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Two sides of rare, body-rocking rocksteady lit up by Linval Martin’s personable singing, and the sweet, warm close harmonies of Hyacinth McKenzie and co, behind him.
Party music for sufferers, Count Ossie style: deep, spiritual and hurt, but still up for it.
Plus a sensational nyabinghi version of Miriam Makeba’s massive Pata Pata, with Patsy pon mic.
Neglected, stunning, mystical Upsetters roots — with scrumptiously extended trombone — first released in Amsterdam on Henk Targowski’s Black Art imprint (bundled with special mixes of Cane River Rock and Dread Lion).
Curtis Mayfield, every way but loose. A version of The Impressions’ classic marks PK’s first recording with Bunny Lee; and Glen Adams moodily rides the same rhythm Lee used for Slim Smith’s cover of Gypsy Woman, on the flip.
The Blues Buster showing his gospel roots in this superb, soaring version of the Sam Cooke, with support from Bobby Aitken and the Carib Beats.
Backed with some bumptious ska, led by Val Bennett.
Easy-squeeze, rocking steady loveliness from 1968.
A deadly, zonked Soul Syndicate excursion on Westbound Train, with Keith Hudson as the Fat Controller. Introducing a young LT — his first recording, he says — stylistically indebted to Dennis Brown.
Killer roots detournement of Georgia Turner‘s dread blues about a New Orleans brothel, to the tune of a seventeenth-century English folk song, by way of Bob Dylan, Nina Simone and The Animals.
Bunny Gale revives another folk song on the flip — Dead Man’s Chest — via The Viceroys’ classic Studio One outing.
More crucial Keith Hudson runnings, courtesy of Dub Store in Tokyo.
Sweet rocksteady lovers, rather impassively worried about being apart for a while; plus the Supersonics’ slinky, tiptoe classic Our Man Flint (nodding to James Coburn’s piss-take of 007, just then arriving in Kingston cinemas).
Two Duke Reids: hard-swinging, emotionally distressed rocksteady from Mr Soul Of Jamaica himself, down on his knees, hand on heart; and a terrific version of Gene Chandler’s Duke Of Earl on the flip.
Flexidisc.
A locomotive Ben E. King cover and some wistful Deadly Headley. Derrick’s singing is clear as a bell; Striker Lee works the throttle. One to stick next to DM’s Seven Letters.
Ace organ-driven rocksteady cut of Love Is A Message, recorded at Treasure Isle on Bunny Lee’s ticket, by youngsters Jacob Miller, Lawrence Weir and Lassive Jones aka Delroy Melody.
They were going by the name The Young Lads, but Jones remembers Striker’s strong advice: “there are too much Lads group, you boys are going to school, you boys are School Boys.”
Scorcher. One megaton of Hudson dread; pure reggae noir.
The mix is quite different to Flesh Of My Skin.
Definitively presented at last (after some dire bootlegs), by Dub Store in Tokyo.