Dub reggae is a special thing to me. It's not a sub genre people recognize all that much, because it was always too psychedelic to get a huge following. If you've heard of it but still don't quite know what it is, it's best described as a fusion of roots reggae with technology that remixes it in such a way that the bass is the most important element in the mix. After it's invention in the early seventies, artists like Lee "Scratch" Perry and King Tubby, made all of their output dubbed out, and when they produced other artists (Perry produced Bob Marley and the Wailers and other luminaries) they made a normal version for the radio and a dub mix for a good stereo.
Dub reggae is generally trippier than roots reggae or the more popular reggae of the Bob Marley/Jimmy Cliff/Toots and the Maytals variety. It is even more weed derived than what is considered popular reggae and is more about rhythm (riddim) and even-metered funk. The bass and chanting vocals (usually processed with effects like echo or a wet mix), but what I really love about it is how locked in the drums are and how different artists deal with melody. Usually when there are lyrics involved, it's all about groovy guitar parts but artists such as Jackie Mittoo and Augustus Pablo use a lot of keyboard and even violin ("K.G.'s Half Way Tree" by Augustus Pablo and the Simplicity is a good example of this).
Anyway here is a short primer to dub reggae artists and my favorite albums.
1.) Lee "Scratch" Perry & the Upsetters- The "Godfather" of Dub, Perry got the technique down to a science of producing the elements of dub. He is also the genre's foremost artist because of it. Classics like Blackboard Jungle, Roast Fish Collie Weed and Corn Bread, and Super Ape are among the best albums in the whole pantheon of reggae, let alone dub. He was also a crazy, delusional motherfucker who was prone to odd, spiritual rambling and he burned down his own Black Arc studio, in a weird fit of paranoia. Don't let that scare you off, he is the genius all geniuses when it comes to the dub sound. He also produced classics such as Max Romero's War Inna Babylon, The Congo's Heart Of The Congos, and the classic Junior Murvin song "Police And Thieves" (covered more famously by The Clash). He is still around to this day, so go see him!!!!
2.) Burning Spear- A more politicized musician than the batshit insane Perry, Winston Rodney's obsessions were social politics. Praising the messages of black leaders such as Marcus Garvey and the messages of Rastafarian spirituality, Burning Spear had a rich, soulful sound in his music. For melody he uses more horns than Perry as well as keyboards. His songs have more variation and changes than Perry's rhythmic grooves. The classic of Burning Spears studio albums is definitely 1975's Marcus Garvey (or the more readily available reissue Harder Than The Best). Accompanied by backing band the Black Disciples, Rodney's politicized message ignited Jamaica just as Diego Rivera's murals ignited Mexico- by using history and spirituality to use as a unifying force for the people to fight against their oppression.
3.) King Tubby- Another aural scientist, King Tubby would be the man you'd say created dub, while Perry was the first to use it in popular music. King Tubby, aka Osborne Ruddock, worked as a radio repairman and diddled with lots of sound and speaker equipment. Fast forward a bit to the 1950's when there was social revolution in Jamaica and people moved out of the dancehall into the streets. Tubby was the man who fixed the speakers when they inevitably blew themselves out due to the fierce ghetto baster competition in the streets. He eventually opened his own speaker shop with huge rigs that could rock a party harder than anyone. The thing about good speakers is how much more they make you notice bass, and Ruddock took the idea and ran with it, and remixed songs until he arrived at the dub sound. He would cut up songs, strip vocals, away, fuck with the elements of the melodic parts and, of course, pump up the bass. This gave him a platform to start making and producing music of his own and people started wanting him to put his spin on their own records. As far as classic albums of all killer-no filler material, Tubby ain't got 'em (he was more a producer) but his compilations are ESSENTIAL. Dub Gone Crazy: The Evolution of Dub At King Tubby's 1975-1977 is amazing, as well as probably any of the other retrospectives.
4.) Augustus Pablo- A virtuoso keyboardist, Pablo instead popularized the Melodica, more known as a child's toy, in his music. The sound fit reggae perfectly, but Pablo's success was due more to his mastery of rhythmic variation married with awesome melodic overtones. He went on to produce and record a score of good shit, but he doesn't have quite the backstory as the other dub gods I chose. He merely made some of the best music reggae has to offer before suffering from a nerve disorder which finally proved too much for him and died in 1999. He left behind a seminal body of work, however, highlighted by the 1978, Lee Perry produced, East Of The River Nile.
Other good singles and artists:
Willie Williams- MP3- "Armagideon Time", Scientist, Jackie Mittoo- MP3- "Ghetto Organ", Mad Professor, Dub Syndicate, Twilight Circus Dub Sound System, The Skatalites, Alton Ellis, Etc.
Dub influenced hip hop in a huge way sonically, and it's only fitting that Madlib would return the favor with a mix called Blunted In The Bomb Shelter. It's an awesome crash course in dub reggae and it spans the whole Trojan records collection and features all these artists and more on it.
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