Prince Jammy/Various: The Crowning Of Prince Jammy

The Crowning Of Prince Jammy
Pressure Sounds CD PSCD25



"The Crowning Of Prince Jammy" is a collection of some of the man born Lloyd James's greatest productions from the late 70s and early 80s, while he was emerging from his "Prince" status as King Tubby's protégé and establishing his own identity as a producer alongside contemporaries such as Jah Thomas and Junjo Lawes, but before the digital revolution of 1985 allowed him to undisputedly claim his position as "King".

The set opens with Black Uhuru's " King Selassie I" (aka "I Love King Selassie"), taken from their Jammy-produced first LP "Love Crisis"; this appears to be the original 1977 version, rather than the overdubbed 1979 version, and is a classic example of the early Uhuru, and Waterhouse, sound. (It can also be found on the Greensleeves re-release of both versions of "Love Crisis"/"Black Sounds Of Freedom").

Next up is Wayne Smith's evocative "Time Is A Moment In Space", a mournful song of lost love which in fact originates from an old country and western tune. A wonky, spooky keyboard is reminiscent of some of Lee Perry's later Black Ark work (eg. Danny Hensworth's "Mr Money Man"), but the heavier, more monotone bass vibe of early dancehall is already evident. The dub has the classic Tubby's echo techniques, but in a pared-down, strong yet subtle context.

Johnny Osbourne's rousing steppers anthem of theological devotion, "Jahovia" was, oddly, not released as a single at the time, but only on the "Fally Ranking" LP. "The Earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, but it's heating like a melting pot", and the riddim is suitably hot and unrelenting. The version is a particularly bass-heavy, echo-laden workout, "warrior style".

Half Pint's "Puchie Lou" is a completely different vibe, breaking the chronological sequence by skipping forward to 1983; it's a bouncy, melodic love song in an uptempo yet mellow dancehall style, Half Pint showing the lighter side of the Waterhouse singing style. Mighty Rudo's "Waterhouse", a joyful tribute to both the studio and district, is on a similar riddim, despite being from after the birth of digital reggae in 1985. The lyrics resonate with localism of a wholly positive kind and a loved yet never idealised community, while at the same time pleading for an end to violent "political" rivalries conducted on a petty parochial basis: "I'm not here to build no strife, I just want to see everyone staying alive... I don't want to live in the sophisticated kind of cities..."

Earl Zero's "Please Officer", however, takes it straight back to the dark side with another rumbling, bass-heavy steppers riddim and a strident lyric of police brutality which pulls no punches in its condemnation of the whole Babylonian system. This 12" version is extended with a full-length dub to over 7 minutes, and is followed by its equally long and equally heavy B-side instrumental "Pablo In Moonlight City", one of Augustus Pablo's dreadest melodica pieces.

Half Pint returns with "Mr Landlord", over the classic "Hypocrites" riddim, its strong reality lyrics attacking exploitative ghetto landlords leavened by an irrepressibly funky horn riff. The following dub is the one which gives this compilation its title, a thunderous version to Junior Reid's classic "Jailhouse". Why the vocal of this is not included here, I don't know; however, enough snippets of it remain to make the tale of unjust imprisonment and torture comprehensible, adding an extra layer of paranoia to the spine-chillingly dread, wild and multi-layered dub mix; a true classic of "versioning" reminiscent in feel of Black Uhuru at their darkest and most industrial.

"Mr Vincent" by the fairly unknown group Black Crucial is another anti-landlord testimony of poverty, again lightened by the major key sweetness of its riddim, with a particularly nice piece of piano floating in the mix. Johnny Osbourne's "Mr Marshall", however, is another relentlessly heavy steppers tune, opening with powerful crashing of guitars and cymbals and propelled by militant double drumming, the stridently passionate lyric chanting down all warmongers and hypocritical authority figures, making no distinction between state and gangland hierarchies; another of Osbourne's most crucial tunes from the "Fally Ranking" album.

"Return of Jammy's Hi-Fi" is a masterful dub deconstruction of Horace Andy's classic Tubby/Harry J produced "Pure Ranking", showcasing the heaviness and inventiveness of Jammy's mixing, with the blissful keyboard melody melted down and echoed into wild, tantalising swirls of percussion, without even needing to retain any of the vocal. Sugar Minott's "Give The People What They Want" is probably the least memorable track here, due to its relatively conservative (at least in comparison to most of the ultra-heavy tunes here) mix, but still a nicely mixed and sweetly voiced, if rather staid, plea for rights and justice.

The closing track, Hugh Mundell's "Jah Fire Will be Burning", is, while not having as much radical studio deconstruction as most tracks here, still a highlight of the set for being simply one of the heaviest, most apocalyptically dread roots tunes ever recorded, with Nyabinghi style drumming, deep lo-fi bass, and a haunting, majestic trumpet underneath one of the Blessed Youth's darkest and most passionate vocals, describing, in imagery straight from the Book of Revelations, the downfall and bleak aftermath of industrial society. "The smoke of the dreadful furnace turns the sun and the air into darkness... what a great, great day that shall be." Prescient, terrifying and revelatory.

This is by far one of the heaviest collections of late 70s/early 80s tunes out there; almost every track on it is a killer for anyone who likes music which is dark, tense and political, yet also joyful and spiritual. While there are many other Prince/King Jammy compilations around, many of them overlapping with this one, you cannot go wrong with this as an introduction to one of the foremost second-generation reggae producers. My only (slight) gripe with it is the non-inclusion of the original vocal of Junior Reid's "Jailhouse" (I'm still looking for that on CD), which seems odd considering its dub provided the title for the compilation; however, this album proves Pressure Sounds' status as a worthy ascendant to the throne of reggae reissue labels.

Horace Andy: In The Light/In The Light Dub

Horace Andy: In The Light/In The Light Dub
Blood & Fire CD BAFCD006



"In The Light/In The Light Dub", dating originally from 1977, is a US/Jamaican collaboration between the legendary, unearthly-voiced Horace "Sleepy" Andy (who prior to this album had been mostly a singles artist) and New York-based producer Everton DaSilva, using mostly JA musicians but aimed at least partly at a NY audience, presented here by leading UK reissue label Blood & Fire with the vocal and corresponding dub albums together on one CD.

"In The Light" opens with one of Andy's best known hits, "Do You Love My Music", a rousing celebration of the power of reggae music accompanied by punchy horns and a virtuoso, rock-styled guitar solo by Andy Bashford (reminiscent of the likes of Hendrix or Santana). In retaining and celebrating the spirit of prime Jamaican roots while adding a noticeable dose of US influence, it nicely prefigures the vibe of the album.

The following track, "Hey There Woman", is perhaps a little over-similar to that preceding it, and due to its rather slight lyric is thus nice but forgettable; nonetheless, it has first-class musicianship, and the best is yet to come...

"Government Land" (aka "Government Man") is one of the heaviest of all Horace's roots tunes (and one of his personal favourites, according to interviews), a passionate condemnation of the enclosure of land with a resounding anarchist message delivered n typical spine-tinglingly unearthly style: "How long can you keep up this, government man? You know you can't fool wise man, you will run away in the end". The horns flow like a mighty river and add to this tune's majesty. An all time classic.

"Leave Rasta" is much lighter in tone, despite its serious anti-persecution lyric, with its joyful vocals and bouncy riddim., but it's light without being lightweight. "Fever", a reworking of an earlier version recorded for Studio One, is also a lighter moment, and has the somewhat tinny, synth-dominated sound of a lot of New York reggae, something that is often a bit of a turn-off for fans of heavier JA roots; nevertheless, the style fits well with Sleepy's voice, even if it adds little to the original version.

The title track "In The Light" is another example of a light and airy tune with a rootsy Rasta message, testifying to childhood miseducation and misconceptions about African history and Rastafari. Again synths are dominant, but the bass is warm and live and Horace's voice has its trademark ecstatic quality.

"Problems" is a welcome return to deeper, darker roots territory, riding a captivating version of the "Mr Bassie" riddim, with a high-pitched yet foreboding synth taking the role of the melodica. "Everyone got problems, who will solve them?" "If I" keeps the mood with probably the darkest and bass-heaviest riddim on the set, grinding bass and reverberating percussion underpinning a darkly testimonial lyric about the lies taught by the Babylon system and the need to overcome such false teachings that recalls early Black Uhuru: another heavy roots classic to nearly equal "Government Land".

"Collie Herb" is another laid-back, blissful-sounding tune with a lot of synth and a bouncy vibe, extolling the praises of a well-known sacred plant in terms that are well-trodden but perennially (like the plant itself) popular. "Men fight against it cause it give us wisdom and overstanding, men fight against it because when we smoke it we deal with peace".

The closing track, "Rome", is another of the highlights of this set and another of Horace's highest-ranking roots classics: a powerful, poignant repatriation lament (yet generalisable to a critique of the whole of industrialised society), with the man's vocals at their sweetest and most yearning, dreaming of a utopia "where the air is fresh and clean, far from all these polluted cities". Understated guitar and melancholy melodica add to the tune's anthemic status, and let the album close on a fittingly elegiac note.

While the vocal set has a noticeable tension between the deeper, heavier roots tracks with live horns and the lighter, happier tunes with a very strong NY synth sound, "In The Light Dub", mixed by Prince Jammy, in fact comes across as a much more cohesive set, with Jammy's (soon to become King) bass-heavy mixing seeking out the unifying rather than the dividing elements of the individual songs. Much of the top end is stripped away, while judicially applied doses of echo and reverb, in a seamless updating of the classic Tubby's style, retain the sweetness of the arrangements while adding thunderous resonance. The result is that an album that could seem rather "bitty" with the vocals alone becomes much more of a fully coherent whole with the addition of the dubs.

Particular highlights include the especially masterful use of reverb for dread ambience in "Government Dub", "Dub The Light"'s transformation from "light" to "heavy" by means of the same reverberating power, and the all-out bass assault of "I&I" (the dub to "If I"), surely one of the heaviest, most uncompromising "classic style" dubs of all time; however, even a relatively dull track like "Hey There Woman" is turned into something arguably more satisfying than the original, and the whole set is probably one of the few dub albums to stand not just as an accompaniment to its vocal counterpart but as a fully satisfying work in its own right.

While a slight departure from much of the rest of their output, this is yet another essential release of classic 70s roots from Blood & Fire Records, and a very good intro both to the works of Horace Andy as a whole (although purists might argue it should be second to his Studio One output and/or his mid-70s work for Bunny Lee) and to the emerging New York roots scene of the late 70s (which later evolved into the Wackies and later digital sounds). Exercise a little caution for a few of the "lighter" vocal tracks if you like it dark, but purchase without hesitation for several uncontrovertible, transcendently heavy roots classics.