Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae
Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae
The lovingly conceived, brilliantly executed, multi-platform Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae aims to achieve the same sort of museum piece-to-modernity transformation for Jamaican rocksteady that Buena Vista Social Club (World Circuit, 1996) created for Cuban music of an earlier era. As with Buena Vista, there’s a CD, a movie and a package tour. The CD features eight surviving rocksteady vocal stars of the late 1960s revoicing some of their biggest hits of the era (or those of departed contemporaries), accompanied by a brilliantly well-qualified and still kicking studio band made up of fellow survivors, many of whom played on the original 7″ singles. As an added treat, the inimitable and enduring DJ and toaster (rapper/poet) U-Roy, who honed his art working with Jamaica’s mobile “sound systems” during the rocksteady years, voices one track, “Stop That Train.”
October 13th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Big ups tha site. Ja Bless