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Introduction

Welcome to this chapter of WAILER.DE recommended to all the artists who took and take part to spread the reggae message! In the moment here listed in detail is the work of 400 artists from the late 60s to 2007.

The order is alphabetique following the artists family name or the groups name. For example you find Horace Andy among “A” and “Black Uhuru” among “B”. Various Artist compilations are listed following “Z”. Those are listed following the first word of the albums title.

Infos about playing musicians and producers and recording years are taken from the sleeves of my records.

So far I have recognized a vocal – dub – relationship between songs, i added this note. Everybody is welcome to help me out with further infos.

In many cases I collected all or most of the albums of an artist. I hope I have all albums listed that are understood as classic or major reggae albums. If you see something missing, tell me.

Well aware of my limits, I ask YOU for any support you like to give. Surely you have some more infos at the sleeves of your cds or vinyl albums.

Let´s talk about Jah music!

“Behold, how pleasant it is, when brethren and sistren come together together and give JAH praises!”

Write to: rastaman@kajnath.de

Today, of the many facets of reggae music only few were known by the masses. That´s not surprising as a study of annual charts includes only very few reggae tracks, in the early 70ies by Jimmy Cliff, in the late 70ies by Bob Marley, during the 80ies by UB40 and during the 90ies by dancehall artists like Shabba Ranks. Nowadays some may get an impression of dub music from a chill out place at a electronic dance party. Many people who only know five reggae songs have an imopression that it is only party music. From my point of view after 25 years of collecting and listening to reggae music this is cutting the story too short. I would like to introduce some of the many moods of reggae music to you.

The most archaic kind of reggae music is the Nyagbinghi drumming. The Nyahbinghi drum is a big drum with a deep bass sound beaten whole day and whole night through at the nyahbinghi meetings in jamaica´s hills. “Bongo Man” by Jimmy Cliff or “Rastaman Chant” by The Wailers are better known examples. Ras Michael is one messenger of nyahbinghi music with album releases from 1974 to this day. Count Ossie & The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari is the group to discover next.

Historically before reggae was rocksteady and before rocksteady there was ska. To be complete before this was mento, calypso and gospel. Ska is a fast dance music with strong horn lines played by the same people who share horn lines for many roots reggae artists. The Skatalites wre the backing band of many famous ska classics and the surviving members are still touring the world sharing the ska vibe. Ska is good vibes music, sometimes even funny, always groovy.

Rocksteady is more love song dominated music. Here we find the roots of many lovers reggae tracks. The Termites Do The Rocksteady is a famous trios collection and Susan Cadogan a famous female singer.

Dub Poetry is the music of some jamaican writers put to music. Or sometimes written a capella. This sometimes rough style is full of ghetto and conscience message. This is the music spoken on the streets dealing with the street events and police brutality and hopelessness of black people in diaspora. Linton Kwesi Johnson is the most famous and influential dub poet from UK. In Jamaica Mutabaruka has an even more aggressive message. Oku Onura is another ghetto dub poet. Michael Smith and his only album is an overlooked classic.

Instrumental Reggae is not really an independent style. But it gives the roots music a different more gentle vibe. Many members of famous released instrumental solo albums like Tommy McCook, Johnny Moore, Rico Rodriguez, Jackie Mittoo, Ernest Ranglin, Sly Dunbar, Earl Chinna Smith, Augustus Pablo and many more. Similar to jazz albums these feature their individual instrumental interpretations of classic melodies.

Dub points in the similar direction. Often the vocals are mixed away or much echo and reverb is used so that the music dominates the vocal message. Dub music appeared at the b-side of singles in jamaica around 1970/71 and was used for djs for live talk-over and mixing. King Tubby and Lee Perry were the people who invented this kind of music and led it to early fame during the seventies. During the 80ies many Wackies dub releases were strong albums. Even old time Studio 1 tracks appear in instrumental mix on twelve dub albums and countless singles. Lee Perry´s “Blackboard Jungle Dub”on original JA Upsetter with 14 tracks is one of the records believed to be the first dub albums, released 1973 in a limited pressing of 300. “Aquarius Dub” on JA Aquarius is another, also released limited to a few hundreds as is “Java Java Dub” by Clive Chin on JA Impact! (Randy´s) and Prince Buster´s “The Message”.

DJ – Toasting can be discovered by listening to U Roy, I Roy, Big Youth, Prince Fari, Dillinger and many more. The very first veterans of DJing used the vocal tracks and added some noises or short shouts to get the people dancing. They were like showmen, presenters of the music. Later they started to use their own lyrics toasted over instrumental versions or partly instrumental dub mixes of recent hits. This led to sing-dj artists like Prince Fari who used basically words directly from the psalms or other passages of the bible over strong bass led riddims.

Remembering the many roots vocals groups and singers I would say, the releases on Island and on Trojan are the more common. Bob Marley and The Wailers, Bunny Wailer, Jimmy Cliff, Toots & the Maytals, Gregory Isaacs, Sly & Robbie, Black Uhuru, Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Third World became famous internationaly by their releases on Island. People who like this style I suggest singers like Hugh Mundell, Israel Vibration, Abyssinians, Horace Andy, Johnny Clarke, Culture, I Jah Man. Those who know them too, I suggest check for releases by Little Roy, Delroy Washington, Dr. Alimantado, Pablo Moses, Jah Stitch, Jah Woosh, Prince Fari, Twinkle Brothers, Yabby You.

UK Reggae is not really a style for its own, but usually it can be stimated if or if not a song is made in UK. A couple reggae acts “in exile” produced great music, like Linton Kwesi Johnson, Aswad, Steele Pulse, Jah Shaka, Akabu.

UK Dub sounds positively something different as jamaican dub. During the eighties Creation Rebel and New Age Steppers created highly experimental dub tracks. Alpha & Omega and The Disciples brought back some more roots style in the way of Augustus Pablo´s eastern sound.

Like many people in my and others countries I make a difference between roots reggae music and dance hall music. Dance hall music became popular around 1986 / 1987 in the wake of digital riddims by Prince Jammy. Digital riddims can be groovy for a night, but I rarely was touched by such a song over years or decades. A few tracks with a message I did collect. But basically dance hall music is not object of my collection or this site.

Recently a quick asking my friends what are the top ten reggae artists led to a surprising result. Everybody voted for some different ten artists. In so far I think it is up to you to find what you like best.

Enjoy the reading. And let the music move your mind in positiveness.

love,

rastaman