedouin Soundclash's breakthrough album, Sounding a Mosaic, ...
Guide by Kieron Tyler, Q Classic, 2015
Author's note, 2020: The Harder They Come, conspicuous by its absence from this list, was not included, since it was the subject of a feature ...
Guppy Conquerors: The Joy Of Cod Reggae
Guide by Bill Brewster, The Quietus, 30 January 2015
We set crate digger extraordinaire Bill Brewster an unenviable task – prepare us a set culled just from cod reggae. Check out the YouTube playlist ...
Lee "Scratch" Perry: Who was that masked man?
Retrospective by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, June 2015
The Lone Ranger, Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef ride again as dancehall deejays. ...
Essay by Paul Bradshaw, Ancient to Future, 15 July 2015
ONE EVENING, as I left the home of friend and fellow scribbler, Neil Spencer, he thrust a weighty tome into my hands and said, "You ...
Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 26 July 2015
There's a ska light that never goes out: Cliff’s high-voltage charisma is undimmed at 67 ...
Interview by Tom Graves, Rock's Backpages audio, 3 May 2016
After talking about her life after the hits, the 'My Boy Lollipop' girl takes us back to her youth, winning a talent contest aged 12; cutting her first records in Kingston; invited to England by Chris Blackwell and recording 'Lollipop' with Blackwell and Ernest Ranglin; life as a star in the UK; writing the song 'Enoch Powell', and on the difference between bluebeat and reggae.
File format: mp3; file size: 42.5mb, interview length: 44' 14" sound quality: *** (phoner)
Millie: An Interview with Millie Small
Interview by Tom Graves, Goldmine, August 2016
MILLIE SMALL, the diminutive Jamaican teen sensation who introduced the world to the sounds of ska with her worldwide smash hit 'My Boy Lollipop', is ...
Sean Paul: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 14 September 2016
The sparky showboater's glory days may be some way behind him, but his rueful rhythms haven't just aged well over the years – they carry ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Bob Marley & The Wailers Live!, Bob Marley — The Legend Live
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 2017
Bob Marley in stages, on stages. ...
Book Review by Graeme Thomson, MOJO, April 2017
IN OCTOBER 1967, the month of Otis Redding's untimely death, Wilson Pickett was very possibly the biggest soul star on the planet. ...
Horace Andy: Komedia, Brighton
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 20 July 2017
The reggae veteran has some of his eerieness smoothed out in a brisk and businesslike set – but his vibrato-laden voice remains spellbinding. ...
Book Excerpt by Nick Coleman, 'Voices' (Jonathan Cape), January 2018
GREGORY ISAACS may or may not have been a nice man. He may or may not have been piously observant of the Rastafarian faith that ...
Zara McFarlane: Embodying the Spirit of Jamaica
Profile and Interview by David Burke, All About Jazz, 13 January 2018
ZARA MCFARLANE may have been made in Britain, but she belongs to Jamaica. The land of her mother and father is written in her soul ...
Various artists: This Is Trojan 50! review — the label that changed Britain
Review by Lloyd Bradley, The Guardian, 26 July 2018
Trojan's releases introduced the UK to reggae, deejaying, toasting, lovers rock, dancehall — and Five Star's dad. This is an immaculately curated collection of a ...
Laurence Cane-Honeysett: The Story of Trojan Records
Book Review by Tony Burke, Morning Star, 15 December 2018
GROWING UP in the early 1960s in Manchester, with grandparents living in Moss Side, the infectious music of bluebeat and ska records newly imported from ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2019
Reggae may have been born in Jamaica, but it grew up in '80s Britain at a time of evolving multiculturalism, finding an unlikely ally in ...
Guide by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2020
LAST WEEK, A STORY appeared in the New York Times that predicted that live music would not return to the world's stages until the autumn ...
Profile and Interview by John Lewis, The Guardian, 27 May 2020
The city's young jazz community has flourished by drawing on everything from hip-hop to calypso and highlife, creating a unique cosmopolitan sound. ...
Toots & The Maytals: Toots And The Maytals: Got To Be Tough
Review by Patrick Clarke, New Musical Express, 25 August 2020
The influential band's first album in more than a decade is rarely subtle, but Frederick 'Toots' Hibbert remains an inspirational force for change ...
Madness: An exclusive interview with Madness to mark 40 years of Absolutely
Retrospective and Interview by Stevie Chick, GQ, 24 December 2020
To mark the 40th anniversary of Madness' sophomore album, Absolutely, Stevie Chick spoke to Chris Foreman and Lee Thompson, who recall their experiences during the ...
Sean Paul's teenage obsessions: "My Coventry grandmother cooked me bubble and squeak"
Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 11 March 2021
Ahead of two new albums this spring, the dancehall superstar recalls the poignancy of his first love, and how water polo took his mind off ...
Stranger Cole: Stranger in the Market
Retrospective and Interview by Nicholas Jennings, West End Phoenix, April 2021
TO WALK through the middle of Toronto's Kensington Market on a Saturday in the early '80s was to enter what locals called the "wobble zone." ...
Jimmy Cliff: The return of Jimmy Cliff: 'Rebel spirit is still in the Jamaican people'
Retrospective and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, The Guardian, 6 August 2021
As he releases new music at the age of 77, one of reggae's foundational figures charts his astonishing life in music, via swinging London, Brazilian ...
Various Artists: The Story of Trojan Records
Review by Tony Burke, Morning Star, 14 September 2021
IN THE early 1970s the world's largest record company releasing Jamaican music, Trojan Records piled up hits in the UK pop charts with artists like ...
Jah Shaka, dub and reggae pioneer, RIP
Obituary by Irina Shtreis, Louder Than War, 15 April 2023
Dub and reggae legend Jah Shaka, also known as Zulu Warrior, passed away. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: People Get Ready: Bucky Marshall, Claudie Massop and Bob Marley
Retrospective by James Fox, Rock's Backpages, 21 February 2024
A FEW DAYS ago, a friend sent me a photograph from Jamaica that hit me with a jolt: an image of myself 46 years ago, ...
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