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The Reggae Thread


Reggaebass

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3 hours ago, durhamboy said:

The Dubbeez and some Australian Reggae.

 

 

Great ones durhamboy, I don’t know much about the Dubbeez, I looked them up once when I saw this a few years ago and I really liked the bass playing by Olivia Davina 

 

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On ‎22‎/‎08‎/‎2020 at 14:10, Nail Soup said:

Under Me SlengTeng - Wayne Smith. Widely acknowledged as the first all-electronic reggae song - 1984.

What do you think of the song... what do you think of the shift to electronics in reggae?

To answer my own question.........

A lot of electronic reggae sounds really good.

Normally I can see/understand how different musical genres have progressed over time, but it's pretty hard to see how reggae morphed into dancehall.... reggae was based on some pretty nuanced musicianship, and dancehall was based on some pretty crude electronics, without subtle timings and dynamics.

However, dancehall worked and created some good sounds. I just can't quite see it as part of the reggae story somehow!

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21 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

but it's pretty hard to see how reggae morphed into dancehall

I started playing around 1978 and the music then was pretty heavy dub , what I would call roots/ rockers reggae, then around 82-83 the the music mellowed a bit to more dance hall style when clubs like ,The Four Aces in Dalston started playing more by people like, Barrington levy, Gregory Isaacs, Don Carlos, Bunny Wailer, Burning Spear, Peter Tosh,  And also quite a bit of lovers rock was being played more by people like, Jean Adebambo, Louisa Mark, Janet Kay, Carroll Thompson . Then around the mid  80s the more heavy dub was only being played in a few clubs I went to,  and bands like,  Aswad, Dennis Brown , ub40 were pretty popular. Synth Basslines wasn’t heard of in my youth, I know what you’re saying though Nail Soup, what is considered dancehall now isn’t what I knew it as , and I’ve noticed a few older reggae artists like Lutan Fyah, are using a lot more electronics in their music now , and I must admit I do flip past a lot of the new electronic reggae 🙂

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3 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

To answer my own question.........

A lot of electronic reggae sounds really good.

Normally I can see/understand how different musical genres have progressed over time, but it's pretty hard to see how reggae morphed into dancehall.... reggae was based on some pretty nuanced musicianship, and dancehall was based on some pretty crude electronics, without subtle timings and dynamics.

However, dancehall worked and created some good sounds. I just can't quite see it as part of the reggae story somehow!

I don't think the transition is any stranger than other genres, especially heavier rock - the heavily scooped and quantized sound of bands like Cradle of Filth compared to Led Zeppelin/Black Sabbath, modern dance music's evolution from 70's disco (or even disco's transition from funk), all show exactly the same changes you highlight here.

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Reggae's influence is somewhat different from reggae's evolution (which I don't have the experience to analyse). This one is somewhere in an outer orbit of planet reggae. For something a little different, only spend the next 4m 20s of your life listening to this if you are open to a reggae influenced modern rendering of a medieval melody, with latin lyrics, something resembling a slap bass solo (what!), and some spooky whispering thrown in too... This is Adaro with "Mariam Matrem (Radio Edit)":

 

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On 28/08/2020 at 16:48, Reggaebass said:

For any Bob Marley fans there’s a program on BBC2 on Saturday night at 21.45 called , When Bob Marley came to Britain ☝️

Watched my recording last night... enjoyable program, some of it was old news, but enough new stuff in there.

Particularly like the contributions from 'members of the public'. However I think they could have cut the awkward meet-up scene between the 3 old schoolmates of the school where Bob played, and cut straight to the other scenes with them in!

Was funny that one guy billed them as Bob Marley and the Whalers! Just shows how they weren't that well known in the UK early on!

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I noticed this the other night on one of those BBC compilation programmes - this one was on reggae at the BBC - it's Dave and Ansell Collins with their no 1 hit on TOTP in 1971, Double Barrel, when their fan base would have ranged from West Indian, to first generation skinheads, to townies (previously mods) and teeny boppers. 

Of great interest is the bass guitar - a fiesta red pre CBS Jazz with matching headstock, mint scratch plate and a very dark rosewood board - at one point in the video you can see the battered bottom edge of the lower horn showing what appears to be white paint - interestingly a very similar indeed Jazz with similar damaged paintwork with the same colour under was at Andy Baxters for some while a couple of years back - I wonder if it was the same one? 

https://youtu.be/UQNPiUuU58Y

Edited by drTStingray
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8 hours ago, drTStingray said:

Of great interest is the bass guitar - a fiesta red pre CBS Jazz with matching headstock, mint scratch plate and a very dark rosewood board -

I noticed that jazz  drT, if it was the same one that Andy Baxter had I would have thought it would be worth quite a bit more because of the history, do you think. 

I also noticed on the Bob Marley program that Aston Barrett was playing a P bass, I’ve only ever know him to play a jazz 🙂

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6 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

I noticed that jazz  drT, if it was the same one that Andy Baxter had I would have thought it would be worth quite a bit more because of the history, do you think. 

I also noticed on the Bob Marley program that Aston Barrett was playing a P bass, I’ve only ever know him to play a jazz 🙂

I'm not sure re the change in value - it certainly wasn't priced or referred to with that history - but would it increase value that much unless played by someone extremely  famous - it struck me as an odd coloured bass for a reggae band!! The drummer on that was Sly Dunbar (one of his first appearances). 

I also noticed the Precision being played by Aston Barratt - interesting one of the guitarists had got pink spot stickers all round the outside edge of his apparently pristine Les Paul!! In fact most of the reggae band musicians appeared to have odd things attached to the instruments (eg a large pink hair scrunchy fixed on a headstock, stickers on guitars being very popular). I wonder if the Precision was a loan instrument? 

Family Man is also shown playing through an Acoustic 370/301 set up - seemingly the rig of choice for some R and B or a reggae players of the period (I had one of these but not till the late 70s - mine originated with the band Mud)! 

On the reggae programme I watched, the guy in Steel Pulse is shown playing a very smart natural finish Stingray - but Jazzes seem to have been the popular choice for reggae bands 👍

 

Edited by drTStingray
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