Alton Ellis

Those who know me, know that I've been on a reggae kick as of late. The whole genre is kind of new to me. I, like many people I believe, have never really given reggae a fair chance. All we know is Bob Marley. However, I knew that there was something good there, and so finally, thanks to the internet I'm slowly learning how amazing this stuff really is. That being said, one of my favorites I've discovered so far is Alton Ellis. He's considered the voice of rocksteady, and pretty much second only to ol' Bob as far as classic roots vocalists go. Check out some of the songs and then get any of the early albums--as is the case w/ pretty much all roots/reggae I've come across.

Songs of Alton Ellis



You might remember the guy from this youtube clip from my post on Edan. I'm currently checking to see what other videos he has done cause obviously he has good taste.

'Rocksteady' - alton ellis

Augustus Pablo - King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown

I just got this recently and have only listened to it a couple times, but as I drove to coach some hoops games in the middle of our latest snow flurry I became terribly anxious for my Hawaii trip next month and thought that this would do the trick for now. This albums is a collaboration between Augustus Pablo and King Tubby. King Tubby is a supposed godfather of dub music and for those of you (like me) who don't really know what that is let's consult wikipedia:

Dub is a form of music which evolved out of reggae in the 1960s. The dub sound consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, emphasizing the drum and bass frequencies or 'riddim', adding extensive echo and reverb effects, and dubbing occasional snippets of lyrics from the original version.

It is widely accepted that Jamaican musicians Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, and Lee "Scratch" Perry pioneered the style in the 1960s and early 1970s. Ruddock and Perry each called upon the mixing desk as an instrument, with the deejay or "selector" playing the role of the artist or performer. These early 'dub' examples can be looked upon as the prelude to many dance and pop music genres.

Today, the word 'dub' is used widely to describe the re-formatting of music of various genres into typically instrumental, rhythm-centric adaptations.

All that being said, here ya go:

Augustus Pablo

'Theremin'