Birmingham has produced some of the UK’s foremost reggae bands – Steel Pulse, UB40 and The Beat among them – and they (and pretty much everyone else interested in Jamaican music) shopped at Don Christie Records over the three decades-plus it was open. Don Christie opened as a specialist Blue Beat shop in the mid-1960s. With the UK label… Continue reading Birmingham’s Lost Reggae Store
This is part of the continued yearlong Marley75 celebrations, commemorating the year that would have held his 75th birthday… Bob Marley’s yearlong birthday celebrations continue with the announcement of Bob Marley: Legacy; a 12-part mini-documentary series, featuring a collection of interviews with his friends, family and fans, woven around his both his original music and remixes of some of his most iconic tracks. The first episode … Continue reading 'Bob Marley: Legacy' documentary premieres on YouTube
From its beginnings in downtown Kingston and through multiple sub-genres, reggae has evolved into a worldwide cultural expression. Gary Tipp roots out its most crucial releases… For what is a relatively small island in the Caribbean, Jamaica has held a wildly disproportionate sway over shaping music across the globe. This vibrant nation has its own soundtrack – reggae, an astonishing genre that has influenced everything … Continue reading The Top 40 Essential Reggae Vinyl
At The Palace is a brand new one-day outdoor event set to feature live music, fairground ground rides, and much more… At The Palace is a brand new event taking place at the iconic Crystal Palace Park in south London on Sunday 26 July 2020. Bringing reggae back to the park 40 years after Bob Marley and the Wailers played the Crystal Palace Garden Party, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell and … Continue reading UB40 set to headline new event at Crystal Palace
Although billed as a Tommy McCook album, what actually unifies this 1969 collection of commercial reggae is producer Duke Reid. Soundsystem rival to Studio One’s Clement Dodd, Reid was producer of the classic ska and reggae released on his label Treasure Isle, and then later on Trojan in the late 60s and early 70s. We kick off with John Holt’s gently soulful Stealing Stealing, then … Continue reading Tommy McCook And The Supersonics – Greater Jamaica Moonwalk Reggae
Despite often costing far less than a regular LP, many samplers have become highly collectible. Surely a definitive list of 40 is impossible? Step forward Mark Sampson… The birth of the sampler album is generally attributed to Jac Holzman, the head of Elektra Records. With no budget for advertising, he looked for other ways of promoting his catalogue (then) of folk and world music. Always … Continue reading The Essential: Samplers
Some artists develop their sound over the course of a long career, working gradually towards a creative peak, while others hit the ground running and deliver a fully realised masterwork at the first time of asking. And it’s the latter group we pay tribute to here as Gary Tipp names vinyl’s greatest debut albums… Debut albums have several advantages over what follows in a band’s … Continue reading The 60 Greatest Debut Albums Of All Time
The women of garage rock, grunge pop and indie have been busy. Chris Parkin celebrates a slew of tremendous new vinyl releases. There’s only one rule concerning album announcements: don’t do it on the same day that Sleater-Kinney reveal to the world they’re recording a new album with Annie Clark (aka St Vincent). At least that’s the “note-to-self” that Mary Timony – Carrie Brownstein and … Continue reading Genre Hopping: Female-fronted pioneers
It took two years from when Desmond Dekker won his record deal until he was finally in front of the mic at the Studio One recording studio in Kingston, Jamaica. In the meantime, he’d been working as a welder – where he spotted the talents of a fellow worker… one Bob Marley. That’s another story, though. When Dekker finally got down to business in the … Continue reading Desmond Dekker & The Aces – 007 Shanty Town
The biggest-selling reggae album of all time. 15 million copies shifted in the US alone and more than 30 million worldwide. 500 weeks on the Billboard chart… You may wonder how many people are left on Planet Earth without a copy of this undeniably stellar greatest hits collection. The justification for the latest reissue is the 35th anniversary of its original release, in addition to … Continue reading Bob Marley – Legend 35th Anniversary Edition
