v.a.

“rocksteady - the roots of reggae”

EXCL1CDA | MOLL- SELEKTA | MOLL16CD

 €15.89

Tracklisting:
1:   unknown
2:   unknown
3:   unknown
4:   unknown
5:   unknown
6:   unknown
7:   unknown
8:   unknown
9:   unknown
10:   unknown
11:   unknown
12:   unknown
13:   unknown
14:   unknown
15:   unknown

The sixteenth release on the Moll-Selekta label shares its title with a wonderful film, a heartwarming homage to the golden age of rocksteady. It documents the recordings being made for this very album at the Tuff Gong studios, Kingston, Jamaica in April 2008, telling the story of the original vocalists and musicians involved. Excerpts from an all star reunion concert staged in Kingston and older archive material complete the picture. Never before in the history of Jamaica, which already occupies a unique place on the world map of song, its sound embraced by western popular music, has such an illustrious collection of singers and players been assembled. The album showcases 15 rocksteady classics in sparkling, deeply inspired new versions, recorded in the studio which also played host to album sessions of a certain Bob Marley. Under the musical direction of Ernest Ranglin, a guitarist of considerable renown not only on the reggae circuit, but also on the jazz scene, mixed by legendary engineer Errol Brown - in Duke Reid's employ at the Treasure Isle studio in the sixties - and freshly arranged by Lynn Taitt, each of the new versions was recorded using authentic instruments to capture the true rocksteady style. Lynn Taitt - alongside Ernest Ranglin the most famous guitarist and bandleader in 1960s Jamaica,, was actually pencilled in to direct proceedings, but had to withdraw for health reasons. In the context of Jamaican musical history, Rocksteady enjoyed a relatively brief, two to three year spell in the limelight, taking over from the faster-paced, predominantly instrumental ska sound of the early part of the decade and laying the foundation for reggae to come with its emphasis on bass, more intricate melodies and by bringing singers and vocal trios to the fore. Between 1966 -1968, an unprecedented, and unrepeated, proliferation of marvellous songs moved many fans to call this the golden age. As Ken Boothe - one of the main protagonists of the era - so aptly notes in the film: "Music have a lot to do with people", and thus we have the privilege of meeting a number of these delightful legends on film and on the album, people like Judy Mowatt, Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths, who had pursued solo careers in the 1960s before forming the I-Threes to accompany Bob Marley as backing singers on his world tour, taking reggae to a global audience. Hopeton Lewis, one of the creators of rocksteady, the great DJ U-Roy, an international pioneer of toasting,

Tags: Ambient / Dub | Release: Feb 22nd 2010