The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer!----Part 30--Joe Gibbs All Stars

The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer is Singin Loud for All to Hear!


Joe Gibbs All Stars---We Three Kings

Trenchtown Comes to Bluff City: Toots Hibbert in Memphis!!!

Love and Happiness

I learned about Toots and the Maytals originally because of the Clash's stunning take on Pressure Drop, which can be found on "Black Market Clash", which contains a ton of great Clash material that never made an album. Pressure Drop was so amazing that I had to hear the original. The Clash knew what they were doing--not only were they performing a tremendous song, they had to know that they were also promoting some deserving artists. And Toots and the Maytals, they could and did make John Denver's Country Roads transcendent, changing West Virginia to West Jamaica.

And of course, it took about a minute for me to understand that Toots Hibbert is one of the great singers, and not just within the world of Reggae. So when I heard that he took a recording junket to Memphis with Sly & Robbie, I knew I had to get my hands on the record. Sometimes these collaborative sessions fall flat.
Music is quickly hashed together, egos clash. In the end, the finished product speaks for itself. And in the case of Toots In Memphis, things work out to great effect. It doesn't hurt having Jim Dickinson producing this little opus at Ardent Studios. We all know that the King called Memphis his home town, but when visiting Royalty comes from the Caribbean, it's time to roll out the red carpet and celebrate!

You have Toots performing with some serious Memphis session guys, with a Reggae rhythm session, covering a series of Soul classics. Though the first place to go is the classic Toots and the Maytals recordings, this is very very good stuff, extremely enjoyable. Everything works seamlessly. Of course Toots Hibbert is in fine voice here, because that's what he does, and that why he is so often compared to soul legends like Otis Redding. And the horns are a joy. If you can't appreciate the horn section here you should listen some more.

Here are the people behind the voice...
Sly Dunbar: Drums
Robbie Shakespeare: Bass
Mikey Chung: Guitar and Electric Piano
Teenie Hodges: Guitar
Eddie Hinton: Guitar
Larry McDonald: Percussion
Jim Dickinson: Hammond M100 and Roland D50
Andrew Love: Alto and Tenor Sax Solos
Joe Mulherin: Trumpet
Jim Spake: Saxophone
Gary Topper: Baritone Saxophone
William Brown: Background Vocals
Zabu: Background Vocals
Debra Hall: Background Vocals

Whew! Well sometimes it really does take a village...

The music is a bit of a hybrid, though overall it is more to the soul side than traditional reggae--with the beats it almost has a Neville Brothers edge to it. The bottom line is the sort of album that is guaranteed to put you in a happy mood. The album starts out with Otis Redding's I've Got Dreams To Remember, and then goes into a superb take on Knock On Wood (Eddie Floyd). One of my favorite cuts here.



He does a wonderful emotional take on James Carr's ballad Love Attack, another memorable vocal performance. Toots has an exuberant turn with The Spinner's It's A Shame. But my favorite moment is his high octane rendition of Redding's Hard To Handle. He sounds like he's really enjoying himself here, maybe almost as much as the listener. Another stellar cut here is Precious, Precious by Jackie Moore--I just loves the way he bends the notes like the master singer he is.



Of course I can't omit his Freedom Train, another great one of James Carr. An anthem for anyone who believes in human rights and justice. What more can I say? You've got to love this record.

Toots and the Maytals are still active today, and are on tour as I type, performing down in the Antipodes right now, and then its off to the US. If you can do it, make the effort and go see a legendary singer do his thing while you still can. If you love the punk rock, you should figure out quickly why so many British punk
bands loved Reggae.

Barack Starliner--Culture-Two Sevens Clash

Alone In The Wilderness
2077 Right Around The Corner

Two Sevens Clash is one of my favorite reggae albums. Simply put, a beautiful spiritual record with soaring harmonies and passionate testifying. All the Rastafari themes are here, being thrown out of Zion, being trapped in Babylon, the possibility of future redemption, fighting injustice, and other references to biblical prophecy. Also songs called for allegiance to Rastafari and defiance to those who opposed their beliefs. There was a feeling something portentous was going to happen the year when the "sevens clashed" in 1977. Apparently on July 7 of that year there were many apprehensive people in Jamaica who spent the day in their homes. For me 1977 is also a strong reference to the explosion of the British punk rock movement, which also embraced reggae.

This was the first album by Culture, led by lead singer Joseph Hill and Albert Walker and Kenneth Dayes.
First off is Get Ready To Ride The Lion to Zion, referring to Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, who stood fought to maintain the independence of his nation against colonialism. He became a messianic symbol for the Rastafari movement and is revered as such. Black Starliner Must Come is a reference to the boat that would return the lost tribe back to Mother Africa and the repatriation movement of Nationalist Marcus Garvey. The main song on the album is of course the title track the ominous Two Sevens Clash, Joseph Hill's prophetic vision of a pending judgement day. The song was a huge hit in Jamaica. Because the music connects on a personal level, coming from the perspective of an ordinary individual.

Of course recommending this album is a little silly, like me putting my 2 cents in for Rubber Soul, or Highway 61 Revisited. It's one of the greatest reggae discs ever, hope and joy mixing with sadness, suffering, and perseverance. The album is almost like a philosophical treatise or just a state of mind. I'm Alone in the Wilderness is another standout here, as is the defiant See Them A Come, the spirituality of Calling Rasta Far I, and the concluding track I'm Not Ashamed. Of course having Joseph Gibbs is singing lead is a huge recommendation in itself. You will be well rewarded by having this powerfully moving album in your personal collection.

I don't pretend for a second to be an expert in Rastafari or Reggae, but I do wonder whether Barack Obama's election as President would someday wind up as part of the tenets of the movement. After all, back in the thirties, Selassie fought off colonialism and oppression. Now the biggest power in the Western World has a man of African descent in charge, the first time this has happened in any First World nation. He's a guy working from the inside. I guess maybe we will just see how things play out. I consider him to be an intelligent man of high principles. This could all be a new omen. If he has the time, the opportunities, and good fortune, who knows, someday our President could one day become a revered figure in the Rastafari pantheon, from Hawaiian to Zion.

Salmonella Dub--Killervision--Ambient Psychedelic Reggae Synth Dub from New Zealand

This is a band whose name intrigued me, which is not really a good reason to go and purchase music. But they seemed to be held in some esteem in New Zealand so I took a shot. Developed a deep appreciation for this from the very beginning. Haven't listened to this much lately--but it is a well done record, sort of like a very eccentric version of the UK reggae band UB40, but with much more instrumental diversity and more interesting percussion.

I really like the loping reggae of the second song on the album For The Love Of It. The first song Dragon is pretty good, with a lot of tempo changes, but the second song is the first one that stands out for me. Dubby, a little psychedelic, with jazz interludes, Drifting is a good chill out of a song. What I found about this record is that for a type of music that can at times be repetitive, they do a good job of switching things up during songs, or at least introducing different instruments, so the songs stay interesting--like a good detective novel, you aren't always sure where things are going, and you look forward to seeing what they are going to do next. Ambience is also an important aspect of this record--I think that they must be sampling a lot of diverse sounds and putting them in the mix but I can only really hear how the whole mix comes together.

Crazy 80's is another dubby exercise, as you might expect of a band with the word dub in their name, and is a mostly trippy track with a driving synth bassline. Peyote Dub is another druggy vision quest of a track with effective use of flute. Deep into the song chanting voices come drifting in like a breeze wafting through the song. The record really is one of those where the sound makes my ears tingle. And like Wilco does with their music, I could see them taking a basic reggae song, demoing it, and then ripping it all apart, slicing and dicing, until you have a very different song. But underneath all the sonic experimentation and improvising, there is a really good song. No Worries 2000 sounds like London Calling meets Two Sevens Clash, apocalypse and steel drums. Savage is very nice, with kind of a funkier New Order vibe. Justice is a tense corker with snapshot percussion and funereal horns weaving in and out. The song Johnny sounds to me like a 2.0 update of Bob Marley's Johnny Was, but probably is so only in my own imagination.

Overall there is a spiritual feel to the whole album where you wonder whether the vocalists are chanting prayers or singing. A good album to relax to, to reflect a little--you don't have to be tripping or into crystals to enjoy this. It ends with Kaikoura Rim, an ambient tune which is basically the recording of waves crashing into the beach, which for this album seems to be an apt way to end the record. Definitely an interesting and creatively constructed record.