Old School Dubbers

The Abyssinians

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The vocal trio was originally formed in 1968 by Bernard Collins and Donald Manning. Their first song was "Satta Massagana", which was strongly influenced by Carlton's "Happy Land". "Satta Massagana" is a Rastafarian hymn sung partly in the ancient Ethiopian Amharic language. They recruited a third vocalist, who was still at school and often unable to attend rehearsals; He was soon replaced by Donald's brother Lynford Manning, who had previously been a member of their brother Carlton Manning's group Carlton and The Shoes.


"Satta Massagana" was first recorded for producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd in March 1969, but he decided against releasing it, seeing no commercial potential for what he saw as a song constituting cultural subversion. In 1971, the group purchased the master tapes from Dodd for 90 pounds and released it on their own Clinch label, the single becoming a massive success, prompting Dodd to release his own instrumental and deejay versions. The group released further takes on the song on Clinch by Tommy McCook, Big Youth, and Dillinger, as well as their own "Mabrak", featuring the group reciting passages from the Old Testament. It has since been recorded by dozens of artists. The group's second release, "Declaration of Rights", featured Leroy Sibbles on backing vocals, and like their first was a huge hit in Jamaica, (and subsequently in the international market) and has been covered several times since. Their 1973 single "Y Mas Gan" was similar to "Satta" in its use of Amharic.


The group continued to record throughout the 1970s for producers including Lloyd Daley, Tommy Cowan, and Geoffrey Chung, and their debut album, Forward on to Zion was produced by Clive Hunt and released in 1976. The follow-up, Arise (1978) was recorded under stressful conditions with internal rivalries threatening to break up the group, and after the album's release, Collins left the band, to be eventually replaced by Carlton Manning. This line-up performed at the 1979 Reggae Sunsplash festival, but split up the following year.


Donald Manning had a brief solo career in the early 1980s, in which he recorded as Donald Abyssinian.
Bernard Collins launched his own version of the group in the late 1980s, with two versions of the group existing for a time. The original line-up reunited in 1998 and went on to record new material, including the singles "African Princess" and "Swing Low" and the album Reunion, although Collins was not involved in songwriting at this time. Collins left again in 1999 and released material as Bernard Collins & the Abyssinians, releasing an album the same year.

 


 

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@aswadband has a youtube channel now

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Aswad continue their video blog ahead of their new single "City Lock' (out on the 19th of April) with a chat about their musical roots and inspirations.

This is a link to their YouTube channel. You should subscribe.


 

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Soliders of Jah Army

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SOJA perform Saturday October 17 at the Howlin Wolf in NOLA.
They will be supported by
The Movement , The Live Oaks and 27 Lights

The saga of SOJA is the kind that you like to hear as a fan of their Genre. Some of the members of the band have known each other since grade school. All of the band has collectively sought to discover the deeper roots in music, which is often missed in the mainstream. A quote from the band's website from the lead singer Jacob states, “We loved rock and hip hop, but there was something missing in the message. Even with our favorite artists, you would get one song that hit home and touched you, then three that were about nothing. With our favorite artists in the reggae genre, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, they were singing about something beautiful that truly mattered in every song. We never really got over it.”

Aspiring to discover "something beautiful" in their own music has united the band for many years. They have gone further to try to tell the American story using the Jamaican art form. By staying true to this mission the band has had seven releases, mostly on their own label. The band describes their most recent album "Born in Babylon" as the album that they have been wanting to release for ten years.

The Howlin Wolf is very excited to have SOJA perform Saturday October 17. They will be supported by The Movement , The Live Oaks and 27 Lights. It will surely be a great show.

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Coxsone Dodd

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One of reggae's most important and prolific producers, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd was a towering figure in the genre's development, from both creative and business standpoints. Like Motown's Berry Gordy, Dodd set up a streamlined, highly professional hit factory at his Studio One facility, recording vast amounts of music for his label of the same name. Like James Brown, Dodd mapped out a rhythmic blueprint that future generations would rely heavily upon; just as hip-hoppers sampled Brown's beats to death, countless dancehall producers lifted and reused (or "versioned") Dodd's rhythm tracks for their own records. Dodd was present at the genesis of Jamaican popular music, evolving from a DJ to a sound-system entrepreneur to a producer to the first black studio owner in Jamaica. In the meantime, he kept his finger on the pulse of popular taste, watching the music evolve from ska to rocksteady to reggae proper, and maintaining a crack studio band that changed with the times; most reggae aficionados tend to agree that his best work came during the rocksteady era of the '60s. Although haphazard documentation makes it difficult to know exactly how many records Dodd produced, it's generally acknowledged that he worked with nearly every major reggae star of the early days at one point or another, including the first recordings by Bob Marley & the Wailers. He also served as a mentor for future production wizards like Lee "Scratch" Perry and Winston "Niney" Holness, among others who apprenticed at Studio One. All in all, it's well nigh impossible to find another behind-the-scenes figure who exerted as much influence on reggae, over such a tremendous period of time, as Coxsone.

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The return of Pipecock Jackxon

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Lee “Scratch” Perry Sets the Record (Kind of) Straight

EP: You were instrumental in the creation of dub. What do you see as the future for thealt genre?

LSP: Dub music is more fun. And why dub makes it more fun is that, when I go to the studio, I want to find a great bass player and drummer — that’s the foundation of the music itself. The drum loop represents the heartbeat. The bass represents the mind. So, you put the mind and the heart together, and your mind and your heart are the creation of everything. Dub is the foundation for the creation of music.

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