Dub CD 17 Items

Jamaican love songs always came across as heartfelt poetry whether they conveyed a broken heart, unrequited love or even the message ‘it’s all over don’t bother to come back’ anecdotes. But whatever the mood the singers of these songs were so good and versatile that putting such subject matter over in a few verses was always so moving and believable. Jamaican love songs were a constant in the ever evolving sounds and journey’s that reggae music took us on, from ska to rocksteady to the early reggae sounds of the late 1960’s early 1970’s. We have complied a great selection of songs that all deal with that timeless subject matter. Max Romeo’s heartfelt ‘Sometimes’ opens our set in fine style, known more for his roots singing this song proves what a great singer he is. The Melodians a great Jamaican vocal group are featured here with ‘Best Girl’. The Sensations provide us with our title track ‘Born To Love You ‘and the theme for this compilation a great rocksteady tune with fantastic harmonies. Alton Ellis gives us the soulful ‘Room Full Of Tears’. Ken Boothe provides us with his rendition of Dennis Brown’s ‘Money In My Pocket’ the ode that money cannot buy you everything. Cornell Campbell sings one of his most overlooked classic songs with his prideful `She Wears My Ring’. The great singer of love songs himself Mr John Holt tells us that we should all `Reconsider’, before giving up on love and a great lost singer Monty Morris gives us two great examples of how to find love in `Do It My Way’ and `Magic Moments’. A great selection delivered as only Jamaica can do with style and feeling…….

Hope you enjoy the set …greetings from Jamaica… love songs for all…

Tapper Zukie still asking the questions and stating the facts that few artists of his calibre would attain to.His classic Dee-Jay style has been copied by many but bettered by few.Over some of his killer rhythms that he previously worked up while producing fellow roots groups such as ‘Prince Allah’, ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Junior Ross and the Spears’. Alongside some fresh rhythms, he has taken these as a backbone to some further questions and biblical reasoning that needed answering. Tapper tells it as it is on this mighty collection of tunes put together under the name ’X is Wrong’. This is the first time this set of remarkable tracks have seen a proper release only previously being available as a download from Tapper’s website. A great set of songs that finally get the release they deserve…. Hope you enjoy the set….

“Favourite tunes? The tunes are like my children… there’s a whole heap of them! I want to tell you this though… some of them I never released them properly but ‘A Class Girls’ through it was the first one me love that! The rhythm! I don’t know how the song never hit in Jamaica but then again listening to it back now it’s like you’re branding the girls A and B so (perhaps) the girls weren’t happy with it: ‘That’s an A class girl… young, pretty and intelligent’ but it was a good tune, wicked tune. Tony Chin wrote it. But it was Tony Chin and Chinna who taught me these things, so I have to love those man forever.” Ossie Thomas

Triston Palma was born 1962 and grew up in Waltham Park, Kingston. Triston knew from the very beginning that he was destined to become an entertainer and his first visit to the recording studio was at the age of sixteen with Ossie Thomas. Their initial release, ‘A Class Girls’, was a hit in England and Triston’s subsequent releases on their Black Solidarity label laid the foundation for his rapid rise to dancehall superstardom “The first tune we get was a tune from Tony Chin… ‘cause Tony and Triston sing ‘A Class Girls’ but it never really hit in Jamaica. It took off in England and them pirate it so we never get no money out of it… we only sold six hundred of it in Jamaica and the rest sold in England… but the rest is history. But the next record ‘Spliff Tail’ ‘pon the ‘Storm’ rhythm… straight inna the charts so that was the first record come up on Black Solidarity. From then we can’t go wrong ‘cause we have a hit record now so everything we made from there standards had to be kept. Every tune I just tried to make them badder and badder and badder… in a dance hall slang… wickeder, wickeder and wickeder!” Ossie Thomas

In the early days of Black Solidarity Ossie was still working as a salesman for Mrs Pottinger’s Tip Top Record Centre on Orange Street and the transition from salesman to record producer was not always easy. “What really happen now I went to Mrs Pottinger and asked her for some money to buy school clothes for my brothers but what me really do is put out ‘A Class Girls’! Heh, heh, heh… So, when me put out ‘A Class Girls’ she never really knew ‘cause that couldn’t work with Mrs Pottinger! Then when we made ‘Spliff Tail’ it blew up the place and start sell thousands so right away she knew I was selling the records. One time I gave her a bill for ten thousand Jamaican dollars, and she just held her head. A couple of days after when her friend come to see her, she said ‘There goes Oswald. I have to pay him for him to make hit records for himself. I have to pay him to dress nice… then he sells me records! Yesterday he came with a bill for $10,000!’ It was a mistake selling her those records. I shouldn’t have sold her the records at all, but they were selling so hard everybody had to have the records them!” Ossie Thomas

As the eighties progressed and dancehall began its inexorable rise to ubiquity the popularity of Triston Palma, who “had nine songs in the Jamaican Top Forty” was unstoppable and a selection of his Black Solidarity hits, including ‘A Class Girls’ and ‘Spliff Tail’, were released on the ‘Spliff Tail’ album.

“Dancehall rapidly became the music for the youth of Jamaica and Triston Palma was the dancehall singer who encapsulated the spirit of music fans worldwide…” ‘Liner Notes ‘Spliff Tail’

Triston’s ‘Entertainment’ from 1982 for deejay turned producer Jah Thomas is one of the key records of the era. You find that Jah Thomas and all of them man run back to me and when we recorded artists, they recorded them too.” Ossie Thomas

The rock-solid foundation for Triston Palma’s incredible success had been laid four years previously down on Delamere Avenue and the ‘Stop Spreading Rumours’ collection, featuring a further selection of his innumerable hits, showcases where the dancehall legends of Triston Palma and Black Solidarity began. “But me now… through me spent five years amongst Mrs Pottinger and Niney and Bunny Lee it’s like me have no-where else to go… when you work with people who are successful the only way you can think is making something successful too! So, me couldn’t have failure as an option!

So me know me have to find some good artists and make some bad tunes to sort out the dancehall thing..” Ossie Thomas

During the eighties dancehall era, a number of record producers claimed to be the real authentic sound of downtown Kingston but Ossie Thomas’ Black Solidarity label, operating out of Delamere Avenue in the heart of the ghetto, was the real deal.

“Black Solidarity was a youth club in the Kingston 13 ghetto in a road named Crescent Road and it was a Rasta come up with the name Black Solidarity. But through the political violence a get high man start to spread rumours saying Black Solidarity a go gets guns to go kill off people and it’s a revolutionary Cuban thing we’re there ‘pon! A lot of people used to go away to Cuba and we called them brigadista. So, through it was in a PNP area man start spreading rumours saying the PNP a go plan to send the whole of Black Solidarity to Cuba and them all turn brigadista!

So, the rumours kinda mashed up the club! But we held on to the name and said, ‘we’ll give you a record label named Black Solidarity’. So, after that I talked to the Rasta who coined the words and he said, ‘I have to rate you’ and me say ‘why?’ and the man say, ‘Black Solidarity is a struggle and you realise that’ and me say ‘Yeah… me realise’. So, we take it up serious and deal with it and make it work! You know what I mean?” Ossie Thomas

There was no safe uptown haven to retreat to after work had finished but, after growing up in the deprived Kingston neighbourhoods of Denham Town and Jones Town, Ossie Thomas had nothing to be afraid of.

“This was the start of the seventies when the political rivalry got heated between the JLP and the PNP and the shots start fire… you know. Mum got scared and said she’s going to get a safer place for us to live so she moved up into the hills of St. Andrew… then six months after she died! Can you imagine that? She’d gone to the safest place and died there. From that me just go right back to Kingston… I said to myself ‘don’t be scared… if you’re gonna die you’re gonna die’. From that me not scared of Kingston… me just say to myself ‘my mother scared of Kingston and run and left Kingston’ but through me just live there all of my life on any street downtown me just feel comfortable.” Ossie Thomas

This album provides an insightful glimpse into life in these unforgiving Kingston neighbourhoods describing not only the poverty and desperation but also how, at times, styles, fashions and the cathartic joys of music and the dancehall could transform this harsh, unforgiving environment into one of joyous celebration.

Love & Fire is the seventh full-length studio album from the multi-platinum selling reggae hybrid band The Black Seeds. It was developed over the past few years, beginning with a series of creative sessions in 2018 at the band’s creative incubator The Surgery in Wellington, New Zealand.

The original plan was to then do a classic “band in a room recording,” which got thrown out the window once the pandemic hit and lockdowns began. At that point, the group got creative, working remotely between various home studios of the band members, and the result is as strong a record as they’ve ever done, managing to capture the feelings of the past few years in a cohesive set of new songs.

The Black Seeds continue to evolve musically while defying expectations, yet still always seem to sound like no one else but themselves.

The 100th release on Pressure Sounds is the brilliant set of I Mo Jah's ‘Rockers from the Land of Reggae’ and ‘Words in Dub’, as two single vinyl releases, and a double cd. It's surprising that these two albums have not been re-released before, as both albums are seriously sought after. There will be 3 bonus tracks on each of the CDs. The albums come with full sleevenotes with excellent sound quality. The CD pack includes a full package with graphics and the usual high quality annotation and mastering. _____ . ______
Notes for the two albums:

A contemporary of Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus, Eric Donaldson and Freddie McKay, Philip Fullwood started out composing for Studio One and playing percussion for Burning Spear.

Both "Rockers from the Land of Reggae" and "Words in Dub" were backed by Sly & Robbie, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, Clive "Azul" Hunt, Bingy Bunny and Flabba Holt, among others.

The striking sleeve of "Rockers...", in black and white with green handwritten typography, told the story of Jamaica, with Arawaks overseeing the arrival of Christopher Columbus’ ship Santa Maria, whilst between two sound systems the dreads were dancing and smoking a spliff under a tree. The art was drawn by Magnus Johnstone, a painter and deejay who presented the radio show ‘Reggae Mukasa’ on WMBR, and would later become the foremost champion of the burgeoning hip hop scene in Boston.

“When I made "Rockers from the Land of Reggae" I was taking about 500 to Jamaica and I was told I had to have a license to go through the customs. I got fed up and I just leave the album with them. They wanted me to get a license and all them things, and I said ‘Why I want a license to bring my own thing to Jamaica?’. They said no, so I leave them at customs. I don’t know what happened to them. Maybe they sell them. And that was the end of it. I give the rest of them to Chin Randy’s in Jamaica Queens to distribute.”

And so "Rockers from the Land of Reggae" soon vanished into obscurity. By 1983 Phillip Fullwood had settled permanently in the US and virtually retired from music. Over the years, partly fuelled by its extreme rarity, the album’s reputation has grown immensely, and original copies now command a very high price. Phillip is thrilled that this reissue will now expose it to a wider audience.
“Life happen that way. I got kids and grandkids. I’m just a small guy who was with Spear and just tried to do my thing, like everybody else in the entertainment biz. My occupation, my passport you know says entertainer. Wishing a t’ing, yunno.”

"Words in Dub", the highly unique set, released in a stark hand-printed sleeve, comprised self-produced rhythm tracks and some donated by friends, such as ‘Africa Rock’, a dub of ‘See Dem Da’ (Jah Marcus Roots 7”) by Burning Spear, with member Rupert Wellington on lead vocals. The first side also featured dubs of Purple Lights’ ‘Pestilence’, fronted by the singer Bangie, and ‘Revolution’ by Jah Blue & The Originals, who included Winston Rodney’s brother. ‘Reorganize The Race (Marcus Say)’, with its dense layers of digital reverb in the intro, later features singing about ‘weeping and wailing’ also by Jah Blue & The Originals, though the vocal cut was never released. Several rhythms would later get a do-over by Phillip’s American-based group I-Mo-Jah, perhaps the most thrilling being ‘Jah Say Love’, rerecorded by I-Mo-Jah as ‘Peace & Love’. ‘Hotter Fire In Babylon’ is a dub of Burning Spear’s ‘Spear Burning’ (Spear 7”), and the album closes with ‘Bubbling’, a dub of ‘Maybe’ (Yah Congo 12”) recorded by Phillip’s long-time friend Eric Donaldson.

The original recordings were primarily laid at Channel One with Barnabas and Crucial Bunny at the mixing board, with ‘Hotter Fire In Babylon’ recorded at Randy’s by Chin Randy himself, and ‘Bubbling’ at Dynamic Studio. The final dub mixes were done at Channel One and also at the legendary Black Ark by Phillip Fullwood’s own hands.

Soul Jazz Records’ new ‘Studio One Dub Fire Special’ brings together 18 heavyweight dub cuts, all recorded at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s.
Featuring a stellar selection of dub cuts to classic and foundation songs recorded at Studio One with music from the legendary in-house bands – The Sound Dimension, New Establishment, Soul Defenders and Brentford All-Stars – featuring the likes of reggae’s finest musicians - Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Cedric Brooks, Freddie McGregor and more.
These fresh dub sounds employed the mighty mixing desk skills of The Dub Specialist, aka Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd, Sylvan Morris and Scientist to full effect. Studio One Dub Fire Special features our latest chapter of raw, stripped-down bass and drum sounds direct from Studio One, ‘the University of Reggae’.

Heavyweight soul providers Fat Freddy’s Drop are about to take flight once again with the worldwide release of new album Blackbird!