The sun is shining (as Bob Marley once sang) and it's time to get those reggae records out and do some skanking. O yes, summer is the reggae season and I'm filling up my iPod with various reggae tracks, mainly from th late '60s and '70s, classical reggae if you will.
Got to have some Bob Marley in there (the whole of 'Natty Dread') and some Jiffy Cliff (a very under-rated song-writer, just listen to 'Sitting in Limbo') and some Toots and the Maytalls ('Take Me Home Country Road' makes me smile) and a range of others, mainly in the one or two hit wonder category.
I love songs like 'Montego Bay' by Freddie Notes and Rudie which I remember from my primary schools days when a teacher brought it in when we were doing a project about the Caribbean (might even have been about pirates!), the marvellous 'Young, Gifted and Black' by Bob and Marcia and 'Midnight Rider' by Paul Davidson. And then there were the skanking women, like Susan Cadogan and Althea and Donna, not to mention the mighty I-Threes (I always join them in singing the backing vocals). The late '60s and early '70s produced some great songs and performers, paving the way for Bob Marley to take reggae onto the world stage.
Whatever happened to reggae?
1 comment:
Right Nasty Mansions has also been home to some good vibes and skankin' - do you have any Horace Andy? Voice of an angel!
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