A heat wave is about to hit us. Timely to slide back into the reggae world and let the beat engulf us. I’ve touched on reggae a couple of times previously, with an album focus on Bob Marley, and a reggae playlist. Red is Black Uhuru’s fifth album, released in …
Back in the olden days when hamsters in wheels spun our turntables, it was a bit of a risk to buy new music, especially when you didn’t know the artist or hadn’t heard their work. I had several criteria for selecting new music and one of the secondary ones was …
Quite the backstory to this album. There was significant political tension and riots leading up to the Jamaican general election. The then Prime Minister Michael Manley convinced Bob Marley to play at a “Smile Jamaica” concert on December 5, 1976, thinking that the concert would defuse some of the …
Late night & atmospheric effects often let me pick up radio stations from far away places like Minneapolis and Little Rock, Arkansas. Minneapolis provided access to the Dr. Demento show, and Little Rock provided songs that were yet to hit the Manitoba airwaves. I used to leave the radio on …
The English Beat’s first album came out in 1980. The English Beat (“English” was added to the band’s name in North America to avoid confusion with an existing American band named “The Beat”) was part of the second wave of ska music in England, along with contemporaries The Specials, Madness, …
There is just something about Reggae music that has a real appeal to me. Whether it is the pulsing rhythm, the thumping bass, horns and/or the social messages in many of the songs, I flat out enjoy it. It feels like summer & parties. There is no better soundtrack to …
