Reggae / Dub / Ska

Peter Broggs (born Henry James in 1954 in Hanover Parish, Jamaica[1]) is a Jamaican reggae musician. He is a successful artist in Jamaica and well known in the international reggae scenes.

Around the beginning of the 1970s, he decided to move away from the country and find work in the city areas. There he found work, and found himself among reggae artists and musicians such as Gregory Isaacs, Bingy Bunny, Errol Holt and others who worked in the Jamaican music industry at the time.

Peter Broggs sang and recorded sporadically during the 1970s, and his music was mostly about the Rastafari movement. One song recorded at this time was "Jah Golden Throne", recorded at the Channel One Studios and King Tubby studios, and released in the UK on the short-lived Selena imprint in 1980.

Broggs suffered a stroke on August 27, 2004, and this left him paralyzed on the right side and hardly able to speak.[citation needed] The album Igzabihir Yakal was released in 2005; the album has been recorded with Dubcreator at the DC Studio for sound system team King Shiloh in Amsterdam in 2002 and the profit from this album went to help pay Broggs' medical bills

The Gladiators are a Jamaican roots reggae band, most popular during the 1970s. The core was Albert Griffiths (guitarist and singer),Clinton Fearon (bassist and singer) and Gallimore Sutherland rhythm guitar and singer. The two most famous albums are Trenchtown Mix Up (1976) and Proverbial Reggae (1978) with songs as "Hearsay", "Jah Works", "Dreadlocks the Times is Now". "Mix Up", "Music Makers from Jamaica", and "Soul Rebel" – a song written by The Wailers. Gladiators also cooperated with the toaster U-Roy.

With a career spanning four decades, Misty in Roots are one of England’s finest reggae groups. The band was one of the most powerful live reggae acts to emerge from 1970s London, and they were a major force in the Rock Against Racism movement.

Rooted in reggae, his music developed in later years in many directions, combining influences from all around the world, notably India. Sherman was also hailed as "reggae's sweetest voice". Bim Sherman was gifted with a haunting, ethereal voice that reached into the very heart of his listeners. In the mid 1970s he recorded a small body of classic roots tunes as a young struggling singer in Jamaica. He later moved to London where, as part of the post-punk reggae infatuation, he made a name for himself recording with Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sound label. He became part of various musical collectives associated with On-U Sound, such as New Age Steppers (alongside Ari Up, formerly of The Slits), Singers And Players (with Congo Ashanti Roy and the late Prince Far-I ), Dub Syndicate and Justice League of Zion.

Vivian Jackson (14 August 1946 – 12 January 2010),[1] better known as Yabby You (or sometimes Yabby U), was a reggae vocalist and producer, who came to prominence in the early 1970s through his uncompromising, self-produced work.

Coming out of the late 1970s with a harder twist to the vocal trio format, Israel Vibration used dissonant singing to get their socially conscious message across. Having met as sufferers at a polio institute, this trio knew what the hard life was about, often coming on stage with a variety of canes and crutches. Their capable backing is usually provided by the impressive Dub ensemble, ..Roots Radics.., who lay down heavy rhythms for the sad falsetto harmonies and Bob Marley-like lead vocals. ..Is Vibes.. or I-Vibes (as they are known to staunch supporters) have one of the best live shows around, thoroughly entrancing their ganja-loving audience with tales of ..Jah, unity and culture.., tightly packaged in one of reggae's most haunting trinities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Miller wrote:Jacob Miller (May 4, 1952 – March 23, 1980)^[1] was a Jamaican reggae artist, who first recorded with Clement Dodd. While pursuing a prolific solo career, he became the lead singer for reggae group Inner Circle with whom he recorded until his death in a car accident at the age of 27.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Uhuru wrote:Black Uhuru are a Jamaican reggae group formed in 1972, initially as Uhuru (Swahili for 'freedom'). The group has undergone several line-up changes over the years, with Derrick "Duckie" Simpson as the mainstay. They had their most successful period in the 1980s, with their album Anthem winning the first ever Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in 1985.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Head_Charge wrote:African Head Charge is a dub reggae, psychedelic dub ensemble active since the early 1980s. The group was formed by percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah, and featured a revolving cast of members, including, at times, Prisoner, Crocodile, Junior Moses, Sunny Akpan, Skip McDonald, and Jah Wobble. The group released most of its albums on Adrian Sherwood's label, On-U Sound. [1]
Many of their early albums have been re-released as double albums on CD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Pablo wrote:Horace Swaby (June 21, 1954 – May 18, 1999),[1] known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer, melodica player and keyboardist, active from the 1970s onwards. He popularized the use of the melodica (an instrument at that time primarily used in Jamaica to teach music to schoolchildren) in reggae music. He was a committed Rastafarian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linton_Kwesi_Johnson wrote:Linton Kwesi Johnson (aka LKJ) (born in Jamaica, 24 August 1952) is a UK-based dub poet. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black poet, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series.[1][2] His performance poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican Patois over dub-reggae, usually written in collaboration with renowned British reggae producer/artist Dennis Bovell. His middle name, "Kwesi", is a Ghanaian name that is given to boys who - like Johnson - are born on a Sunday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_(band) wrote:The group formed in 1976 as the vocal trio of Joseph Hill (formerly a percussionist in Studio One house band the Soul Defenders), his cousin Albert "Ralph" Walker, and Roy "Kenneth" Dayes, initially using the name The African Disciples.[1] They soon changed name to Culture, and auditioned successfully for the "Mighty Two" – producer Joe Gibbs and engineer Errol Thompson.[1] While at Gibbs' studio, they recorded a series of powerful singles, starting with "See Dem a Come" and including the hugely successful "Two Sevens Clash" (which predicted the apocalpyse on 7 July 1977), many of which ended up on their debut album Two Sevens Clash.[2][3][4] The song was sufficiently powerful that many in Kingston stayed indoors on 7 July, fearing that the prophecy would come true.[5] A second Gibbs-produced album, Baldhead Bridge, followed in 1978, by which time the group had moved on to record for producer Sonia Pottinger.[2] The group entered into a long-running dispute with Gibbs over royalties to the first album.

Two Sevens Clash meanwhile had become a big seller in the United Kingdom, popular with punk rock fans as well as reggae fans and boosted by the support of John Peel on his BBC Radio 1 show, and reached number 60 on the UK Albums Chart in April 1978.[5][6][7] This prompted Virgin Records to sign the group to its Front Line label, releasing Harder than the Rest (1978) and International Herb (1979).[1] Culture also released records on other labels in Jamaica, including a dub version of Harder than the Rest (Culture in Dub (1978, High Note)) and an album of different mixes of the same album (Africa Stand Alone (1978, April)).[1] An album recorded for Pottinger in 1979 with a working title of Black Rose remained unreleased until tracks emerged in 1993 on Trod On.[1]

Culture performed at the One Love Peace Concert in 1978.[6]

In 1981 the three singers went their own ways.[8] Hill carried on using the Culture name, and recorded the Lion Rock album, which was reissued in the United States by Heartbeat Records.[1] Hill and his new band recorded a session for long time supporter John Peel in December 1982, and the group went on to record further studio sessions for Peel in 1998 and 2002, and their performance at the Royal Festival Hall in July 1998 was broadcast on his show.[9] For their part, Walker and Dayes recorded a handful of songs on their own – a few of which turned up on an album titled Roots & Culture. Hill performed at the Reggae Sunsplash festival in 1985 and in 1986 the original line-up reformed to record two highly regarded albums – Culture in Culture and Culture at Work.[1]

Several album followed in the 1990s on Shanachie Records and Ras Records, often recorded with Sly and Robbie, with Dayes leaving the group again around 1994, with Reginald Taylor replacing him.[1][10][11]

By 2001 Telford Nelson had replaced Taylor.[12][13]

Joseph Hill, who came to symbolize the face of Culture, died in Berlin, Germany on 19 August 2006 while the group was on tour, after collapsing following a performance.[14] His son, Kenyatta Hill, who had acted as the group's sound engineer on tour, performed with his father's band at the Western Consciousness show in 2007, which was dedicated to Joseph Hill, and became the lead singer of Culture; Walker and Nelson continue to provide backing vocals.[15][16][17]

In 2011, Live On was released, featuring Kenyatta's performances of his father's songs such including "Two Sevens Clash" and "International Herb".[17]

Critically considered one of the most authentic traditional reggae acts, at the time of the first Rolling Stone Record Guide publication, they were the only band of any genre whose every recording received a five-star review (of bands with more than one recording in the guide).[citation needed]