No disrespect to Jah Shaka, but if that's the sound of UK dub, then that too is based on the Sly and Robbie dub sound. This should be recognised! This Revolutionaires sound is featured in many Sly and Robbie dub releases, and the Revolutionaires are mentioned in those track lists. Sly and Robbie were in fact prolific session artists operating under a number of band names at that time. That's definitely Sly's snare hits and Robbie's special bass recipe
Again no disrespect to Jah Shaka, I think he found his fulfilment and the accolades should be also given to another dead artist who actually gave birth to that sound but is never done
Enjoying this right now as I work
Of course the UK dub is based on the Jamaican dub, and those were very often played by Sly & Robbie (under different band names depending on the producer). Everybody who know a bit about reggae knows that the Revolutionairies was Sly Dunbar working for Channel One (and very often with Robbie Shakespear on bass). If sly was not present, it's not the revolutionairies but an other band (Roots Raddics was the other house band). And under an other name, the Aggrovators Sly worked with more or less the same band for Bunny Lee & King Tubby and as the Proffessionals for Joe Gibbs, and he was also a member of the Upsetters in the late 1970's (after the first Upsetters became the Wailers, the backing band of Bob Marley). So all 1970's dub top producers but Randy Chin worked with Sly and those tracks inspired Jah Shaka and the UK dubscene.
But the remix is very different than the original Channel One tune from Creole that i linked here below, and that is the work of Shaka himself who was also a music producer and studio tech. He remixed the track in the Channel One studio's to make his own dubplates, and did that also in other studio's btw.
The original tune of the Kunta Kinte dubplate of Jah Shaka
But the remix is very different than the original Channel One tune from Creole that i linked here below, and that is the work of Shaka himself who was also a music producer and studio tech. He remixed the track in the Channel One studio's to make his own dubplates, and did that also in other studio's btw.
The original tune of the Kunta Kinte dubplate of Jah Shaka
The two biggest players in the UK Dub scene were/are Adrian Sherwood (On U Sound) and Mad Professor (Ariwa).
Sherwood started off running a sound system and then somehow got deals using big studios during down time (a big act would block book a studio for months with a few days between bookings which is when Adrian got to use it for cheap) while Neil Fraser started by building his own studio as in literally building it including the equipment hence Mad Professor. He apprenticed at Soundcraft building consoles I think.
Jah Shaka was always a bit off to the side plowing his own furrow, producing a bit, releasing a bit but mostly he kept running his sound system.
Sherwood started off running a sound system and then somehow got deals using big studios during down time (a big act would block book a studio for months with a few days between bookings which is when Adrian got to use it for cheap) while Neil Fraser started by building his own studio as in literally building it including the equipment hence Mad Professor. He apprenticed at Soundcraft building consoles I think.
Jah Shaka was always a bit off to the side plowing his own furrow, producing a bit, releasing a bit but mostly he kept running his sound system.
Yet 14 pages and not one credit to the two men who are reggae. Who pretty much defined all the sounds that exist in reggae today. This is what I always find sad. No one credits Robbie, even though he virtually defined the language of reggae bass. I don't think they would have had a mention in this thread if I hadn't dragged in their names here
I would not say that. Reggae was formed in the second half of the sixties at Studio One and with Lee Perry's Upsetters (wherever they played) when they split up. Lee was a longtime assistant of Coxonne Dodd until 1968. Both mixed ska with rasta music (nyabingi) and so found out rocksteady and reggae. And the rest just followed.
And Sly & Robbie were not arround yet. And when he and Robbie teamed up in 1972, reggae was already definded by those before him, and mainly Carlton Barrett and Drumbago are responsible for that as drummers of the Upsetters (Carlton) and the Sound Dimension (Drumbago). Sly also refers himself as a student of Lloyd Knibb (Skatalites) and to drummers as Carlton "Carlie" Barrett (Upsetters, Wailers), Winston Grennan (The Maytals), Mikey Boo (The In Crowd, Now Generation, Oneness/Jimmy Cliff) and Drumbago (Studio One/Prince Buster) as his further examples, next to funk drummers like the one from the MG's.
What Sly & Robbie did, was deepening it out and be the absolute masters in it, on a level that Sly got called the human drumcomputer in the 1980's. There is no better tandem in reggae to play the drum and bass than Sly and Robbie since they teamed up, but everything they did was done before, only not on that level of perfection like they did. And they stood out that much that there was no competion in the second half of the 1970's in Jamaica, until the Roots Radics came arround 1980 with a new style, the Rub-A-Dub (that sly soon mastered himself also).
In the late 80's (and since then) they were as producers, but Jah Shaka started in 1968 and was the greatest roots sound late 1970's and 1980's and is also (certainly for Adriaan Sherwood) an big inspiration. And other producers, like Dennis Bovell (a lot of loversrock also, but also Linton Kwesi Johnson and more) and a few others were also bigger as they had way more output, even in the 1970's. Even the last decades the producers output of Shaka is very limited in quantity. But on Roots sound in the UK, nobody could meet Shaka, even not the old legends Fatman and Coxonne could, nor other young Roots sounds like Jah Tubby (with Aba Shanti I as selector) or Channel One could back then, and no roots of dub sound can until now.
The Mad Professor, who only started in 1979 supplied hundreds of dubplate to Shaka, as Shaka was the only one in the 80's who could push rootstunes, as most other sounds played or dancehall or loversrock only. Lover's rock was The Mad Professors main bussiness at that time, roots and dub his hobby and passion (his words, not mine), so he was happy to have Shaka arround to push his roots and dub music.
Adrian Sherwood started even later, in the early 1980's, and mixed reggae with industrial and new wave (where he came from musically) and became a reggae producer next to more punk/new wave and industrial musc (that he kept doing also). His most know work is reggae and dub altough. And it's not soundsystem reggae and dub, it's more for home listening.
Sherwood started with a reggae sound system, founded On U Sound in 79. Industrial came later.
There are others who started of in reggae and got famous for other stuff. Big Mick for example was a touring sound guy for reggae bands. My late brother in law first met him when he was doing the lights while Big Mick did the sound for The Gladiators. When Mick was in between tours somebody asked him if he wanted to do the sound for a little known metal heavy band called Metallica to which he answered 'What is 'heavy metal'?' but needing some cash he took the job anyway and has since done every single Metallica gig.
The Ruts met while being part of Misty in Roots and at some point were Laurel Aitken's backing band.
Jah Shaka, Sherwood and Mad Professor all released the first album produced by them in 1980.
There are others who started of in reggae and got famous for other stuff. Big Mick for example was a touring sound guy for reggae bands. My late brother in law first met him when he was doing the lights while Big Mick did the sound for The Gladiators. When Mick was in between tours somebody asked him if he wanted to do the sound for a little known metal heavy band called Metallica to which he answered 'What is 'heavy metal'?' but needing some cash he took the job anyway and has since done every single Metallica gig.
The Ruts met while being part of Misty in Roots and at some point were Laurel Aitken's backing band.
Jah Shaka, Sherwood and Mad Professor all released the first album produced by them in 1980.
Yeah, but you focus on productions, i'm talking about influence on the whole scene, and then Shaka was absolute the master, even Mad Professor said it with his death:
https://www.reggaeville.com/artist-details/jah-shaka/news/view/rest-in-power-jah-shaka-zulu-warrior/
Shaka was running sound since 1968, first as selector on Freddy Cloudburst, and since the early 70's on his own Jah Shaka sound. He started producing with the Mad Professor, in the same studio actually (that they shared) because he needed more dubplates than jamaica could give him in his style. But in the first place he was a soundman, and running his sound was his main focus, not producing. 1980 was the time the jamaican music bussines chagned towards slackness and guntune dancehall, something Shaka refused to play so he made his own.
And most tunes he made were never released to the public, only used as dubplates in his shows (like ofthen happens with roots and dub sounds, then and now). His first single release (reggae is a singles based music style, not albums) was actually released on Fay Music (UK label) in 1974 with Albert Griffiths (lead singer of the Gladiatiors) on vocals, and he did release more on different UK labels (inclusive Ariwa) that never made it to discogs btw, before he started his own label. Those are not on discogs because those who own them want to keep it secret is told to me by one. It's a secret weapon of elder soundboys for clashes as not many know those tunes. Channel One and Aba Shanti I both have several of those. A lot of reggae never makes it to discogs, because of those and different reasons. And a huge part of what the big sounds play is dubplate, not released (yet) or an exclusive remix of a release that only that sound or few sounds have. That's how that scene works.
https://www.reggaeville.com/artist-details/jah-shaka/news/view/rest-in-power-jah-shaka-zulu-warrior/
Shaka was running sound since 1968, first as selector on Freddy Cloudburst, and since the early 70's on his own Jah Shaka sound. He started producing with the Mad Professor, in the same studio actually (that they shared) because he needed more dubplates than jamaica could give him in his style. But in the first place he was a soundman, and running his sound was his main focus, not producing. 1980 was the time the jamaican music bussines chagned towards slackness and guntune dancehall, something Shaka refused to play so he made his own.
And most tunes he made were never released to the public, only used as dubplates in his shows (like ofthen happens with roots and dub sounds, then and now). His first single release (reggae is a singles based music style, not albums) was actually released on Fay Music (UK label) in 1974 with Albert Griffiths (lead singer of the Gladiatiors) on vocals, and he did release more on different UK labels (inclusive Ariwa) that never made it to discogs btw, before he started his own label. Those are not on discogs because those who own them want to keep it secret is told to me by one. It's a secret weapon of elder soundboys for clashes as not many know those tunes. Channel One and Aba Shanti I both have several of those. A lot of reggae never makes it to discogs, because of those and different reasons. And a huge part of what the big sounds play is dubplate, not released (yet) or an exclusive remix of a release that only that sound or few sounds have. That's how that scene works.
But that music prior to when it got named reggae, it had a very different build to the basslines and how the rest of the ensemble came in. Sly and Robbie had a particular formula in their drum and bass compositions, and that is the sound that we know as the flow of reggae today. When we listen to a song and instantly identify it as reggae. I don't mean the chicky guitar or keys
Do you guys believe in universal energy thingy? I have a crazy story. A while back we were hanging in the living room. I felt a moment of huge loss and looked up to my wife and said Robbie is dead. And then something opened up in my head, music instantly started filling a table inside my head like a super multitrack sequencer all populated in the steps with all the effects populated and sub tempos alive and pulsing. Like a huge FL Studio channel rack window in my vision and following the whole flow and zooming into each instrument and seeing its fill and pattern. I feel I channelled some energy that day. One moment I was just wanting to learn to play bass and that day I somehow started playing along to my fav tracks and just knowing where each of that sound was and just how to play it. My thumb just naturally started playing the notes, and I don't even know what those notes are called! Changes, mods and new patterns just appeared in my mind and flowed to my hands. I can't help but shake as I type this and something I have shared with only a couple of people
Am I losing it? Going loco or something?
I don't think so, but any more elaborate answer would probably get religious and be against forum rules.
I know what you mean, but even that was done before, this is the Sound dimension with a tune recorded in 1970, but remixed for this dj version with Prince Francis that has that also. That syncopised bass/drum cobination comes from the traditional rasta religious music called Nyabingi, and is based on the music of the Akan people in west Africa (Ghana, Cote d'Ivore), that is also a huge influence on the afrobeat of the people like Fela Kuti) and Jazz altough it's less outspoken in both styles. That is the difference between rocksteady and reggae, is how the drum and bass relate, and was gradually applied since 1968, long before Sly & Robbie.
The influence of Nyabingi came trough the rasta's from the hills (like Drumbago, Count Ossie and Cedric 'Im' Brooks) that worked in Studio One as session musician. Studio One was the only one who wanted to work with the Rasta's in the early days (Rasta's were heavy discriminated and prosecuted in the 1960 and early 1970's in Jamaica). But everybody looked at what happened at studio one and copied the id's in their way, and a big part of what is reggae is shaped at studio one, and perfected on other studio's. Lee Perry (as soundsystem mc, A&R and music producer) and King Tubby (as electronic engineer) worked there in their early years and learned it all there.
This is the Nyabingi by Cedric Brooks, an original member of "the Mystic Revelation of Jah Rastafari", the houseband of the Nyabingi Order (the "sect" that started Rastafari) who used his fame as musician (sax) to get this recorded as nobody wanted to release it. At the end it was released in 1974 on Total Sounds, one of the many labels controlled by Bunny Lee, who took a huge risk by doing that in the political climat of that time in Jamaica. This song is a very old rasta traditional gospel (like he recorded more), not his composition.
I don't want to degrade the skills of Sly & Robbie, they were key influencial in the development of the music, but actually did nothing new, they just perfected it and created a sound that passes the principle of nyabingi and roots reggae to the masses in a way that is universal understood and so paved the way for dub. And trough their cooperation with many non reggaemusicians (like Grace Jones) they passed that sound to the mainstream.
But so did the original Upsetters that became the Wailers. A big part of the quality of Bob Marley's music (next to the performance and songwriting skills of Bob off course) were the Barrett brothers, Carlton Barrett on drums and Aston Barrett on bass. They were probally the second best riddim section in reggae. They did it different than Sly & Robbie, but use that same blend of rasta music (nyabingi) and jamaican pop music (rocksteady, ska, calypso, mento) to make their sound. That band from 1966 to 1975 is the band that made all that Lee Perry released as it was his houseband (that Bob Marley stole said Lee Perry), from 1975 they exlcusivly worked with Bob Marley (at least for a while) as the Wailers. He could live with it because he found a new band (with sly dunbar on drums and Leroy Sibbles on Bass most of the time) to continue his work and he kept working with the wailers as he was mostly the recording engineer for the basic tracks, at his studio, Randy's 17 or the Island studio's and made the jamaican mixes (for the soundsystems). Overdubs and mixing the Island relaease was done by others.
Edit: the Upsetters in 1970 doing it.
And both Sly and Carlton were teached to drum that way by the rasta drummers at studio one, Lloyd Knipp (who became rasta in the late 1950's), Count Ossie and Drumbago, all members of the Nyabingi Order of Jah Rastafari and from young age trained in Nyabingi (spiritual) and Burru (profane), the music of the rasta's. But they earned money with playing (swing and bebop) jazz, bleubeat (jamaican shuffle blues), calypso and mento in the 1950's so they were also trained in that. It's out of that mixture of styles that ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub are born.
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And the word reggae comes from a tune by Toots & The Maytals from 1968, called do the reggae, and is since then used as the new style where the drums are syncoped and more upfront than in rocksteady. That's the influence from the rasta's but also in lesser degree from the funk in the USA, that many reggae artists also liked (at least before it became disco).
Btw: I was just talking about the precestors of reggae, and one lesser known but vey important is bleubeat, a kind of jamaican rythem & bleus heavy influences by the New Orleans bleus from Fats Domino and the likes. This is one of the oldest recordings and the sole survivor (the only acetate they could recover) of recording session in 1956, after a fire at the house of Coxonne Dodd a few years later. It was recorded straight to acetate in 1956 in the restaurant of his mother for his Downbeat Soundsystem as dubplate (yes even then they did that). That acetate was set to tape in the early 60's when they had a tape machine. And that is why we still can hear it. Most music of that time (1945-1960) is lost altough as it was only played on soundsystems in the black ghetto's, not on the radio or so. And very few records were released, as the market could not pay those...
Clue J and his Blues Basterds (where Roland Alphonso and Cecil Lloyd were members of) was later renamed to the Skatalites btw, when starting a new style called the Ska in 1962...
Clue J and his Blues Basterds (where Roland Alphonso and Cecil Lloyd were members of) was later renamed to the Skatalites btw, when starting a new style called the Ska in 1962...
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All those links contain basslines that sound like accompaniment strumming along rather than the driving basslines. A very distinct formula is apparent in reggae, dub, soca and chutney which is missing in the links above. Nyabingi is present in a lot of reggae, but also absent from a lot of reggae. It really does not set the reggae sound. There is a distinct flow pattern to what sound the bass makes in each beat per bar and how the drums on step 1 and 3 syncopate with the bass. This formula is also apparent in how the rest of the instruments come in the mix, and that again is missing in the stuff prior to Sly and Robbie. I saw Leroy Sibbles pick up a bass in a live show, and it wasn't pretty. He put it away after one song, and the bassist went back to playing with the Robbie style. In reggae, the instrumental track can stand on its own feet due to this, and just about all dub that became popular had the bass and drums composed by Sly and Robbie. As an example, there are dubs of wailers material, but hardly daily playlist material. It's usually Bobs singing that adds the songs to playlists. On its own, the Wailer's music only is pretty unremarkable, except for a catchy riff here or there
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this. I really can't hear much African influence in the sound of reggae. Some xylophony and organ elements from Calypso are included in some songs by some bands, but again this is not that frequent in the balance of all the major releases. I can clearly hear the language of the dholak in the basslines and the language of the kartaal in the rimshots and manjeera in the hihats. So what happens if you take a baithak folk song and replace the dholak with a bass guitar and the kartaal with a snare. It sounds exactly the same as classic dub. This is crazy, right?
Also, is the ignoring of the jhatadhari influence on Rasta deliberate?
I think we will have to agree to disagree on this. I really can't hear much African influence in the sound of reggae. Some xylophony and organ elements from Calypso are included in some songs by some bands, but again this is not that frequent in the balance of all the major releases. I can clearly hear the language of the dholak in the basslines and the language of the kartaal in the rimshots and manjeera in the hihats. So what happens if you take a baithak folk song and replace the dholak with a bass guitar and the kartaal with a snare. It sounds exactly the same as classic dub. This is crazy, right?
Also, is the ignoring of the jhatadhari influence on Rasta deliberate?
