to rock steady. Compared with the original, dub was like a slow-motion version. a collaboration with melodica player Augustus Pablo led to another seminal work, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976).
Rainford Hugh Perry, better known as Lee "Scratch" Perry (3), who had nursed the Wailers, pretty much set the reference standard for generations to come with Double Seven (1974), the first reggae album that overdubbed synthesizers, Revolution Dub (1975) and Super Ape (1976), one of the genre's masterpieces.
Melodica virtuoso Augustus Pablo (2), aka Horace Swaby, penned the instrumental albums This Is Augustus Pablo (1973) and
East of the River Nile (1977), two of the most atmospheric works
of the genre.
"Rapping" originated from the complementary tradition of the "talk-over".
The disc-jockeys of the sound systems used to accompany the dance tracks
with impromptu melodic and spoken-word vocals, often simply to add enthusiasm
to the dance. This eventually became an art in itself.
U-Roy (Edwart Beckford) was possibly the first great
talk-over artist, the man who turned dub into a highly-effective vehicle
for agit-prop messages (Dynamic Fashion Way, 1969;
Runaway Girl, 1976;
Wake the Town, Wear You to the Ball).
Other pioneers of rapping were Dennis "Alcapone" Smith, with Forever Version (1971), Prince Jazzbo and I Roy.
Big Youth (Manley Buchanan) upped the ante with his wild sociopolitical raps
(S-90 Skank, 1972; The Killer, 1973; House Of Dread Locks,
1975; Every Nigger Is A Star, 1976), most effectively on
Dreadlocks Dread (1975).
Originally, the technique of these "toaster" consisted in
remixing other people's songs, removing the original vocals, emphasizing
the rhythmic base, and overdubbing their own rhyming stories on the resulting
As reggae became a world attraction, styles multiplied and inbred with the American genres.
Burning Spear (1), the project of Rastafarian visionary Winston Rodney, unleashed the supercharged Marcus Garvey (1976), perhaps the highest artistic achievements of reggae music.
Joseph Hill's vocal trio Culture were equally passionate, and the title-track from Two Sevens Clash (1977) became the anthem of the rasta-punks and coined "rockers reggae".
Ijahman Levi (Trevor Sutherland) was perhaps the most spiritual vocalist of his generation. His songs were religious hymns (Jah Heavy Lord, 1975; I'm A Levi, 1978; Are We A Warrior, 1978).
Ex-Wailers Peter Tosh, or Winston Hubert McIntosh, crossed over into rock territory with Legalize It (1976).
Other popular classics include Junior Marvin's Police And Thieves (1976)
Gregory Isaacs' Love Is Overdue (1974).
Reggae and ska enjoyed a major revival in Britain during the punk age.
Starting in the mid-1970s, ensembles such as Aswad, Steel Pulse, Matumbi and
offered a westernized version of Jamaican music that was rather uninspired,
but were lucky enough that the audience found affinities with the implicit
protest themes of the political punks.
At the same time, British sensations of the ska revival included Specials
British dub music was a more serious affair, and took longer to emerge. But, over
the long term, it was dub music, and not ska or reggae music, that stuck around, thanks
to the quality productions of Adrian Sherwood
(the brain behind African Headcharge,
Dub Syndicate and
New Age Steppers),
and prolific Guyana-born Neil Fraser, better known as Mad Professor, who
penned Beyond the Realms Of Dub (1982),
and even Aswad's own New Chapter of Dub (1982).
Artistic peaks were reached by
dub pioneer and experimentalist Keith Hudson, with Pick A Dub (1976),
and instrumental soundpainter Dennis Bovell
(a former member of Matumbi, an engineer who coined the soul-reggae fusion called "Lovers Rock"), with
Strictly Dubwise (1978), I Wah Dub (1980), probably his most
intense release, and Brain Damage (1981), a cosmopolitan work that also mixed calypso, rock and funk.
Linton Kwesi Johnson, a Jamaican poet living in England, transposed reggae's mood into dub-based sermons, arranged by Dennis Bovell, on the contemporary issues of the lumperproletariat.
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