The rocksteady era of Jamaican music in the mid-to-late 1960s is considered a golden age because rocksteady's sweet, soulful vocals, romantic but often socially conscious lyrics and prominent basslines gave birth to reggae, which went on to capture the world.
Rocksteady - The Roots Of Reggae
This documentary chronicles the coming together of rocksteady's surviving vocal stars - artists like the Tamlins, U-Roy, Ken Boothe, Leroy Sibbles from the Heptones, Judy Mowatt, Dawn Penn, Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths - and some of the island's greatest players, to celebrate their greatest 60s hits, perform a reunion concert and celebrate that golden era. Think of it as a kind of Buena Vista Social Club for the great 60s architects of Jamaican music. It is also a beautiful portrait of Jamaica.
In 1962, Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain. There was celebration, optimism, economic growth and opportunity. Recording studios popped up all over Kingston and a generation of great singers and players emerged playing the tuneful, mellow music that became known as rocksteady - tunes like The Tide Is High, Rivers of Babylon and You Don't Love Me Anymore, No No No, which were so successfully celebrated by UB40 on their Labour of Love albums. By 1968, Jamaica's economic bubble had burst and social unrest took to the streets. As poverty, violence and political upheaval spread, rocksteady became politicised, upped its tempo and began to evolve into the music they call reggae.
The performers include Hopeton Lewis, Dawn Penn, Wilburn 'Stranger' Cole, Marcia Griffiths, Ken Boothe, Derrick Morgan, Leroy Sibbles, U-Roy and Judy Mowatt... In a special appearance, Rita Marley tells the audience about her life in Trenchtown in the 1960s with Bob Marley. The musicians featured in the film include Earnest Ranglin, Sly Dunbar, Jackie Jackson, Gladstone Anderson, Hux Brown, Lloyd Parks and Scully Simms among others. The film features a mix of studio recording sessions at Tuff Gong Studios, rarely seen archival footage from the period and interviews with the performers at home or at places on the island that had profound effects on their music and lives. It takes the audience to the roots of Reggae and also draws a colourful and enriching portrait of the founders of this great musical heritage.
The influence of Soul music on Jamaican rock steady and reggae is almost palpable, so much so that one wonders how much more successful singers like Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis, Slim Smith and John Holt would have been had they been born in Chicago, Detroit or Memphis
CD Description: The collection features deadly instrumental music from an array of superstar reggae foundation instrumentalists, with some tunes from the early sixties through to the millennium.
What is 'Killer Instrumentals' Music?The series features some very rare, some very old, some very special and plenty of musically satisfying reggae instrumentals. If you enjoy listening to instrumental music, this series is a must have. Great if you can play it on a set that has a decent bass (ideal in your car). The artists are all extremely talented and although the credit to most tracks are attributed to one artist, all these musics were recorded originally using real instruments, in a studio, proper vibe!
Growing up in south London in the 60s I was exposed to Jamaican music - the great sounds of ska, rocksteady and early reggae. This weekend BBC4 has been celebrating these musical art forms with a series of programmes. Last night Reggae Britannia featured the likes of Ken Boothe and Rico Rodriguez in a recent concert at the Barbican, followed by a 1973 Old Grey Whistle Test which included Nicky Thomas and The Pioneers among others. Tonight's programme - Rocksteady - Roots of Reggae - brought together many of the original rocksteady pioneers, including Hopeton Lewis, Stranger Cole, Derrick Morgan and Marcia Griffiths, who relived their roles in the evolution of ska into rocksteady in the late 60s. Sadly the King of Rocksteady, Alton Ellis, is no longer with us, but it brought back memories of the West Indian clubs that I frequented in Brixton back in the day. The music sounded fantastic then, and it sounds fantastic today. The photo shows what may be the first rocksteady record to be issued in the UK. =_J_KvCqSNp4
But aside from helping to shape contemporary music, reggae has spawned a number of distinct subgenres. In different ways and through various channels, these subgenres push against the constraints and traditions of reggae while remaining true to the trademarks of its sound and its essence as a spiritually engaged, politically invested mode of expression.
In music, the first fruits of those efforts were represented by two genres: ska and rocksteady. Both genres drew from the music that had always characterized Jamaican life, such as traditional West African music and the styles that flourished throughout the Caribbean.
The original form of reggae, sometimes known as roots reggae, grew out of the rhythmic and melodic concerns of ska and rocksteady. From the beginning, it featured more musical complexity than ska and rocksteady and even slower beats than rocksteady.1
Roots reggae is by far the most popular and recognizable of all types of reggae. Pioneered by an interconnected community of musicians and producers, it quickly grew into a music genre popular around the world.
After taking the world by storm in the early 1970s, reggae began to lay the foundation for its legacy with the emergence of distinct subgenres that honored reggae while still pushing the music in new and exciting directions.
Named for the Kingston nightclubs where listeners were first exposed to the sound in the 1970s, it features the rhythms and cadences of roots reggae but replaces live instrumentation with electronic music and pre-recorded tracks.3
Lyrically, dancehall music steps back from the overtly political concerns of roots reggae, focusing instead on the escapist aspects of dancehall culture. Another unique characteristic of dancehall reggae is its focus on hybridity.
Ragga was among the first Caribbean music genres to incorporate digitally produced instrumentation through MIDI technology and sampling. Today, the term ragga is generally used to refer to dancehall reggae music in general. Damian Marley, son of renowned reggae powerhouse Bob Marley and Rita Marley (who, herself is one of the most influential female reggae singers), is one of the more prominent artists of this genre.
If you trace the history of Reggae rock, it originated in Southern California in the 1990s and early 2000s.5 As its name suggests, it blends traditional reggae music with ska and American and British rock styles, from classic and grunge to punk. It was popularized by bands like:
Although reggae is generally considered an indigenous Jamaican music, its roots are actually deeply African American. Strong strains of both calypso and the Jamaican folk music called mento are obvious both in reggae's explicit political commentary and in its occasionally ribald humor, but the harmonic and rhythmic structure of the music has its most significant antecedent in the American soul music of the 1950s and 1960s, 1. particularly that which was being produced by the prolific Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Detroit recording studios of those decades, and which could be heard on clear Jamaican nights over the airwaves from Miami radio stations.
The insistent off-beat rhythmic pattern of soul music and rock'n'roll (in which emphasis is typically placed on beats two and four of a four-beat measure) would find a strange and unique expression in reggae music during the late 1960s and early 1970s; in the early days of the music's development, however, that pattern appeared as the trademark galloping backbeat of ska, a more upbeat and dance-oriented predecessor of reggae. Ska was based on a double-time version of the basic R & B rhythmic pattern (one- and -two- and -three- and -four- and ). This rhythm's relationship to a polka beat is obvious, though there is a significant difference between the two approaches: whereas the horn players and keyboardist in a polka band will accent beats two and four along with the drummer, in ska the guitars and horns would execute chordal chops on... 2ff7e9595c
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