Red Gold & Green #34 - Junior Byles

It's a long held belief among a couple of my closest friends, that I'd been unwittingly clobbered by Covid very early on - here in fact. I never saw it myself and until now I'd always put my physical and mental collapse at the very end of 2019 down to the aftershocks of the personal annus horribilis I'd just endured. Today though, as I emerge blinking and bewildered into the daylight following a 100% guaranteed, 10-day bout with the aforementioned C19, I'm forced to re-evaluate that earlier illness. My main symptoms in each case were virtually identical - a complete loss of appetite, mad, feverish dreams (to the point of doubting reality) and incredible amounts of sweating (seriously, where does all that liquid come from?) So perhaps my chums were right all along and I was indeed among the first of us to have had a brush with this dreadful virus three years ago.

Here's the great Junior Byles, produced by the legendary Lee Perry, back in the halcyon days of 1972.

Junior Byles - Fever  

Monday Long Song / Red Gold & Green #33

It's Monday morning, the sun is out, my washing is steaming on the line in the garden and I've just flipped open my laptop for the first time in over a week. Christmas, for those of us working in retail, has well and truly commenced. I made it clear some time ago to those in charge that throughout the festive period I'll be available for every shift going - and they have pretty much taken me to my word. I'm happy with that. I know that the overtime board will be a barren wasteland come January and February, so I'm making hay while the sun shines. Also, I'm saving up for a bit of an adventure in April, so, y'know, every little helps. Today, though, I have a day off. A chance to do my washing, to take a long walk and, most importantly, to have a proper listen to the little pile of new records that the postman has been dropping off just lately. First though, an unhurried breakfast (pictured) and an appropriately titled tune from Birmingham's Carnastoan, the b-side of their one and only 12" single, released in 1981.

Carnastoan - Mr Workhard

Red Gold & Green #32 - 50 Years Ago Today

I was 9 years old in July of 1969, the perfect age to be captivated and obsessed by all things space travel related. Unfortunately my parents didn't think I was quite old enough to stay up into the wee small hours to watch Neil and Buzz taking mans first steps on the moon, Dad did though and took a series of grainy photos of the TV screen to prove it. Those old photos are in a box somewhere in this house. Also in a box, I hope, is a handwritten and drawn school project entitled 'Space and Space Travel', created by yours truly in 1970 or thereabouts. If I'd have had my wits about me I would've located it long ago and shared it with you today - some other time perhaps.

Here's an aptly titled Bunny Lee production, released in 1969 by Derrick Morgan, who, after periods of ill heath, is still going strong at 79. This one's for Neil, Buzz, Micheal and Dad.

Derrick Morgan - Man Pon Moon 

Red Gold & Green #31 - Ken Boothe

Still working at the age of 71, Ken Boothe is probably best known to the world at large for his cover of Bread's 'Everything I Own', which reached the UK Number 1 spot for three weeks in October 1974. To quote Joe Strummer in '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais', '...Ken Boothe for UK pop reggae...'. Boothe's career, however, stretches back to the late 1950s, with his first recordings appearing as part of a duo with Stranger Cole in 1963. His solo career began in earnest in 1966 with a series of ska and rocksteady tunes for legendary producers such as Leslie Kong, Sonia Pottinger and Phil Pratt. Boothe also recorded for Coxone Dodd's Studio One label and here he is on that very imprint in 1968, with his superb rocksteady reworking of a song written and recorded the previous year by another Ken, UK entertainer Kenny Lynch.

Ken Boothe - Moving Away

Monday Long Song / Red Gold & Green #30

Across three slabs of wax, the 2002 Soul Jazz compilation 'Studio One Scorcher Instrumentals' offers up pretty much what it says on the tin - 19 scorching tunes originating from the legendary Brentford Road studio of Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd. From the album, 'Shockers Rock', officially credited to Tommy McCook, Richard Ace, The Skatalites & Disco Height, is a truly bonkers 1978 cut-up/remix of Roland Alphonso's 1965 ska cut 'Cleopatra'.

Tommy McCook, Richard Ace & The Skatalites - Shockers Rock

Monday Long Song / Red Gold & Green #29

The first Factory Records 12" single to find its way into my collection was Fac 11, the powerful 'English Black Boys' by Manchester reggae band X-O-Dus. It took the legendary Dennis 'Blackbeard' Bovell (who wrote and produced 'Silly Games' for Janet Kay, a hit at the time) a full six months to complete a satisfactory mix of the track, but the result was worth every second of his efforts.

X-O-Dus split in 1981 and 'English Black Boys' was not only their sole release on Factory, it was actually the band's only release of any kind until a compilation of unissued recordings appeared on the LTM label in 2012.

X-O-Dus - English Black Boys

Red Gold & Green #28 - Mikey Dread at the Controls

There we were, Dad and I, wandering around a school fete in Leytonstone forty nine years ago, when I spotted the Hackney Speedway stall tucked away in the corner of the playground. It was a tanner a go to sit on a bike and pretend for a moment to be a speedway rider. I joined the queue and waited my turn. A few minutes later as I sat in the saddle, oblivious to the hubbub around me, twisting the throttle and dreaming my dreams, a shutter clicked and, before I knew it, I was on the front page of the local newspaper. What can I say? It was a slow news week.

'African Anthem (The Mikey Dread Show Dubwise)' is an album I'd happily recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in reggae. The LP does what it says on the tin, it being a joyous studio recreation of Mikey's famous Jamaican Broadcasting Company radio show of the late 1970s, complete with a selection of his own unique madcap jingles. The music was written, arranged and produced by Mikey and features a veritable who's who of 70s reggae among the cast of players - Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Ansel Collins, King Tubby, Augustus Pablo and Vin Gordon all contribute. 'African Anthem' was released in 1979 and has undergone several reissues in the years since, the latest of which apparently adds another half a dozen tunes to the original, virtually perfect, ten track running order.

Dread at the Controls - Headline News

Red Gold & Green #27 - Kiddus I

When Frank Dowding embraced Rastafarianism in the early 1970s, he amended his name to Kiddus I, Amharic for 'blessed one', and between 1971 and 1978 was a member of  Ras Michael's Sons of Negus. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Kiddus recorded a number of solo singles, among them 'Graduation in Zion', which featured in the film 'Rockers'. During 1978 a handful of tunes were cut with Lee Perry at the controls, probably the best known of which is 'Security in the Streets'. The results of these sessions belatedly saw the light of day as 'Graduation in Zion 1978-80' in 2007, a worthy addition to any collection. After his brief period at the Black Ark, Kiddus continued to record for a number of other producers, before slipping from view at the beginning of the 1980s.  Here's my personal favourite of those precious few Scratch produced tunes.

Kiddus I - Crying Wolf

Red Gold & Green #26 - The Jolly Brothers

In the early 1980s, purely because I worked in a local record shop, I was offered the opportunity to host my own Hospital Radio show. Visions of being hailed as the new John Peel flowed through my mind and I readily accepted. When the day of my first show arrived, I headed off to the hospital with little preparation and no records. No need, I was told - the station had a bountiful supply of donated records, enough for a hundred shows. On arrival at the studio I was indeed greeted by a huge quantity of records...Manuel and the Music of the Mountains, Boxcar Willie, Val Doonican, Mantovani, James Last, Johnny Mathis, The Black & White Minstrels, Klaus Wunderlich you name them, they were all there on the shelves of a musical wall of horror. My heart sank.

Needless to say, from my second show onwards, I made greater preparations and took my own tunes. That first week, however, I went through every last record in the studio in an effort to find an hour's worth of broadcastable music - the pickings were very slim indeed. On-air, I mumbled and waffled from nerves and also to cover the fact that I had scarcely anything decent to play. Bizarrely and inexplicably however, I found a 7" single of The Jolly Brothers 'Conscious Man' in amongst all the dross. I played it instantly. Then I played the dub version on the b-side. Then I rambled on a bit about reggae in general, Lee Perry in particular and the Black Ark studio where the track was recorded in 1977...I might have even played the a-side again!

What the patients on the wards upstairs made of my efforts that day, or in the slightly more organised weeks and months that followed, is thankfully lost in the mists of time, but whenever I hear the distinctive, squelchy, #couldonlyhavecomefromtheblackark intro to 'Conscious Man' I'm transported back to that studio and the musical wall of horror.

Jolly Brothers - Conscious Man (12" Mix) 

The postscript to the story is that when I mentioned the Jolly Brothers 7" to the station controller, his reaction to it was much as mine was to the whole wall of horror! He told me to take the single home and keep it, on the grounds that it wasn't suitable for hospital radio and he had no idea where it came from. I couldn't do it though, even though I didn't then own a copy. I tucked it back into the middle of a pile of utterly naff singles in the hope that it would one day be re-discovered by a desperate DJ with similar tastes to my own. I wonder if it ever got another airing?

Red Gold & Green #25 - RIP Micheal Prophet

I just heard the sad news that the London based, Jamaican vocalist Michael Prophet passed away on Saturday, at the age of 60. Prophet's earliest sides were cut for producer Yabby You in 1977 and in a long career he also worked with the likes of Al Campbell, Sugar Minott, Winston 'Niney' Holness, and Winston Riley. Perhaps his most enduring recordings were those made for Henry 'Junjo' Lawes and released on Greensleeves at the very beginning of the 1980s.  Here's the full 12" version of Michael Prophet's best known song, 'Gunman', from 1981.

Michael Prophet - Gunman

Red Gold & Green #24 - Bunny Wailer

Following the 1973 release of their sixth LP, 'Burnin'', founding members Bunny Livingston and Peter Tosh left The Wailers, allowing Bob Marley to assume full control of the band and the rest, as they say, is history. Both Tosh and Livingston (trading as Bunny Wailer) issued debut solo albums in 1976 and Bunny continues to enjoy a successful career to this day. Tragically, Peter Tosh was brutally tortured and murdered in 1987. In a career as long as Bunny's, it's no surprise that the quality of his output has ebbed and flowed somewhat over the years, but you're on very safe ground with any one of his first half dozen LPs. 'Struggle' is the title track from his third, released in Jamaica in 1978 and to a wider world the following year.

We've got to stand as one 

 For together we are strong 

 Divided we're defeated 

 That's why we can't be separated 

 You've got to get involved 

 'Cause there's a problem to solve 

 Don't be no opportunist 

 Don't find yourself a racist 

Bunny Wailer - Struggle

Red Gold & Green #23 - Dadawah

Leading purveyors of the Nyabinghi sound, Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus have released at least 25 albums over the last 43 years, though early on in his career, Ras Michael (Michael Henry to his Mum) produced music under the Dadawah moniker. 1974's 'Peace & Love' consists of four extended trippy excursions, all of which were allegedly recorded and mixed by Henry and producer Lloyd Charmers during the course of a single long night. It's been claimed that this album is the closest reggae comes to psychedelia and that's a valid point of view - but it's a pretty darned funky LP too. Just listen to Lloyd Parks' bass as it anchors 'Seventy Two Nations'. Absolute bliss.

Dadawah - Seventy Two Nations

Red Gold & Green #22 - Ken Boothe

It's Mrs S's birthday. I'm writing this a few days ahead of time and we've not yet decided exactly what we're doing by way of celebration, but if I were a betting man I'd stick a fiver on it involving a coastal walk, a pub and a big plate of chips. We're easily pleased.

Here for Mrs S, on her special day, is her favourite song by her favourite reggae artist, Ken Boothe's 1973 cover of Syl Johnson's 'Is it Because I'm Black?'

Ken Boothe - Is It Because I'm Black?

Red Gold & Green #21 - The Dubwood Allstars

The mysterious Dubwood Allstars originally released 'Under Dubwood' in 2012 and I featured it on these very pages at the time. When a mash-up works it can be an utterly inspired thing and here is one such example - Richard Burton's narration of 'Under Milk Wood' is laid over King Tubby's 'Ali Baba' riddim with spine-tingling results. Now news reaches me that a third repress of this unique single will be made available on August 4th. Read all about it and / or order a copy here.

Red Gold & Green #20 - King Stitt

Winston Sparkes acquired the nickname 'King Stitt' in his youth, as a result of a pronounced stutter and later decided to adopt it as his stage name. In addition to the stutter, Stitt was born with a facial malformation, which led him to christen himself 'The Ugly One'. In spite of these setbacks, he became one of the most popular sound system deejays in Jamaica during the 1960s. After 10 years of live work, Stitt was offered the chance to make his own records by producer Clancy Eccles and a run of classic DJ cuts followed. If you know one King Stitt side it's probably the classic 'Fire Corner' released in 1969, but later that same year he teamed up with Lynford Anderson (a.k.a. Andy Capp) to record 'Herbsman Shuffle', a tune I've long been rather partial to.

King Stitt & Andy Capp - Herbsman Shuffle

Red Gold & Green #19 - Gregory Isaacs

Your humble author with his copy of 'Soon Forward', purchased 38 years ago

A couple of weeks ago, in the 17th instalment of this occasional dip into my reggae archive, I shone a light on The Voice of Thunder, Prince Far-I. Today we travel to the opposite end of the vocal spectrum to sample a tune from that sweetest of voices, The Cool Ruler himself, Gregory Isaacs.

In a career spanning over 40 years, Gregory Isaacs was a prolific recording artist and you're on pretty safe ground picking up absolutely anything you find by the great man from the 1970's up to and including 'Night Nurse' in 1982. Thereafter, his prodigious output continued, but, with the exception of one or two stand-out moments, the quality was never quite the same. It was a long and painful decline, exacerbated by health and drug dependency issues until lung cancer claimed his life in 2010. He was just 59.

Here's 'Soon Forward', the title track from Gregory's 1979 LP on Front Line Records. A sublime performance from an artist at the very top of his game.

Gregory Isaacs - Soon Forward

Red Gold & Green #18 - Pat Kelly

Your humble author with his battered copy of today's featured tune

While sitting in the pub one evening in early 1980, my best pal and I decided to form a band. We were young, idealistic and probably quite drunk. Quick as a flash, one of us produced a piece of paper upon which we jotted down the titles of a handful of songs that, in our highfalutin opinion, we deemed worthy for us to cover. 'Striving For the Right' by Pat Kelly was high on that list. Unfortunately the world was destined never to hear our version of this or any other song, as the band got no further than a few drunken boasts to friends about how truly great we were going to be. We had, of course, conveniently skirted round the crucial fact that neither of us owned, or could play, any instruments.

All these years later, 'Striving For the Right' is still a favourite of mine. A deceptively jaunty tune carrying a strikingly simple and timeless message.

Let us live in unity 

Don't go astray 

We all are striving for the right 

Not for wrong 

For the right 

Pat Kelly - Striving For the Right

Red Gold & Green #17 - Prince Far I

Thanks to a generous uploader, I managed to catch up up with the Don Letts autobiographical documentary, 'Dread Meets Punk Rockers' over the weekend. The film was originally broadcast in April on Sky Arts, but made a fleeting appearance on YouTube, before, unsurprisingly, being removed. Many of 'The Don's' stories of the Punk period may be familiar, though embellished by the copious Letts-shot film clips, took on much greater significance. Don and John Lydon smoking themselves into a stupor in Jamaica, an off duty Mick Jones looking a bit miserable at a party, Ari Up's unique and joyful dancing - and then there's the live footage. The Heartbreakers, The Damned, The Clash and, best of all in my opinion, a pair of sensational performances by Big Youth and Prince Far I. Is there more of this stuff Don? I'll get to Big Youth in due course, but for now, here's '354 Skank', a 1975 single from the mighty voice of thunder himself.

Prince Far I - 354 Skank

Red Gold & Green #16 / Version City #60 - Horace Andy sings The Clash

A newsflash guaranteed to make a few of us shuffle a little uncomfortably in our seats.........the debut LP by The Clash is 40 years old this weekend. So by way of a tribute to the only band that mattered, here's Horace Andy's 2016 cover of 'Straight to Hell', the centrepiece of 1982's 'Combat Rock'. If you'd like to compare and contrast, Swiss Adam recently shared the original longer unedited version of The Clash's last masterpiece here.

Horace Andy - Straight to Hell

Red Gold & Green #15 - Rico

Rico Rodriguez was famously adopted by the ska revival movement in the late 1970's, playing with The Specials and eventually releasing two albums under his own name on the 2-Tone label. Prior to that, by the time he recorded the excellent 'Man from Wareika' for Chris Blackwell's Island Records in 1976, Rico was already a 15 year veteran of the the UK ska and reggae circuit. The US release of the album made history by becoming the only reggae LP to be issued on Blue Note Records. A dub version of 'Man from Wareika' was released in 1977, though this has been tough to track down in recent years. In 2016 Island did the right thing and reissued both albums as a double CD with 14 bonus tunes from the period - it's a highly recommended set.

Rico - 'Man from Wareika'