News & Updates — reggae

Happy birthday to rock hero John Graham Mellor aka Joe Strummer!! Thanks for the great music with one of the greatest rock bands ever, The Clash, as well as your other projects.

Producer and vocalist Yabby You was one of reggae's most original characters as he was a Christian with dreadlocks, not a Rastafarian. That is how he came to be called "the Jesus Dread". Vivian Jackson grew up in extreme poverty in the ghettos of Kingston JA. Working at a blast furnace at age 12, he became partially crippled from malnutrition and lost the job as a result. Finding no promise in the streets, he was given a chance by King Tubby to cut an original single at Tubby's studio. "Conquering Lion" was released in 1972 and went straight to the...

The unsung Jimmy Norman displayed his creativity in many different places during a long career largely underknown to the general public. He was perhaps most identifiable as a lyricist and songwriter, working with Bob Marley, Eddie Palmieri, Johnny Nash, Irma Thomas, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Tosh, Shorty Rogers and others. Born in Nashville, he grew up on the West Coast and started singing and recording with local doo-wop group The Chargers, including Jesse Belvin's "Dandilyon". (It was Belvin who spotted them and recommended them to RCA Victor. He did a bunch of touring as a musician in the '50s and wrote...

Lucky Dube was one of the most popular reggae artists from the African continent. A Zulu born in South Africa, he formed a Zulu pop and mbaqanga band, The Love Brothers. He became a Rastafarian in the early '80s, and after four albums he moved started playing predominantly reggae. Some of his records got banned in South Africa due to his anti-apartheid stance and he later started blowing up worldwide. In '95 he signed to the Motown family of labels and his success continued to grow. His musical was political and topical and earned him respect as one of the reggae...

Happy born day to the ex-Skatalite bassist Lloyd Brevett. He played the upright and was a founding member of the Skatalites, one of the most important bands the planet has ever known. One of their best albums came under the leadership of Brevett, the amazingly funky 1975 classic African Roots. He was a trained jazz bassist and knew how to build & repair them. With the Skatalites he provided backing to early recordings by The Wailers, as well as early Lee Perry and Alton Ellis records. He played with The Soul Vendors and Herbie Mann while the Skatalites were broken up,...