1st July marks International Reggae Day, and I want to jam it with you. Why? Because as something of a reggae connoisseur I cringed when someone once asked me if Eric Clapton or Bob Marley recorded I Shot The Sheriff originally. It didn’t deserve an answer!
It occurred to me, going on this, old ravers with no idea who Max Romeo was until he sadly passed in April, and the amount of songs wrongly listed as being by Bob on YouTube, that your average Joe Bloggs doesn’t know as much about reggae as they should!
Pop music was born on the American railroad construction where slaves mimicked the overseers’ folk dances for their sarcastic amusement. Simplicity was key and the quadrille, or French square dance was popular, initialising a four beat system which will stick like mud to pop forevermore. But the 1950s changed the template slightly; experiments in jump blues by rock n roll pioneers like Fats Domino, discerningly skipping the last beat, effectively created the offbeat.
The offbeat was the kind of thing the Jamaicans loved, as the radio masts left by American troops became essential to their musical expansion, away from their traditional folk, mento. Already accustomed to jazz, and recording studios on the island creating their own, now the Jamiacans were exposed to rhythm & blues and country music from the States. The studios recorded their own beatbop, jump blues, doo-wap, even country. At Duke Reid’s Treasure Island one ex-boxer producer called Prince Buster was passionate about the shuffle rhythms of axemen like T Bone Walker, and instructed his band to copy this over an offbeat. When Buster cut the rehearsal the guitarist strummed the shuffle backwards to bring it to a stop, and behold Jamaica had their own pop music, ska.
Duke Reid himself never liked ska, and it was up to rival Coxone Dodd at Studio One to popularise the homegrown style with his in-house band The Skatalites, classically trained students of Mary Ignatius Davies, a Sister of Mercy at Kingston’s Alpha School for wayward boys; yep, a pioneer of reggae was a nun!
Searching for any gimmick to promote tourism, The Jamaican government exploited their new musical export, sending artists to New York to promote ska, but in the shanty towns the music would become associated with gang culture, the rude boys. An enforced curfew, a blistering hot summer, and the expense of brass sections, all caused the music to mellow, concentrating on vocal harmonies; rock steady, arguably Jamaica’s most creative musical period.
Ever-progressing, the bass increased as rival sound systems battled it out and awareness of Rastafari grew; reggae spawned from rock steady. Reggae will slowly spread worldwide, but no more felt than in the UK, as record labels producing cheap music intended for the Windrush generation, were also brought by British mods. Though in England, reggae at the time would still be seen as novelty. It would take Chris Blackwell endorsing Bob Marley & The Wailers, subsequently signing artists like Toots & Maytals, and, in competition with Bob’s popularity, Richard Branson sending Johnny Lydon to sign as many emerging reggae singers to Virgin as he could discover, to put reggae into a respected international market.
Meanwhile Jamaica was moving away from roots reggae, noting instrumental sections where the crowd danced, pioneers like King Tubby and Lee Perry progressed to dub. Techniques in dub were transferred to New York by Jamaican immigrant DJ Kool Herc, who used them in funk and electro mixes to found hip hop. While the world embraced the success of Bob Marley and the Wailers, reggae progression was kingpin to pop in general. From punk and Two-Tone to hip hip, onto the breakbeat rave era, reggae was fundamental in shaping pop music. I believe this is sorely overlooked; one good reason to have International Reggae Day! The second is the very reason why it’s so influential and the reason why I love it so much; the offbeat, which makes you jump, be in ska, dancehall, or all the styles in between, they all work on the simple offbeat, and it’s irresistible!
So, you know a little bit more about the history of reggae, now you need to listen to some! But I reckon, even if you don’t know many reggae songs outside of the Marley classics, you know more than you think you do! Here’s some examples, some songs you might recognise from the pop songs they influenced……
1: I Shot The Sheriff- Bob Marley & The Wailers.
Obvious first. Blackwell was adamant reggae would inspire the rock aficionados, but when Eric Clapton called Bob, history was made which would seal the deal. Eric’s version was his only US number one, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Nineties kids might also recall Warren G, oh well!
2: Rivers of Babylon – The Melodians.
Lord producer of music thievery Frank Farian manufactured pop crime in a manner unheard of at the time, but is standard protocol now. Boney M was his first infringement, their 1978 smash hit is one of most popular songs, ever, but the original was recorded eight years previous. A Rastafari prayer, meaningful verses were sacrilegiously altered for the pop version.
3: The Tide is High – The Paragons
With the silk voice of John Holt, this beautifully crafted 1967 Paragons’ track was at the beginning of rock steady, but you know it either as a Blondie song or, if you cringe the feeling, by Atomic Kitten in 2002.
4: Kingston Town – Lord Creator
Don’t get me wrong, I loved UB40, but once Red, Red Wine hit number one, they rarely wrote their own songs, rather dug into the reggae back catalogue for covers. Originally recorded by Neil Diamond, Red Red Wine was a popular reggae hit for Tony Tribe. But if many reggae tunes UB40 covered were rare beauties, none so more than Kingston Town by Lord Creator on Clancy Eccles’ Clandisc label in 1970. And don’t get me started on Paris Hilton!
5: Rudy, A Message to You – Dandy Livingstone
Two-Tone was everything in 1979, in the UK, and The Specials were the kings of it. The original message was sent by British Jamaican Dandy Livingstone in 1967. We can’t argue with this, all the reggae covers were respectfully done at Two-Tone, the Specials version even featured the same trombonist, Rico Rodriguez. Even if Dandy himself didn’t know about it until he saw Top of the Pops, many of his songs were eyed for Two-Tone hits, such as The Bodysnatchers’ Let’s Do Rock Steady.
6: Chase The Devil – Max Romeo and The Upsetters
Max Romeo might be seen as the naughty reggae singer who recorded a song called Wet Dream, but nineties ravers will know this 1976 tune only too well. Just like Two-Tone, the breakbeat house of the nineties homegrown rave scene was hugely dependent on reggae. Where would the Prodigy be without Max Romeo, certainly not in outer space. But hey, SL2 also borrowed from reggae, Jah Screechy’s Walk and Skank became On a Ragga Tip, and I could go on!
7: Reggae Merengue – Tommy McCook & The Supersonics
This. A calypso riddim over a reggae beat in 1970 became the unlikely sound of London circa 2006, when Lily Allen recorded LDN. It’s instrumental, Tesco wasn’t mentioned!
8: Cherry Oh Baby – Eric Donaldson
Winner of the 1971 Jamaica Song Festival, Cherry Oh Baby was by Eric Donaldson with backing by Inner Circle, and produced by Bunny Lee and Tommy Cowan, but you might remember it as a Rolling Stones song five years later, or UB40 in the eighties.
9: Nimrod – The Skatalites
Studio One in-house band, The Skatalites recorded this in 1965, yet in 1998, when big beat was the thing, Justin Robertson’s Lionrock seemed to have something striking similar in the charts, their only massive hit. Rude Boy Rock was big in FIFA ’99, and in it was also the toaster sample, “this is a new skank, get ready;” it wasn’t a new skank at all, was it? Lionrock, you fibbers, it was thirty-three years old at the time!!
10: Stalag 17 – Ansell Collins
Okay, you should know Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam, everyone sampled it, Lauryn Hill, Groove Armada, Chris Brown, Kanye West & Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z. It is the most sampled reggae song, but the title was taken from a Toots & The Maytals song of the same name and the riddim itself was ripped from this wonder, Ansell Collins’ Stalag 17, released by Winston Riley’s Techniques record label in 1973.
Yay! I might tag Ansel on the Facebook share, because he sent me a friend request a few years ago, because that’s the unity of reggae. Without the racially segregated charts of the US, Jamacians could be influenced equally by any genres the radio stations threw at them, and in many ways, reggae can be a bridge between them. We might assume reggae was inspired by American music of black origin, but there’s plenty of examples where country music also inspired them, so in reverse to our list, I’ll drop some more reggae below, clearly influenced by country…. And then we can all celebrate International Reggae Day!
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