A Jamaican music celebration took place Saturday in an unlikely setting: the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds in Davie.
Known for its cowboy themes and bull riding, Davie’s Bergeron Rodeo Grounds on Saturday catered to a different audience: reggae enthusiasts.
I’ve been a big fan of music my whole life, and I thought I’ve heard it all.
But every now and then I would run into unfamiliar music and realize that, indeed, through time and innovation, music really does evolve. It seems that there is always an endless sprouting of variations from already existing genres.
Our story starts with a drumbeat: a crisp tattoo on high-hat, bass drum, and snare that lasts only 10 seconds before Meters-esque chicken-scratch guitar and organ swoop down and take the song over. “Dirty Funk,” a cut on an obscure, self-titled record by a group of Caribbean-Canadians named Wayne McGhie & the Sounds of Joy, has had hiphop producers and beatheads scouring the bins since the early ’90s.
Good tribute to Studio One from Minott
There are times when a tribute album comes off as a cheap shot at making a quick buck the easy cover version way. Sugar Minott’s A Tribute To Studio One, released on the Tads Records imprint, is not among them.
After all, Sugar Minott is a Studio One alumni and is actually interpreting songs of his contemporaries, such as Delroy Wilson on Conquer Me, as well as some who came before including Alton Ellis with Willow Tree.
Academy award winning actor and award winning singer Jamie Foxx has denied recent reports that he will be playing the role of reggae icon Bob Marley in a film based on the late superstar’s life.
40 years of reggae hits on Sunsplash closer
The question, What Makes Reggae Reggae? has been posed repeatedly since the start of the Reggae Sunsplash 2006 campaign.
Bob Andy
The organisers are confident that the answer will be revealed inside the grounds of the Richmond Estate in St Ann on the closing night of the world’s first Reggae festival, Reggae Sunsplash on August 6 (as well as on the preceding three days).
Between ‘rock’ and a hard place
Roots, Rock, Reggae has long been a familiar line on local and international shores. Together the alliterative trio propelled Jamaican and other Caribbean music to the top of world’s music charts.
Vivien Goldman’s The Book of Exodus
With a face that overlaid maps of Africa and Europe, dreadlocked glamour, and blunt yet ravishing accounts of the sufferer’s plight, Bob Marley transcended cultural divides, and his death at 36 ensured he would become the stuff of myth. Thirty-five years later, his music sells more than it did in his lifetime, and the glut of Marley bios rivals even the number of his human progeny.
Anthony Cruz rides high with Half Way Tree
Singer Anthony Cruz has hit pay-dirt with his latest hit Half Way Tree. The song, which has been released on the Footsteps label (produced by Ainsworth Higgins), is holding firm inside the Top 10 of the local charts. Outside of Jamaica, Half Way Tree hit the Top 5 on the New York and South Florida reggae charts.
Ziggy Marley fuses African and reggae elements in his newest release
Ziggy Marley’s formal introduction to the music business came as a 10-year-old, when he sat in on recording sessions with his legendary father Bob. Now some 27 years later, Ziggy Marley is an established international recording artist, songwriter, producer and multi-Grammy winner over the two decades that he spearhearded the Melody Makers with his brother Stephen and sisters Sharon and Cedella. But his newest release Love Is My Religion (Tuff Gong Worldwide), which will be officially released this weekend, ranks as his most ambitious work yet on several levels.