Innovator, genius, forward thinker and trendsetter: there are few individuals who have stamped quite as unique a footprint onto the musical landscape as Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Instantly recognisable both for his appearance and his musical approach, he has become a legend in his own lifetime in the worlds of reggae and dub. Kiss Me Neck is an extensive, detailed and heavily illustrated guide to the records produced by Perry and those that hailed from his legendary Black Ark Studio.
Winner of the ARSC’s Award for Best Research (History) in Folk, Ethnic, or World Music (2008) When Jamaican recording engineers Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock, Errol Thompson, and Lee “Scratch” Perry began crafting “dub” music in the early 1970s, they were initiating a musical revolution that continues to have worldwide influence. Dub is a sub-genre of Jamaican reggae that flourished during reggae’s “golden age” of the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Dub involves remixing existing recordings—electronically improvising sound effects and altering vocal tracks—to create its unique sound. Just as hip-hop turned phonograph turntables into musical instruments, dub turned the mixing and sound processing technologies of the recording studio into instruments of composition and real-time improvisation. In addition to chronicling dub’s development and offering the first thorough analysis of the music itself, author Michael Veal examines dub’s social significance in Jamaican culture. He further explores the “dub revolution” that has crossed musical and cultural boundaries for over thirty years, influencing a wide variety of musical genres around the globe. Ebook Edition Note: Seven of the 25 illustrations have been redacted.
In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Included here are more than twenty original photographs as well as a meticulously annotated discography. The result is one of the most thoughtful, and most entertaining, investigations of contemporary music available today.
In this remarkable debut novel, a boy’s bittersweet passage to maturity and sexual awakening is set against escalating political tensions in Sri Lanka, during the seven years leading up to the 1983 riots. Arjie Chelvaratnam is a Tamil boy growing up in an extended family in Colombo. It is through his eyes that the story unfolds and we meet a delightful, sometimes eccentric cast of characters. Arjie’s journey from the luminous simplicity of childhood days into the more intricately shaded world of adults – with its secrets, its injustices, and its capacity for violence – is a memorable one, as time and time again the true longings of the human heart are held against the way things are.
A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.
“Reggae’s chief eyewitness, dropping testimony on reggae’s chief prophet with truth, blood, and fire.” —Marlon James, Man Booker Prize–winning author Renowned reggae historian Roger Steffens’s riveting oral history of Bob Marley’s life draws on four decades of intimate interviews with band members, family, lovers, and confidants—many speaking publicly for the first time. Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a “crucial voice” in the documentation of Marley’s legacy, Steffens spent years traveling with the Wailers and taking iconic photographs. Through eyewitness accounts of vivid scenes—the future star auditioning for Coxson Dodd; the violent confrontation between the Wailers and producer Lee Perry; the attempted assassination (and conspiracy theories that followed); the artist’s tragic death from cancer—So Much Things to Say tells Marley’s story like never before. What emerges is a legendary figure “who feels a bit more human” (The New Yorker).
"This memoir will go down as required reading in years to come." - Flea Market Funk, DJ Prestige "A remarkable, and still ongoing, journey." - The Daily Beast, Pat Meschino VP Records co-founder, and one of the reigning matriarchs of Reggae music, Patricia "Miss Pat" Chin, continues to lead the largest independent label and distributor of Caribbean music. Her energetic and engaging autobiography covers her family history, her relationship with her late husband Vincent Chin - and to Jamaica overall - her arrival in New York City in the late 70s, and of course her crucial role in the founding of VP Records. The book is packed with fantastic archival images spanning the emergence of Jamaican music as a cultural force in the 1950s up until today, bringing Miss Pat's revelatory memoir to life. Perspectives from business people, politicians, and musicians including Chris Blackwell (founder of Island Records), Edward Seaga (Former prime minister of Jamaica), singer Marcia Griffiths, and Lee "Scratch" Perry further light up the amazing story of Miss Pat's life and experiences.
A history of Jamaica's contribution to world culture--reggae--traces the history of the form from African rhythms to the slums of Kingston and the international recording industry.
This history of reggae music covers from the Jamaican R and B and Calypso of the post-war years, to the surge of interest in the 1990s. As well as tracing the musical history, this book explains the historical and social background which are crucial to the understanding of its development. There are four main centres, in chronological order - Jamaica, London, New York and Toronto.
"’Reggae got soul,’ Toots Hibbert sang in one of his best-known songs, and Kim Gottlieb-Walker's remarkable photographs coax that soul out of shadow and light. Her images from Jamaica capture the rough environment that shaped and challenged these artists, and the unquenchable joy that filled their music. They're the next-best thing to listening.” — Richard Cromelin During 1975 and 1976, renowned underground photo-journalist Kim Gottlieb, and her husband, Island publicity head Jeff Walker, documented what is now widely recognized as the Golden Age of reggae. Over two years of historic trips to Jamaica and exclusive meetings in Los Angeles, Kim took iconic photographs of the artists who would go on to define the genre and captivate a generation. Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae features candid and intimate photographs of all of the musicians, artists and producers who brought the reggae sound to the international stage, including Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Toots Hibbert, Burning Spear, Jacob Miller, Third World, Lee “Scratch” Perry and, of course, Bob Marley. Kim’s photographs include never-before-seen performance shots, candid behind-the-scenes footage of Bob’s home in Jamaica, and exclusive records of key moments in reggae history, such as Bob’s first US television appearance, the historical Dream Concert with Stevie Wonder in Jamaica, and Bob meeting George Harrison backstage at the Roxy in 1975. Acclaimed rock journalist and director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) introduces this volume with a rousing foreword describing the time he accompanied Jeff and Kim to Jamaica to witness the burgeoning music scene there. Reggae historian Roger Steffens writes lucidly about the significance of those early years in reggae, and describes the pivotal moments documented in Kim’s photographs, many of which have not been seen in over 30 years, and many more of which have never been released to the public. Intimate and revealing, Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae is a rare and beautiful record of one of the most exciting moments in music history, told through the photographs of a true artist.
