Jimmy Cliff – Sacred Fire E.P

The Sacred Fire EP sees Jimmy Cliff back at his best and with Armstrong at the controls creating the perfect backdrops to encase these pertinent lyrics and sparkling vocals, that have not diminished with the passing years it all bodes very well for the album that is due to follow next year.

To find out more about this excellent release visit........

Mungos Hi Fi – Forward Ever

Forward Ever is an album steeped in the very best reggae traditions, with Mungos immense live work feeding directly into the studio production and despite the riddims being digitally made there is a warmth and depth to them that betrays their stark roots. The art work on the cover, beautifully created by Elen also harks back to those golden days with a cartoon of a dance in full effect, which if you get the gatefold double vinyl opens out so you can really appreciate the colour and life in the picture.

The end of the year is fast approaching and I fully expect to see this album feature in many of those annual top 10’s.

read a full review at...........

The Selecter - Made In Britain Tour 2012

With The Specials just finishing their triumphant ‘Ghost Town 30th Anniversary Tour’ another 2-Tone legend  The Selecter, featuring original members Pauline Black and Gaps Hendrickson, have announced the full details of an upcoming tour of the UK through March next year.  The band will be plugging new material, taken from the Made In Britain album, which so far has only been available on download but is due a CD release soon plus a selection of classic oldies.

The tour includes the following shows:

01 Mar. - Sub89, Reading

02 Mar. - Bogiez, Cardiff

03 Mar. - The Fleece, Bristol

08 Mar. - The Assembly, Leamington Spa

09 Mar. - Citrus Club, Edinburgh

10 Mar. - Reading Rooms, Dundee

11 Mar. - Apollo 23, Glasgow

15 Mar. - Guildhall, Gloucester

16 Mar. - Rock City, Nottingham

17 Mar. - 229, London

18 Mar. - The Garage, Swansea

22 Mar. - The Brook, Southampton

23 Mar. - Brundenel Social Club, Leeds

25 Mar. - Concorde 2, Brighton

29 Mar. - Phoenix, Exeter

30 Mar. - Robin 2, Wolverhampton

31 Mar. - Erics, Liverpool

Original guitarist and song writer Neol Davies will unfortunately not be appearing with this version of The Selecter, but will be will performing with his own version at the London International Ska Festival that takes place between the 3rd and 6th May 2012 across 3 venues. Also confirmed on the bill for this event at present are Jamaican greats Dandy Livingstone and Dawn Penn, plus The Dualers, Capone & The Bullets, Hotknives (original line up) as well as European bands The Moon Invaders (Belgium) and Los Granadians (Spain). 

Dubmatix presents Clash of the Titans - The System Shakedown Remixes

Last years System Shakedown handed over to some of the reggae world’s most talented remixers/producers read a full review at.........

Pat Kelly - Vintage Rocksteady

When it comes to rocksteady reggae of the late ‘60s Pat Kelly is sometimes a forgotten man, with the likes of Alton Ellis and Slim Smith stealing nearly all the accolades. This is something of an injustice as his beautiful falsetto voice is easily up there with the best and his standard of work is as good as any.

He was born in Kingston in 1949 and after leaving school in 1966, went to Springfield, Massachusetts in the United States where he spent a year studying electronics before returning to Jamaica. On his return he was invited to replace Slim Smith as the lead singer of The Techniques who were recording for Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle label. Kelly's falsetto voice was strongly influenced by the American Soul singer Sam Cooke and in combination with Winston Riley and Bruce Ruffin The Techniques easily maintained the success they had enjoyed with Smith. The first record they released with Kelly on lead was "You Don't Care", adapted from Curtis Mayfield's "You'll Want Me Back". The song spent six weeks at number one in the Jamaican singles chart, and was followed by further hits with "Queen Majesty", another Mayfield reworking ("Minstrel and Queen"), "My Girl", "Love Is Not a Gamble", "It's You I Love", and "Run Come Celebrate".

In 1968, Kelly himself decided to go solo and moved to Bunny Lee. His debut for Lee was yet another Mayfield cover, "Little Boy Blue" which was followed by "How Long Will It Take" with this song becoming the biggest-selling Jamaican single of 1969. It was also the first Jamaican record to feature a string arrangement, which was overdubbed when it was released in the UK on the Palmer Brothers' Unity label.

A Lee "Scratch" Perry-engineered album ‘Pat Kelley’ Sings was then hot on its heels and led to a £25,000 contract offer by Apple Records, which he was unable to accept due to existing contractual commitments.

Despite this commercial set back Kelly continued to record, having big hits for producer Phil Pratt in 1972 with "Soulful Love" and "Talk About Love", and returning to record with Duke Reid where he had another hit with a cover of John Denver's "Sunshine".  As singing work dried up a bit He fell back on his earlier training to work as an engineer at Channel One Studio and worked on albums like Johnny Clarke’s ‘A Ruffer Version’ and ‘Rockers Time Now’ as well as Jah Woosh ‘Dreadlocks Affair’ and the dub album Morwell Unlimited Meet King Tubby's Dub Me.

In 1978 he moved to production, producing his own Youth and Youth album and co-producing John Holt's The Impressable John Holt (Disco Mix) with Holt the following year.

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw Kelly recording more regularly again, with albums like ‘One Man Stand’, ‘Cool Breezing’, ‘Wish It Would Rain’ and ‘One In A Million’.

The last new recording I can find from Kelly is ‘Jesus Is The Answer’ released in the US in 1998 but although no new recordings are coming he is still active and recently performed with L.A Boss Reggae band The Revivers in San Francisco

King Jammy Specials At ReggaeRecord.com

ReggaeRecord.com is at it again with another batch of King Jammy dubplate specials all taken from the original master tapes.

The company have just released four 7” heavyweight vinyl records that include some rare dubplate specials originally recorded for Jammy’s Super Power soundsystem by artists such as Pad Anthony, Little John, Anthony Malvo, Johnny Osbourne and Thiller U, who recorded their songs at King Jammys Recording Studio, plus unreleased dubplate recordings by Junior Reid and US soul group the Chilites. These dubplates were then played against the likes of Black Scorpio, Killamanjaro, Downbeat, African Symbol and other soundsystems who tried to test Jammys Super Power, at various sound clashes and go some way to show why the Prince became a King.

For more information and sound bites visit ReggaeRecord.com