The Keyboard Legend : Jackie Mittoo

Well, you can't get to much more Roots than this folks !!! Jackie Mittoo is a pioneer of the instrumental roots scene with his electric organ and keyboard skills unmatched by any in the spectrum of reggae.  This disc is a 20 track greatest hit type of set that features many classic rhythms with Mittoo taking over for what would be the vocalist.  Mostly instrumental with very little dub or vocals on the whole CD.  The production company is Sonic Sounds, witch I am not too familiar with, but it a low budget offering with no liner notes.  Just Jackie posing for a back alley jam session on a trash can - his facial expression is priceless.  It might be a little hard to find these days, but try your luck, it should be worth the effort if you find it.  My favorites on this disc are overshadowed by the fact its a solid listen from track #1 all the way through to track #20.  It's nice to let it roll if you've got folks over and the conversation at the pad is paramount, great tunes to relax to.  Also great tunes to drive to on a crisp and sunny winter day.  Unfortunately, I can't find the date this disc was pressed, but it seems that the material is mostly from the 1970's, like the bulk of his work.  Not exactly a lightweight dude !!

Deeper Roots, The Best of ... : The Meditations

The Meditations have been around since the late seventies and this album is a proper compilation of their work on the roots scene.  From deep in Jamaica - The Meditations are one of the classic vocal trios, but seem to have been overlooked at times.  They only released 5 album spanning from 1978 to 1983.  If you don't have any of the meditations original albums, you can jump the gun with "Deeper Roots" and get the most Meditations for your money.  This CD is a Heartbeat release from 1994 with 20 tracks - most of them solid roots.  Top tracks include #4 (Having Fun), #10 (No Peace), #12 (Something Looking Good), and #13 (Groovy Situation aka Being A Dread Is No Crime).  Like most Heartbeat compilations, this has a great booklet with an extensive history and story of the Meditations, along with track breakdowns, and top performances.  The Meditations might not have gotten the credit they deserved early on, but since the early 1990's they have managed to stay on the top of the pile thanks in part to this CD compilation.  This is the only Meditations disc I own, but it gets quite of bit of playing time in the rotation.

Bubble Up (Showcase Vol.1) : Wayne Jarrett

Another great Wackies production (also known as Showcase Vol. 1)with heavy roots beats and the soft spoken voice of Wayne Jarrett.  The original track list from  this 1982 release shows only six songs, but each one is either an extended mix or an instrumental.  A great overall album, but still with it's stand out tracks: #1 (Brimstone & Fire), #2 (Every Tounge Shall Tell), and #6 (Holy Mount Zion).  Keep in mind this is one of the original Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes productions out of his Wackies label in New York City.  A great talent for the time and place and an important step in the North American extension of the roots reggae movement of the seventies and in to the eighties.  These rythms are tight, the Wackies label could almost will things to come together in top notch style for each vocalist and different situation, with excellent results.  Everything dialed in straight.  Wayne Jarrett is a great roots vocalist, look for his works to be spread out over several Wackies, Greensleeves, and King Tubby compilations.

Lambs Bread International : Sylford Walker & Welton Irie

This is a great original 1970's roots album to the bone.  Although this is a Blood & Fire CD release from 2000, the music was recorded in the '77-'78 season of the pleasin' for the rootsman tradition.  Sylford Walker has a timid voice with an aggressive delivery in his chanting/singing/rapping style.  This album was produced by Glen Brown and mixed by King Tubby, during the prime of both careers.  Welton Irie adds a hard deejay version to six of the tracks, complementing the vocal track to make a couple nice extended track versions.  There are 14 tracks total.  Track #2 "Rolling Stone" in a great version of the title track, witch is one of hardest herb anthems - although many have never heard its message.  These are two relatively unknowns to people outside the reggae, but the triumphant sounds they'll allow to blast out your speakers should be listed in at least your top twenty albums of your collection.  Search around for Sylford Walker's '75 -'76 track "Burn Babylon" produced by Joe Gibbs.  An earlier sample of Sylford's style.

Silver & Gold : Prince Far-I

One more time around for Prince Far-I.  This is one of my favorite roots & culture artists off all time.  He was sadly taken from us in 1983 when a group of gunmen broke in to his yard at night with unknown intentions, not much is known about incident specifics.  His gruff, honest voice and righteous messages will continually live on through all of his followers and aficionados.  Silver & Gold serves as a type of greatest hits compilation for the seventies ('73-'79) with 19 tracks total, three of witch are Errol Holt tunes, whom he was producing at the time.  It's a Blood & Fire release with a nice booklet and the story of Prince Far-I.  The first track "Johnny Get Worse" is a great version of The Slickers' "Johnny Too Bad" and the highlight of an outstanding album.  Other classic Far-I selections include : "Dub to Africa" &  "Cry Freedom Dub".  Prince Far-I's catalog of music is sadly a short, but potent list.  Listen to Far-I when you feal you need freedom and seek wisdom.

Africa Must Be Free By 1983 + Dub : Hugh Mundell

This was Hugh Mundell's breakout album, originally released in 1978 by Message, along with the dub tracks on the same album later on CD by Ras and Greensleeves.  There are 17 tracks total on this one, the first half is original vocals and the second half is all of the dub tracks.  This is also one of the most well known Augustus Pablo produced albums.  Pablo brought in great reggae talents to do the engineering : Errol Thompson, Sylvan Morris, & Phillip Smart.  Tracks #1 (Let's All Unite) & #6 (Run Revolution A Come) are the highlights.  Hugh Mundell was a hot commodity on the international reggae market from the get go.  Mundell released two more outstanding albums in his short and sweet career.  My favorite of the two is Jah Fire and a great compilation disc opportunity is The Blessed Youth from 2003.  The "Africa Must Be Free" album was wildly popular at the time of its release and interest from the reggae public has never really slowed down.  This is known as a reggae standard and benchmark milestone in the roots tradition history.

RAS Portraits : Live & Learn Presents ....

This disc is a nice roots compilation supposedly from the 1981-85 time period and featuring such roots greats as : Barrington Levy, Ras Michael, Wailing Souls, Mighty Diamonds, and more.  With 16 tracks on this one, you get a nice 2-4 track sample of each artist and the selections for this "variety pack" are solid representations of the artists' sounds and styles.  My favorite tracks are #5 (Chanting - Jr. Reid) and #9 (Them A Fret- Wailing Souls).  There is a great Jr. Reid combo album with Don Carlos that also features "Chanting" called Firehouse Clash giving you more from these two artists' early eighties collection.  The RAS Portrait series is a standard these days for finding an inexpensive compilation for most of your reggae favorites.  The prices are affordable and sometimes downright cheap, but the music is usually top notch.  Beware, selections on these compilations will sometimes sound familiar because they appear on several other albums ( ex. this disc and Firehouse Clash ) so make sure to find the ones you really want.  This is a great starting point to find more classic reggae that might fit with your style.

Reggae Bloodlines : Stephen Davis and Peter Simon

This is a nice magazine sized 8x11 softback book by Stephen Davis and Peter Simon originally from 1977.  My copy is a De Capo Press reissue from 1992 with the updated cover art you see to your left.  This "story" starts out as a typical American journalist goes in search of insight to the reggae music scene witch is beginning it's stretch across the popular music landscape.  Our journalist author and his photographer friend quickly get more than they bargained for but nothing they are ready to handle.  Meeting one local after another, they seem to be passed of on to all sorts of genuine Jamaican characters who show them every view of the current life situation on the island.  Politics, economics, colonial slavery and history,the ganja trade, and tourism are just some of the areas of interest that are touched upon.  Our authors fearlessly delve in to the different neighborhoods and hill side pit stops to retrieve endlessly entertaining interviews with local legends and shanty town historians.  This book can be a nice quick read with only about 224 pages and many black and white photos to guide you along the journey in to seventies Jamaica.  Peter Simon has written about ten books on popular music including : Hammer of the Gods (The Led Zeppelin Saga) and Reggae International (Bob Marley).  I haven't read any of his other publications, but look forward to checking out Hammer of the Gods.

Prison Oval Rock : Barrington Levy

This is a 10 track Barrington album originally released by Volcano in 1984, a couple years after his massive breakout in the years of '79 through '80 wich gave us such great albums as Shaolin Temple, Englishman, Robin Hood, and Bounty Hunter.  Junjo Lawes took the production leed on this album, bringing the Roots Radics in to back Levy during the sessions at Channel One and Harry J's in Kingston.  Sylvan Morris and Scientist sat at the boards and earned the mixing engineer credits on this one.  It's a pretty solid album - my cd copy was released by VP in about 1992 and  the sound quality is excellent.  It leads off with the title track, followed by the dub version.  Out of the remaining eight tracks I really enjoyed #4 (Good Loving) and the very catchy #3 (You Say You Love Me).  Along with the classic Barrington Levy style and voice inflections, you might hear familiar Junjo rythms (a good example is #8 Hammer - wich shares beats with Daweh Congo's Human Rights & Justice). This is a nice albums with it's sweet spots, but no real need to add it to your top notch group of discs unless you are a true Barrington Levy aficianado.

Jacob Miller & The Inner Circle Band & Augustus Pablo : Culture Press

This disc should be considered a compilation of the seventies Jacob Miller with The Inner Circle Band.  It was a CD release from Culture Press in 1992 and again in 1998.  With fifteen tracks total, most of them are selections featuring the talents of Augustus Pablo as musician and/or producer.  Tommy Cowan is labeled with producer credits as well.  Pablo's contributions along with the brilliance of Inner Circle front man Jacob Miller make this a nice compilation disc to feature in your collection.  The liner notes are simple ; only listing the musicians, tracks names, and durations.  There's a nice combination of Miller vocal tracks and Pablo melodica versions as alternate tracks on some of the classics like : track #3 & #4 (Ala-ala-bama / Eli's Move) and tracks #7 & #8 (Curly Locks / Curly Locks Dub).  The track I enjoy the most on this one is track #1 (Curfew), a great version of the Marley sung tune.  All together this disc serves as a pretty good seventies roots compilation, although some of the tracks might cross over on other discs you have by these artists.

Legalize It : Peter Tosh

This is of course one of the most well known reggae albums of all time thanks to the Bob Marley / Peter Tosh connection via the Wailers that has helped leaked the more poignant and sometimes militant vocals of Peter Tosh in to the main stream. The title  track serves not only as an anthem for the cause of ganja decriminalization, but also a love song and testimonial to the benefits of the herb on not only ones body for certain ailments, but for the psyche of the mind as well.  This album was Tosh's first solo experience and you can hear all the built up enthusiasm in his energetic delivery of songs like "Ketchy Shuby / Track 7" and "Brand New Second Hand / Track 9".  My copy of this disc is the CBS Collector's Choice series of classic seventies releases strictly based on the original 1976 LP.  Tosh followed with releasing "Equal Rights" in 1977, the two first solo sets of his career seem to help Tosh find his true direction and message in the reggae world.  "Legalize It" was recorded at Randy's and Treasure Isle in Kingston, JA and features musicians such as Robbie Shakespeare, Carlton & Aston "Familyman" Barrett.

Abraham VP Various Artists Compilation : Scientist, Wailing Soul, Wayne Wade, Barrington Levy

This is a great compilation of seventies roots from the Abraham / Clocktower group out of Ontario, Canada.  There's 14 tracks total on this disc including cuts by Barrington Levy, Sammy Dread, Linval Thompson, and others.  This disc keeps it going throughout by supplying a good mix of downbeat - classic roots - and chant style DJ.  The highlights of this set are track #6 Rudy Say Him Bad (Wailing Soul), #10 Poor & Humble (Wayne Wade), and numbers #6 and #14 which are both dub tracks by Scientist.  I don't really know if this disc has an official name or not - the front says "Various Artist" and then simply shows a few images of some our reggae favorites.  I really didn't know that this disc was the highest of quality by it's appearance.  Looks can be deceiving sometime.

The Same Song : Israel Vibration

This is the powerful debut album by this legendary vocal trio.  Original release was in 1978 on LP by Top Ranking. 1979 and 1980 had seen consecutive releases on LP by the Harvest label and again off of Top Ranking.  It came out  rather quickly on CD in 1995 off of Pressure Sounds and is considered a cornerstone album for vocal trios.  My CD version is off of RAS from 1996 and only has 10 tracks total. The EMI CD version is going to be your best bet with 14 tracks including 12" versions and discomixes.  A couple of the nice tracks on this one are: #2 (Weep & Mourn), #6 (Why Worry), and #7 (Lift of Your Conscience).  The roots radics blast some super bass tracks out of Channel One.  Engineer Maxie has done a great job of setting these tracks up for killer dub versions, but definitely not overshadowing the sweetness of the crisp vocal work from Israel Vibration.  Some tracks are heavy bass sapping with roots and others are slow and easy but they all come together to make this an overall great album.

Jah Fire : Hugh Mundell

This Hugh Mundell disc is from Black Arrow Records.  The original material on this album was recorded in and released in 1980 by Live & Love Records.  It has eleven tracks total and some of the highlights are #5 (Million Miles), #8 (Blacksheep), and the title track #2 (Jah Fire).  Other noteable songs on this disc are #9 (Million Dub) version of Million Miles, #10 (King Pablo) dub version of King of Israel, and the now classic #11 ( Pablo in Moonlight).  Tracks 9, 10, and 11 are extras only found on the Black Arrow CD, released in 2002.  Producer is noted as King Jammy's ; featuring Lacksley Castel and Augustus Pablo.  And of course these rythms were layed down by some master musicians like : Santa, Horsemouth, Sly, Robbie, Bobby Ellis, Deadley Headley, 'Im Brooks, Bingy Bunny, and more.  This is an outstanding musical effort coming hot off the heels of 1978's "Africa Must be Free by 1983", the legendary album that gained Hugh Mundell his noteriety.  Self-titled "Mundell" came afterward in 1982, and if you've got all three of these albums, you've got the most important cross-section of Hugh Mundell's work.

Harder Than The Rest : Culture

This album is a classic Culture selection right out of their roots swell from about 1977-1980.  The original LP release was in 1978 on High Note and Virgin "Frontline".  Other notable Culture album releases from this time period include International Herb(1978) and Two Sevens Clash (1977).  Harder than the Rest has 10 tracks total.  All the tracks are solid and you can easily listen to this one straight through, without skipping over any tracks.  my favorite track is #2 (Holy Mount Zion) - a great example of downbeat roots.  Other nice picks are #4 (Iron Sharpening Iron) and #8 (Work on Natty).  My copy of this disc is a Virgin Frontline reissue from 2000.  The Mixing Engineer is Errol Brown and the album was cut at the Treasure Isle studios in Kingston.  Some of the backing musicians are Sly and Robbie as well as Ansel Collins and many other homegrown Jamaican talents.