Beautiful, heart-wrenching, anti-war roots.
Sublime singing, led by Tony Tuff, over the kind of rhythm you could run for hours.

Groovy version of the Deodato-CTI Gershwin interpretation; with a Willie Lindo. The dub does the trick.

From 1967 Ras Michael occasionally sat in on recording sessions with Jackie Mittoo and the Soul Vendors at Studio One. Instead of getting paid for his work, he requested studio time for his own Zion Disc recordings as the Sons of Negus Churchical Host…
‘Reggae is a vision. Reggae is the word that hits at the heartstrings the mind can’t control. I and I get the message of Rastafari out through reggae. It is the black music line of message to the world. It is the black Rastaman line of message to the world. It is the metaphorical Black Star Line’ (Ras Michael).

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.

Beautifully-sung reggae-jeggae sufferers.
With a vibesy instrumental on the flip, featuring what sounds like a wooden flute.

A sweetly Christmassy, party-rocking rework of the William Bell / Booker T original.

A fat, wide, brassy cover of his idol Otis Redding. Plus an ace, driving, vengeful Reggae Boys, on the flip.

Ace organ-driven rocksteady cut of Love Is A Message, recorded at Treasure Isle on Bunny Lee’s ticket, by youngsters Jacob Miller, Lawrence Weir and Lassive Jones aka Delroy Melody.
They were going by the name The Young Lads, but Jones remembers Striker’s strong advice: “there are too much Lads group, you boys are going to school, you boys are School Boys.”

Scorcher. One megaton of Hudson dread; pure reggae noir.
The mix is quite different to Flesh Of My Skin.
Definitively presented at last (after some dire bootlegs), by Dub Store in Tokyo.

Easy-squeeze, rocking steady loveliness from 1968.

A deadly, zonked Soul Syndicate excursion on Westbound Train, with Keith Hudson as the Fat Controller. Introducing a young LT — his first recording, he says — stylistically indebted to Dennis Brown.

Killer roots detournement of Georgia Turner‘s dread blues about a New Orleans brothel, to the tune of a seventeenth-century English folk song, by way of Bob Dylan, Nina Simone and The Animals.
Bunny Gale revives another folk song on the flip — Dead Man’s Chest — via The Viceroys’ classic Studio One outing.
More crucial Keith Hudson runnings, courtesy of Dub Store in Tokyo.

Unmissable rocksteady: a magnificent version of the Curtis; and a hard-rocking Never Let Me Go.