(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best raggae music

Well, but lots of Fats Domino's stuff wasn't rock. It's r&b. And when he played rock, those records weren't particularly popular with Jamaican audiences. For a good (and really cheap!) look at what was popular in Jamaica check out Jumping The Shuffle Blues and its sequel Jamaica Selects Jump Blues Strictly For You

I don't think I've ever heard of New Orleans brass bands mentioned as an influence on Jamaicans, I doubt it would have factored very heavily though. They were, however, quite influenced by jazz, especially the current Bop sounds. Many of the musicians aspired to be jazz players, but for the most part knew they didn't have the chops. (That being said, Coxsone did put out a couple very enjoyable jazz albums on his Port O Jam label, I'm especially fond of "I Cover The Waterfront".) Those Jamaicans that did have the chops went on to very successful jazz careers (Joe Harriott (he pre-dates the ska era), Ernest Ranglin, and Monty Alexander in particular)

Ohhhh, that takes me right back.

I lived in Bristol in the early 90s and the Star & Garter was a hundred yards away and a great place for a lock-in. DJ Derek used to play there several nights a week. I couldn't believe that this wizened old little white fella, who looked like a council road sweeper or toilet attendant, played such a geat selection of ska, reggae, and rocksteady, and chatted freely in patois to the black guys.

DJ Derek is a proper one-off and I'm delighted to have met him.

DJ Derek images on Google - go on, look, if you don't know who he is you'll be surprised.

And there's a terrific little documentary about the man on Vimeo - part 1 and part 2 - lovely stuff.

EDIT : Arse, arse, and thrice arse - his last ever outdoor gig was ... yesterday :-(

EDIT 2 : Derek's own selection, as found on his Trojan compilation LP :-

1. Blazing Fire - Derrick Morgan
   
2. Honky Tonk Ska - The Granville Williams Orchestra
   
3. Watermelon Man - The Baba Brooks Band
   
4. Penny Reel-O - Eric Morris
   
5. Over The River - Justin Hinds & The Dominoes
   
6. Make It Reggae - Shark Wilson & The Basement Heaters
   
7. In The Dark - Toots & The Maytals
   
8. Darling Patricia - Owen Gray
   
9. Mr. Bojangles - John Holt
   
10. Rock With Me Baby - Johnny Clarke, The Aggrovators
    
11. Police & Thieves - Junior Murvin
    
12. Satta Amassa Ganna - The Abyssinians
    
13. Redemption Song - Dean Fraser
    
    

For the Skatalites and original Jamaican ska specifically, there're a lot of excellent Studio One compilations. I like Foundation Ska a lot.

Also check out Stretching Out, the live recording from the Skatalites reunion in early 80s, pretty much the whole original lineup. A lot of accomplished ska musicians point to this album as a huge influence mainly because the recording is so good and you can pick up the rhythm and style a lot better than any of the original studio stuff, which was all mono and generally one mic in a room.

| | |
|-:|:-|
|name|Rebelution|
|about artist|On Jan 10th, 2012 the Santa Barbara, CA based band Rebelution released "Peace of Mind" through their own label 87 Music in partnership with Controlled Substance Sound Labs. Peace of Mind was released as a multi-length triple album which includes Peace of Mind: Acoustic as well as Peace of Mind: Dub. Marking the highest chart debut of Rebelution’s career, Peace of Mind debuted at #13 on the Billboard Top 200, #1 Reggae and #1 Independent albums as well as #4 on the iTunes overall album chart. (more on last.fm)|
|album|Bright Side of Life, released Sep 2009|
|track|Suffering|
|images|album image, artist image|
|links|allmusic, discogs, track on amazon, album on amazon|
|tags|reggae|
|similar|Tribal Seeds, Iration, The Expendables, Stick Figure, Passafire|
|metrics|lastfm listeners: 284,481, lastfm plays: 4,094,367, youtube plays: 900,592, radd.it score: 9|


Please downvote this comment if this data is incorrect!
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I knew nothing about Prince Buster until I heard a few interviews with David Rodigan and he kept referencing him. So glad I finally discovered him.

Thanks for this awesome song OP. Have you ever seen this box set from Trojan Records? It's pretty awesome and has a lot of great rocksteady/early ska like this song. Check it out if you haven't.

Anything by Toots and the Maytals. They mix a bit of funk & soul into the music and made (in my opinion) the best party song ever recorded: "54-46 Was My Number". They did two of the tunes on The Harder They Come. Speaking of, Jimmy Cliff is also a must have.

One more suggestion, it's not quite the same style as Marley, but one time at a record fair there was an album with a hand-written sticker that read "The Best Album You'll Ever Buy" and I was feeling up to the challenge. The album was Dance Hall Style by Horace Andy and I certainly cannot argue with that sticker.

I just spent all last week compiling about 24 hours worth of Christmas tunes! My favorite albums are:

• A John Waters Christmas
  
  
• Cool Christmas Blues - Charles Brown
  
  
• James Brown's Funky Christmas
  
  
• The Ventures' Christmas Album
  
  
• Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas
  
  
• Reggae Christmas From Studio One
  
  And personal favorite songs are:
  
  
• Donde Esta Santa Claus - Augie Rios
  
  
• The Man With the Bag - Kay Starr
  
  
• Marshmallow World - Dean Martin & Frank Sinatra
  
  
• I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Mildred Bailey
  
  
• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - She & Him

Heres the thread.

And my comment was:
>
>Some of my favorite older stuff and classics -
>
>Groove Chronicles - Black Puppet
>
>El-B ft. Rumpus - Bubble (dub)
>
>Double 99 - Rip Groove,
>
>Zed Bias - I Do
>
>Ratpack - Clipper
>
>Craig David - Rewind
>
>Sticky ft. Ms Dynamite - Booo! (Headquarters Acoustic Mix)
>
>Roots Manuva - Dreamy Days (MJ Cole Remix)
>
>Sticky - Triplets II
>
>Horsepower Productions - Rudeboyz
>
>Wookie - Scrappy
>
>And have a listen to The Roots of Dubstep
>
>
>Newer garage infulunced stuff and future garage -
>
>Blawan - Getting Me Down
>
>Cosmin TRG - See Other People (Falty DL Remix)
>
>
>
>Falty DL - Our Loss
>
>
>Mosca - Done Me Wrong
>
>XXXY - You Always Start It
>
>J Treole - The Loot (Sully Remix)
>
>Flying Lotus - Glendale Galleria
>
>Clubroot - Dry Cured
>
>2562 - Channel Two
>
>Love Dub - Cooly G
>
>
>
>

Also check out /r/futuregarage, /r/realdubstep, /r/ukbass and maybe /r/futurebeats. I'm happy to recommend more if you like, my real life friends get bored of me trying to make them listen to this stuff.

Have you heard ALL of the albums from Me First and the Gimme Gimmes? The have 6 studio albums, 1 live album, 1 compilation of b-sides, and 3 EPs in their discography.

Once you've exhausted that, check out some NOFX. Here's two of my favorites...

NOFX - White Trash Two Heebs & A Bean

NOFX - So Long & Thanks for All the Shoes

If you like silly punk music and amazing covers, check out The Dickies.

If you want to check out some ska-punk, give Rancid a listen. ...And Out Come the Wolves is a good place to start.

If you want to check out some great punk with a female vocalist, Sing Sing Death House from The Distillers is pretty amazing.

His song, "Proud To Be Black", was a reggae dancehall one-hit-wonder. Anyone who listened to reggae in the late eighties/early nineties knows this track.

When I just listened to it from the link in /u/Jawnt's post I immediately recognized it and assumed Robbie probably was probably doing a cover of the real song. You can imagine my surprise when trying to google the original singer and it turning out to be him.

Even if you are only familiar with a little dancehall from back then you are bound to recognize a couple of the tracks on this compilation album of hits which includes "Proud To Be Black".

Arsenal supporters are shocked to find out our Robbie was singing back then but trust me, folks who listened to dancehall back then would be doubly shocked to find out he now hosts a football YouTube channel with over 120k followers and over 40 million views.

As a subscriber to his channel and a gunner I've been admiring what he does but now I have even more respect for the man.

Definitely. As a basic introduction if you are coming from Western Classical Music, I would suggest you check out the album Garden of Dreams by Ali Akbar Khan. Khan-saheb was a master, master musician and his compositions here with an orchestra flow very nicely and will introduce you to the feel of Indian Classical Music without being overwhelmingly foreign.

If you have the time and the inclination, I would recommend you sit and listen to records by the flautists Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Panallal Ghosh, Sitarists Ravi Shankar, Nikhil Banerjee, and Vilayat Khan, other recordings by Ali Akbar Khan, and definitely check out the vocalists like Prabha Atre, Amir Khan, or Uday Bhawalkar.

Actually, Same Old Song is a Motown classic. Many Ska acts in the 50s & 60s did covers of the Motown hits of the day because they loved the rise of Black musicans and the Soul music but had to give it their own special island feel to the songs. I HIGHLY recommend Trojan's Motor City Reggae Box Set if your a fan of Delroy Wilson's verson of Same Old Song.

The Roots of Dubstep is a decent start:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roots-Dubstep-Various-Artists/dp/B000H1C442