Brawny, get-onboard rocksteady, with nyabinghi drumming throughout — including a tasty break. A first sighting of Solomon, from Police And Thieves.
Hard to resist Junior Murvin in this teasing, saucy mood, on a lovely nyabinghi rocksteady rhythm.
With an alternate take.
Dynamite, previously unissued rocksteady version of the monumental Skatalites scorcher from a few years earlier.
Rollicking, mid-sixties, post-Skatalites ska thriller, led by Bobby Ellis and Roland Alphonso, with slightly different soloing to the original release.
Backed with a charming, forsaken, rare Summertairs: ‘I love you, Errol… come back today… but not too late… Errol, my dear.’
Stone cold murder. Archetypal, slow-mo, eastern-sounds post-ska from Jackie Mittoo, Dizzy Moore, Roland Alphonso and co, around 1965.
With a sweet Hamlins on the flip.
Scorcher. Ska at the threshold of rocksteady. Mittoo and Dizzy Moore do it to it.
A masterful, sublime cover of the Young Holt by the newly-formed Sound Dimension; backed with Roy Richards’ classic harmonica version of Summertime.
Stupendous rendition of a Chinese folk song over red-hot rocksteady, produced by Ronnie Narsalla in 1967. Aimed at the Chinese community in Kingston; super-rare ever since.
Pure worries. The guaranteed musical detonation of any kind of dance or party.
Cheng, evidently, not Chang. Essential reading, here.
Stalag… and The Carpenters’ Top Of The World.
A hollowed-out, minor-chord rhythm… SB bubbling moodily about ‘if you’re having a problem and you don’t know to solve them, down the road there is a party’... a stripped, brilliant dub.
Classic Jammys from 1987.