Date: 1994
Release: HEARTBEAT
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A musical mish mash of 33 rocksteady, ska, and dancehall tracks of the highest order, all recorded at Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s legendary Studio One. Dodd was the Berry Gordy of Jamaica, and like Motown, his label consistently cranked out hits which combined strong song-writing with catchy melodies and heavy rhythms to set you moving. For a while there in the 60s and 70s, this was the Jamaican studio that was hard to beat. This compilation reveals why. Featuring the absolute best from the Studio One vaults, it delivers a perfectly flowing mix capable of converting the most reggae-hating elements of Babylon to the Red, Gold, Black, and Green.

Vintage sounds created by such major players as Bob Marley & the Wailers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, The Skatalites, Burning Spear, Sugar Minott, The Heptones, and Marcia Griffiths, along with a host of lesser known but no less great artists of obscurity. This album enlightens as it seeps in, reminding us that we’ve got to “Simmer Down,” lay back, and enjoy. A brilliant first step for those wanting to move beyond Bob Marley’s “Legend,” and into the relatively unknown realm of vintage Jamaican music. Maximum respect required.

Date: 1972-1975
Release: Collectables #5202
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Like Jimi Hendrix, the eight members of Cymande were all phenomenally adept self-taught musicians. And also like Hendrix, they were masters at synthesizing funk, soul, blues, and psychedelic sounds, creating a music that resists any convenient labeling. They could funk on a reggae groove, put a heavy dose of soul into a psychedelic jam, and lay down some bluesy riffs around a Caribbean spiced vocal.

Cymande‘s members came from Guyana, Jamaica, and St.Vincent, and they imported a strong island vibe into their cosmic sound. This album is at once raw and polished, extraordinarily diverse, and consistently grooving. The tunes run the gamut from the hypnotic Santana-influenced instrumental, “Dove,” to the New Orleans funk of “The Message,” which actually made it to #22 on the domestic R&B charts in 1974. The spectacularly funky “Bra” was included on Spike Lee‘s highly recommended “Crooklyn” soundtrack.

Other highlights include the psychedelic soul-jazz sounds of “Rickshaw,” the bluesy trance of “Anthracite,” and the consciousness-raising “Listen.” Cymande is one of the forgotten miracles of the early 70s and deserves a major rediscovery by fans of all musical genres.

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Date: 2001
Release: Rounder #617665
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For almost four years I lived in an endless summer. I inhabited a tiny room in a ramshackle beach house built on pier pilings right on the sand in Malibu, California. "This is not a dream!" I reminded myself daily. Every weekend was spent in the warm surf, beach combing, or reclining with friends on my balcony overlooking the vast Pacific. Without fail, I’d drag out my hefty stereo speakers, douse myself in sunscreen, crack open a magazine or book, and put on some music. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had become a barely tolerated DJ to my neighbors. I guess they weren’t fans of the Buzzcocks and the Clash. My spinning habits were politely adjusted to include a more beach friendly cross section of my CD collection. The soulful Jamaican sounds of the Studio One label became an essential component of languid Saturdays basking in the grateful smiles of my friends and neighbors. I had found my weekend theme music. If I had all the money in the world to commission somebody to create the most perfect music for lounging seaside in the hot sun, they would be hard-pressed to come up with anything that could rival the classic recorded output of Studio One

Always a hit factory, the label came close to completely dominating the Jamaican dance floor with the emergence of the long-playing 12-inch "discomix" in the 1970s. Studio One capitalized on the extended discomix format, successfully recycling some of its best material from the 1960s. Older hits were updated simply by mixing in lengthy instrumental endings. The popularity of the discomix allowed the label to prolong its reign, even after its most creative period had passed. Because a discomix filled up an entire side of a 45 rpm record, a hit song had the power to keep competing records off the DJ’s turntable for a good long time.

Nice Up The Dance complies the very best of these highly sought-after 12-inch classics, including tracks from such legendary artists as Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis, and Tommy McCook. The album opens with Cornell Campbell & the Eternal‘s obscure classic, "Queen Of The Minstrels," which unfolds in a deliciously slow groove that suspends both time and worry. The discomix of Alton Ellis‘s eternal reggae classic, "Can I Change My Mind," clocks in at an astounding 11-minutes. This endless version gives us plenty of time to experience the full magnitude of Ellis’s mighty soul caressing voice. The lengthy instrumental sections that fill Nice Up The Dance not only give added depth to older hits, but also showcase the impressive talents of the Studio One house musicians, masters of the hypnotic reggae groove.

For almost three decades, Studio One has provided Jamaicans with the soulful soundtrack of their lives. It is time for the rest of the world to catch on.

Date: 1996 (release)
Release: Island #524219
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“Reggae means comin’ from d’people, you know. Everyday ting, like from the ghetto. Majority beat. Regular beat that people use like food down there. We put music to it, make a dance out of it. I would say that reggae means comin’ from the roots, ghetto music. Means poverty, suffering, and, in the end, maybe union with God if you do it right.”

– Fred “Toots” Hibbert, interviewed by Stephen Davis, The New York Times

While Bob Marley & The Wailers have now come to symbolize reggae, Toots & The Maytals were equally important figures in the evolution of Jamaican music, from ska, through rock steady, and into reggae. Formed in Kingston during the ska wave of the early ’60s, the Maytals were comprised of Toots, Nathaniel “Jerry” Mathias and Raleigh Gordon. A favorite singer of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, Toots is not only one of reggae’s most glorious founding fathers, he is widely credited with giving the genre its name with his 1968 hit, “Do The Reggay.”

Like so many other reggae greats, Toots escaped poverty through music. In 1962 he moved from the Jamaican countryside to the Kingston ghetto of Trenchtown, finding inspiration in the gospel-rooted soul music of Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, and Wilson Pickett, which came in over the airwaves from New Orleans and Miami. Experimenting with these soulful sounds, Toots & The Maytals evolved a style of their own that would later be known as reggae.

While Toots’ contemporaries shared many of the same influences, nobody else embraced the spirit of American gospel, soul and R&B singing more fervorishly or naturally. Known for his scorching live performances, Toots was quite possibly the only Jamaican singer who could have played before the rough and tough Apollo Theater audiences of the 1960s without getting booed off stage.

But it was far more than Toots’ soul and gospel-drenched vocals that set him apart, it was his songwriting. Always a master of musical self-expression, his writing skills really didn’t mature until 1966, when he was thrown in prison for possession of marijuana. Immediately after his release a year later, he took the Maytals into the studio and recorded (for legendary Jamaican producer Leslie Kong) “54-46 (That’s My Number),” a song about his imprisonment whose title references Toots’ prisoner ID number. Belted out with raw soul conviction, this lyrically scathing rocksteady song struck a chord with listeners, becoming a hit in both Jamaica and England.

By the early ’70s, Toots & The Maytals had conquered their native island with a sting of hits, most of which are compiled on Time Tough: The Anthology. Their music first reached American shores in 1972, with the release of the soundtrack to Jimmy Cliff‘s blaxploitation-reggae film, The Harder They Come, which included the Maytals’ hits “Pressure Drop” and “Sweet And Dandy.” In 1975, after signing on with Chris Blackwell‘s Island Records, they issued their debut US release, the explosively hard-edged Funky Kingston. An album that embodies the musical bonds between the Kingston ghetto and the streets of Harlem, Funky Kingston was an ambitious merging of black roots and cultures that only Toots could pull off.

Featuring over 40 tracks spanning the group’s three-decade career, the double-disc Time Tough: The Anthology compiles many of the best Toots & The Maytals songs, from the raw early ska work-outs like “Broadway Jungle,” to the rocksteady standard, “54-46 (That’s My Number),” along with prime reggae classics like “Pressure Drop” and “Funky Kingston.” Far more than an expanded greatest hits collection, Time Tough includes top album cuts, rare singles and three previously unreleased tracks.

The only problem with the set is the second disc, which chronicles Toots’ less-than-great later years. But if you toss out the second disc (which I strongly recommend), then this anthology becomes an essential collection of gritty and soulful Jamaican music from one of the island’s lesser known legends.