Out originally mid-70s on the Aires label, in a plain, stencilled sleeve, this is based around three cuts of the dreader than dread Free For All rhythm.
The music is Melvin ‘Munchie’ Jackson and Lloyd Barnes productions begun in Jamaica and finished at the Sounds Unlimited studio in New York. Several surfaced at different stages as sevens on Bullwackies’ Aires imprint, and in JA on the Tafari label which Munchie ran with his brother Maurice and Little Roy, in the Washington Gardens district of Kingston.
The title track was recorded at Randy’s, and came originally on The Heptones’ Hepic label, featuring Family Man Barrrett on keyboards, and - on the deejay cut here, Meditation Dub - sounds like Charlie Ace. There are dubs of Little Roy’s Tribal War and Black Bird; Stranger Cole’s My Application, later re-voiced by The Heptones, turns up as Dis Ya Dub; and if things weren’t smoke-filled enough, Roots is the rhythm of K.C. White’s All For Free.
Out originally in 1979, on the Wackies’ imprint Hardwax. (The original cover celebrated the first year of Honest Jon’s new reggae shop Maroons Tunes, Bullwackies’ UK distributor.)
Leroy Sibbles and Joe Auxumite, Drifter and Skylarking… Sibbles guides a tough selection, as well as sharing bass duties. There are versions of his classic composition Guiding Star and stylish Wackies heavyweight, This World; and Tribute To Studio One reworks Heptones Gonna Fight / Hail Don D. as modern steppers, with the kit-drums — as throughout this album — supplemented effectively by the in ting from Japan. Drifter and Skylarking put in appearances; and two full Joe Auxumite vocals from the solo album scheduled for release around this time, but abandoned when most of the tapes were lost. A dub version of Delroy Wilson’s Rain From The Skies rounds out proceedings.