Phillis Dillon - One Life To Live

In a male-dominated genre, female singers are a breath of fresh air. Phillis Dillon, alongside Marcia Griffiths, are queens of their craft, but the real highlight of female reggae singers has got to be Susan Cadogan's ''Hurt So Good'' recorded with Lee ''Scratch'' Perry would be in my opinion would be Perry's greatest ever track. Lee Perry had the magic to layer piano sounds, rather than guitar, onto a track and cover it with his Space Echo, which has been discussed before as a combination of delay and reverb. Perry's track incorporate ''riddims'' and his signature sound as found on the Congos' release Heart Of The Congos has got this primarily piano ''riddim'' and they use various sound effects and space echo to build this wall of sound. Perry is the Spector of reggae you could say.

Derrick Morgan - In London

Not only did the Skatalites play on every record in the ska era, they most certainly would have barely been paid much at all. As highlighted in the film The Harder They Come, Jamaican musicians were often much neglected and the record label would most often be corrupt. For a young up-and-coming musician, life was tough. They were barely paid, and the music was a big part of Jamaican life and culture. In fact, the statistic of people emigrating to England from Jamaica, a fair selection of them wrote down as their profession being a musician. It is probably something like one in four people, a huge number. But then Jamaica is a third world country. Reggae in England is often synonymous with the punk scene, as punks in England had not recorded any music up until nineteen seventy-six or thereabouts, so the music they listened and played along to was, in fact, reggae music, thus The Clash having this massive reggae edge. 

Derrick Morgan - Moon Hop

Rumour has it that there is one band that played on every ska track, and that band is the Skatalites. They played under many aliases over hundreds of recordings. Roland Alphonso is the saxophonist and Don Drummond the trombonist. Drummond is considered as one of the greatest trombonists to ever live and his life marred with tragedy. He developed a fierce hatred of white men and often spat on them in the street. He drifted into mental illness and murdered his girlfriend and spent the rest of his life in a mental asylum after the police cracked down on the music scene it is believed. Many people in the scene believe Drummond was fine. It is a peculiarity of the Jamaican music scene and enigma involving one of the finest trombonists to ever grace the planet.

Black Uhuru - Red

Anyone who is interested in the life of Bob Marley should watch the documentary Marley by Kevin Macdonald. It tells the remarkable story of Marley from his humble beginnings in rural Jamaica, where his father was a white English cotton farmer and being half white, Bob was subject to bullying. He survived assassination attempts and was a massive football fan and believed football was true freedom, so much so that playing in his spare time he cut his foot when he was not wearing any sufficient footwear, and this cut got infected and had to travel to Europe for treatment. His friends and colleagues thought everything would be fine and Jah would look after Marley but it was not to be. Marley also economically looked after poor families from Kingston and was a devout socialist.

The Ethiopians - Engine 54

Reggae is not one style of music, sure there are similarities like the emphasis on the off-beat, but it is an amalgamation of styles, including mento, which is more traditional and there is ska which is faster incorporating horns. Later there was more synthesizer but some of the early dancehall sounds used an organ, not keyboards, which is later the sound of raggamuffin. Some more noticeable aspects of reggae have been afro-centric lyrics, which is heavily inspired by Rastafarianism. There is an acknowledgement of figures like Marcus Garvey who did some miraculous feats like buy an entire cruise ship to return his people back to Africa. This is absolutely true and Garvey was charged with attempting to sell stocks of a ship he did not own. This was all attempt to thwart the efforts of a black liberation movement.

Fat Freddy's Drop - Based On A True Story

These bringers of splendid grooves really lit up the Odeon theatre Hobart when they played here earlier in the year. They have no conventional rhythm section and just rely on someone with a turntable. I was standing there thinking, this is too good to be true. I was hoping they would have an encore. No band has ever impressed me so much that I did not want them to finish and go on longer. They did play for about 2-3 hours and their performance was immense. The trombonist could charge a small village with his efforts emitted. They are just a very soulful and jazz-inspired dub jam collective from Aotearoa. Their music is drawn out over several minutes and they keep the groove motoring on.

Various Artists - Stirring Up Some Ska: The Original Sound Of UK Club Land

Prince Buster features on this compilation and on the front cover, a massive influence on the ska revival of two-tone later on in the UK. Prince Buster was openly Muslim and spent a lot of his free time helping out at his local Mosque. If I had to pick a favourite reggae musician, it would be Prince Buster. I spent a long time listening to him on my travels around Italy. His music hasn't aged a day. It is still fresh, funny and simple. He is known to have plenty of horns in his music and incredible vocals. The day Prince Buster died was when ska died, as he passed in 2016.