various artists - X-Ray Music: A Blood And Fire Dub Directory

The summer is coming to an end, which, for me, means really stepping up the amount of reggae I listen to. Starlit nights call for a righteous dub to tear down Babylon. And this, a 1999 sampler from the late, lamented Blood & Fire label, is almost purpose-built for such a need. Headlined by a quintet of King Tubby dubs, along with productions from Scientist, Lee Perry, and Prince Jammy, this is a pretty irie CD.

Did I use "irie" correctly?

Discogs

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Lee "Scratch" Perry - Chicken Scratch [Deluxe Edition]

'Twas a fun day at the ol' thrift store today. I came home with a Sergio Leone boxset, a copy of Abel Ferrera's "The Driller Killer", "The Queen Is Dead" and "Nigeria Afrobeat Special" and Grant Green's "Standards" and THIS slice of JA nostalgia. It's super early Lee Perry...the Upsetter, Pipecock Jackson, King Scratch, y'all. And I'm a fuggin' sucker for anything involving the Master of the Black Ark.

This here represents a sampling of singles released on C And N Records, Coxsone Records, Rolando & Powie, Mu-Zik City Records, Worldisc, and Supreme Records in the mid 60s. The credits list reads like a Hall of Fame of Jamaican music. Coxsone Dodd and Graeme Goodall engineered the tracks. The Soulettes and the Wailers provided backing harmonies. The likes of Jackie Mittoo, Roland Alphonso, Lloyd Knibbs, and Tommy McCook, whether under the Skatalites band name or ungrouped, make up portions of the backing band. The liner notes by David Katz are incredibly thorough; he literally wrote the book on Lee Perry, so it should be expected, but is still welcome.

This originally got released in 1989, collecting 12 cuts that'd never before appeared on CD. Twenty years later, Heartbeat reissued that compilation, adding seven tracks that'd previously only been available in their original 45 release. It's a dynamite collection, capturing Perry in his first years as an impresario, and the Skatalites as the top backing band on the island. It blows my mind that someone would donate this, but I was happy to plunk down my $2.99 for this one.

Discogs

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The Heptones ‎– Unreleased Night Food & Rare Black Ark Sessions

Summer time is the right time to roll down the windows, turn up the bass, and drive around listening to reggae as loud as you can stand.

In honor of that sentiment, as well as the unofficial end of summer coming today, here's a now-out-of-print collection of Heptones recordings, circa 1976, the great majority of which have never been released anywhere else. It's only been in the past couple of years that I've branched out to embrace any roots reggae or lover's rock. What I had previously dismissed as second-rate Bob Marley now opened up, in great part to all the dub I'd been finding cheap and listening to since moving to the PNW.

The Heptones were a remarkable trio of vocalists whose history together dated back to the late 1950's as a street-corner harmony group. They'd gather together in 1966 for their first recording sessions, cutting a trio of rocksteady albums for Studio One before slowing down their sound. They'd work with a variety of producers from 1971 to 1975, before convening at the Black Ark, Lee Perry's renowned studio, at the behest of Island Records to make "Night Food".

What's cool about these recordings are not only the outtakes from a group at the height of their powers, but also the intersection of so many awesome musicians backing them. Leroy Sibbles would leave the group within a year of cutting "Night Food", but you couldn't tell by the level of performance heard here. A key chunk of the Wailers would back the Heptones here, contemporaneously with the recording of "Rastaman Vibration". Credited as the Wailers All-Stars, the Brothers Barrett, Touter Harvey, and Chinna Smith all lay down some amazing riddims. Of course, the standout is the engineering of Lee Perry. This was one of the final sessions held at the Black Ark before Perry burnt it down. The production is just out of this world; the collaboration between Perry and the Heptones would continue into Perry's "Super Ape" and the final classic-lineup Heptones release, 1977's "Party Time". To me, this is a perfect jam for the last warm days of the year.

Discogs

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various artists - Dub Chill Out

Lee Perry photo from jamaicanmusic.com

It's finally gotten hot here in Washington state, so what better way to cool off during an international viral crisis than by bumping some dub?

I got this through work the year it came out. Music Club was a UK budget label that did a fair amount of inexpensive compilations that I'd still recommend to people looking to get into a particular music style. In this case, this was the first record of dub I'd ever bought. I knew who Lee Perry was, but was in the dark about everyone else. It was a great introduction to a number of the all-time greats: King Tubby, King Jammy, Scientist, Augustus Pablo, and the all-time great riddim section of Sly & Robbie.

I thought it'd be fun, since I have no access to the original CD, to do a bit of annotation and list what releases each of these tracks come from. And then I started working on it, and discovered it was a lot more difficult than I'd have expected. So why don't you just lean back and listen to this, and I'll go get us some ice cream?

Discogs

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