Brilliant jazz lyricism, in the style of Kenny Burrell, by the thirty-three-year-old, at an impromptu 1965 session in the Federal Studio, with pianist Leslie Butler, drummer Carl McLeod and bassist Stephen Lauz.
Fire! The Federal musical director walks it like he talks it. Blazing horns and jazzy brilliance all round.
The best of Ern’s sixties LPs. A lovely bunch of rocksteady instrumentals, featuring a cool and deadly Summertime, bumping versions of Hold Me Tight and Flamingo, a moody Story Book Children, some bluesy honky-tonk, and the far-eastern stylings of Sling Shot, to close.
Rock ‘n rolling Reid. With a Little John.
The fledgling Wailing Souls, rocking steady but broken-hearted in 1966; backed with the perfect ska antidote, a previously-unreleased Hopeton Lewis pick-me-up.
Winston Matthews, Lloyd McDonald and George Haye — Wailing Souls to be. From 1966, this is classic vocal rocksteady, one of the certified gems in the Merritone catalogue. Backed with unreleased ska.
Family Man and Jimmy Riley had worked together in the late sixties — a Hippy Boy and a Unique — way before this terrific collaboration in tough, anguished sufferers, woozy with the natural mystic, around the same time as Cobra Style. Signature Wailers music-making seals the deal, with classy, burning horns.
Poignantly-reflective next version of Horace’s Jah Is The One rhythm (from the Pure Ranking set), with MR’s unmistakable moves, and dub.
First time out for this recent do-over of Yabby You’s mighty King Pharaoh’s Plague — with dub.