Juno Recommends Reggae Classics October 2021

Review: The iconic Late Night Tales series scored a real doozy when they managed to lock in Don Letts for for his instalment. The British film director, DJ and musician is a vital part of the UK's musical fabric from his days making videos for The Clash and Elvis Costello to his work with the Big Audio Dynamite band he co-founded. All that history is distilled into this sublime selection of sounds across four vital sounds fo wax. There's reggae, dub, ska, a cover of Joy Division, head twisting goodness from Gentleman's Dub Club and plenty of exclusives. It's an essential listen, basically.

Review: Dubtastic reinterpretation of the Isaac Hayes' classic of the same name that was itself sampled in Erykah Badu's gem 'Bag Lady'..... B/W "Electric Boogie" a toe tappin' nod to 80's dancehall destined to brighten the smokiest of rooms. Originally released back in 2010 and now repressed due to public demand...

Review: Standby for some more classic ska from the good folks at Harlem Shuffle. This reissue is of an essential double sider that first landed on Crystal in 1967. Crystal was owned by Jamaican producer Derrick Harriott, who also produced both of these great tunes. As well as his rolling rhythm and essential horn sounds, the tunes have outstanding vocals from the duo of Lloyd and Glen. 'That Girl' is a red hot jam that is very hard to find and super expensive if you do. On the flip, Lloyd and Glen serve up a love song with aching vocals and more big horns. An essential 7" by any measure.

Review: The Upsetters' legendary Build The Ark album is one of the many pioneering works of dub that the late great Lee 'Scratch' Perry was involved with. It brings together the very best of Jamaican reggae with a number of the more rare tracks sitting alongside some stone cold classics. Junior Murvin's 'Cross Over', Windston Heywood's 'Long, Long Time' and Eric Donaldson's 'Freedom Street' all feature on this one, which was first put out by Trojan Records in 1990. This limited edition repress has been pressed to orange vinyl just 2000 times.

Review: Original Gravity Records turn out the essential 45s like no body's business. Next ump for the vital label is a brace of covers from The Regulators. It is one of two new 7"s they have out right now and is limited to just 50 copies. It carries on from previous releases with Melbourne Douglas and The Regulators covering tunes with an early reggae, Britpop style. The vocals here from a certain indie band get re-sung and reframed. They passionate and singable, with a natty reggae beat and nice warm chords. The flip side is a dub for those who like it that way.

Review: Bob Marley might be best known as the worldwide face of reggae, but less well known is that he was actually a welder in his earliest years. He was turned onto a career in music by the great Desmond Dekker, also a Welder, and after linking with his band The Wailers, never looked back. This record is from a time in October 1973 when Bob and the Wailers gave an intimate performance at Hollywood's Capitol Studios. They serve dup 12 classic rhythms and the footage lead forgotten for decades until it was found in storage units and record company archives in New York, London and San Diego. A real piece of rare reggae history.

Review: The Specials are one of the most important ska bands of their time. Their messages continue to resonate even today, especially through the set of songs that makes up this collection of protest tunes from 1924 to 2012. It finds the band picking some of their favs in the wake of the George Floyd murder and global social unrest that followed, and serving up their own unique covers. It was recorded in a studio in West London in May of this year with Nikolaj Torp Larsen on keys, Kenrick Rowe on drums and Steve Cradock on guitar.

Review: Sometime welder turned reggae legend (and the man who launched Bob Marley's career from a similar starting point) Desmond Dekker released his collaborative album King of Kings with English ska band The Specials in 1993. It came on the famous Trojan label and is made up of songs originally written by Dekker's heroes such as by Dekker's musical heroes including Byron Lee, Theophilus Beckford, Jimmy Cliff, Derrick Morgan and more. This special reissue come son black, heavyweight 180g vinyl on the Music on Vinyl label and has classics like 'King of Kings,' 'Take It Easy' and 'Jamaican Ska.'

Review: This double A-side is a timely reissue of two gems from Laurel Aitken that were originally released back in 1969. Cuban-born Jamaican singer Aitken is considered to be one of the pioneers of ska music in Jamaica. He left us in 2005 but had already amassed a hefty discography that stretched to more than 230 singles. Two of them here show his different sides - the first is the impassioned and yearning sound of slow motion cut 'Landlords & Tenants' which muses on the pressures of island life. The seance, despite the title of 'Everybody Suffering' is an upbeat, rump-wiggling jam to get a party started.

Review: The Specials are one of the most important ska bands of their time. Their messages continue to resonate even today, especially through the set of songs that makes up this collection of protest tunes from 1924 to 2012. It finds the band picking some of their favs in the wake of the George Floyd murder and global social unrest that followed, and serving up their own unique covers. It was recorded in a studio in West London in May of this year with Nikolaj Torp Larsen on keys, Kenrick Rowe on drums and Steve Cradock on guitar.

Review: The Ska Flames are a Japanese traditional ska band from Tokyo with many great albums to their name. Each of them is as authentic as you can imagine and along the way there have been plenty of big singles. It is two such tunes, 'Wadatsumi' and 'Uncyaba,' that now get remixes by Mighty Massa in various different ways on this special, limited edition 12". The first Mighty Massa remix is full of longing trumpets and earthy, rumbling drums. The stepper dub sharpens up the drums and layers in tons of noodle-twisting sci-fi effects and filters and then on the flip comes a mid tempo version of 'Wadatsumi' full of vocal wails and rock licks and then another super stepper dub for the heads.

Review: Pitura Freska's Na Bruta Banda album is 30 years old in 2021 so it gets a limited edition pressing on hand-numbered, super limited vinyl to mark the occasion. It's a wild record that collides ska, world, folk, dub, reggae and prog rock, as unlikely as that may sound, into a full flavour album packed with heat. This most unlikely of Italian collectives was from Venice, formed by "Sir" Oliver Skardy and released 10 albums between 1978 and 2002. All the lyrics are delivered in a Venetian dialect of Italian making it surely one for he only reggae records in the world to be in that language.