Chesterton native finds ska’s place in music history

While other college kids in the ’90s were draping themselves in flannel and angst while listening to grunge, Heather Ransford Augustyn and her friends put on their Sunday finest and skanked the nights away at ska concerts.

Ska — the precursor to reggae, not the other way around — wasn’t any less depressing in its topics, usually focusing around poverty and the lack of jobs in London and Jamaica in the 1950s and ’60s. But with its choppy guitar strokes on the off beat highlighted by a kicking brass section, it sure was a lot more fun to dance to.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 28th, 2010 at 2:28 am and is filed under Reggae Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.