It’s Reggae Month in the UK! No, I don’t know why either. Still, any excuse to bring out those old Trojan & Greensleeves compilations.
Normally, in my house and car, the reggae season begins as soon as the temperature moves into the 20s, the sun is shining, and the windows can be opened without a snow drift appearing in one’s lap.
I’m old fashioned. The misogyny, violence and homosexual bashing that accompanies much of latter day reggae, especially ‘Dancehall’ is at best, very sad, and at worst, a disgrace to the peaceful intentions of the pioneers (and The Pioneers, as it happens) of reggae from the 1960s and 70s.
The breakthrough singles for reggae in the UK, ‘Young, Gifted and Black’, ‘Montego Bay’ and ‘Double Barrel’ brought a sense of mystery and excitement to the top forty charts in the early 70s. As a teenager caught halfway between the hippie era fleeing over the hill and the punk rock circus not yet in town, reggae was my natural home. Rebellious, but not too scary for a white boy from Middlesex.
As the local record stores only stocked the hit singles, I soon learned that to increase my reggae knowledge and record collection, I would have look further afield than W.H. Smith & Son in Staines.
Strummer may have been the white man in Hammersmith Palais; I was the very pale face in Daddy Kool Records in Dean Street, Soho. I realised the only way to overcome the 1972 awkwardness of being a long haired, white teenager in a tiny shop full of dreadlocked Rastafarians was to stride boldly to the counter and hand over my list with a self-enforced confidence. Initially, I was met with some patronising comments and asked, rather hurtfully I felt, if I didn’t want to be in the Virgin Store up the road on Oxford Street. I don’t think I ever quite overcame the mild reverse racism, but as my visits increased, I was at least met with a smile, as the assistant muttered that they didn’t have half of the records I sought.
There was something glorious about those imported 7” singles from Jamaica. Yes, ‘the 1970s never been anywhere’ glamour of knowing they had come all the way from Kingston, but additionally it was the tactile experience of the weighty vinyl, the lack of a ‘middle’, the off centre printing of the label (and sometimes the off centre pressing of the record) that was so very distant from the Porky Prime Cut thin, plastic-y, vinyl of British records.
Sometimes I chose these Jamaican plates of vinyl purely on the name of the singer or group; Burning Spear, Big Youth, Junior Murvin – their names sounded like they would be a good bet.
Dub. I liked the idea of dub, and again, the names were exotic, and such a selection process rarely let me down; King Tubby, Augustus Pablo – I found them both through this random process, and immediately fell for these new bass-heavy sounds.
Lovers Rock, One Drop, Roots, and Rockers Reggae, I loved them all.
Wandering through Harlesden today, and remembering gigs at the Roxy and the Coliseum; singing Police and Thieves in my head, I stumbled across a lovely piece of synchronicity, as I noticed, in a shop window, a flyer for a Millie Jackson gig at the Brixton O2 – supporting artists are Ken Boothe, Maxi Priest, and Marcia Griffith. When I returned home, I tried on my Trojan Records t-shirt from 1974.
No. Of course it didn’t fit.
You may wish to sample our ten track Spotify Roots Reggae selection
If you like any of the sounds you hear, consider checking out the BBC’s Reggae Britannia season on BBC4, which includes a movie in which I make the most fleeting of all fleeting appearances as an extra.
This week I have:
Had lunch in what used to be the Wimpy Bar in Harlesden, and sat at the same table where I bought lunch for an impoverished member of the 101ers in 1975. Including that bendy frankfurter.
Read ‘I, Me Mine’, the disappointing George Harrison ‘autobiography’.
Watched a couple of rather terrifying fellows having a fight in My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.
Noticed that Giles Coren looks rather grumpy when walking in the London rain.
Terence Dackombe, February 2011
