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The Ultimate Guide to Great Reggae

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The Ultimate Guide To Great Reggae celebrates (and helps you find) the greatest songs of reggae. It focuses on every style of reggae, from mento to Jamaican R&B, ska, rock steady, dub, DJ, roots, dancehall and more. It opens with an exceptionally comprehensive brief history of reggae. This is followed by 52 chapters, each devoted to in-depth descriptions of the greatest songs for a particular artist or style. Over 750 great songs are detailed, and many more are discussed. More than 200 of reggae’s stars, cult artists, one-hit wonders and forgotten greats are profiled, encompassing the music’s full six decade span. Many of the songs and artists receive their overdue first coverage in print. The seven chapters on Bob Marley describe every one of his more than 600 recordings, his 200 best songs receiving detailed profiles.

Insightful and engaging, The Ultimate Guide To Great Reggae is more than an invaluable buyer’s guide and more than a comprehensive history. It’s a love letter to reggae that’s a joy to read. It’s the one essential book for any reggae fan, and is interesting and accessible for anyone who enjoys reading about music.

Published: Mar 16, 2016

Book Contributors

Series


Section Chapter Authors
Prelims
Acknowledgments Michael Garnice
Introduction Michael Garnice
1
Jamaica’s history of great records Michael Garnice
2
Great songs from the golden age of mento singles Michael Garnice
3
Count Lasher Michael Garnice
4
Chin’s Calypso Sextet Michael Garnice
5
Great Jamaican R&B Michael Garnice
6
The Skatalites Michael Garnice
7
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 1: Ska and more at Studio One Michael Garnice
8
More great ska songs Michael Garnice
9
Prince Buster Michael Garnice
10
Great Treasure Isle rock steady songs Michael Garnice
11
Great rock steady from other studios Michael Garnice
12
Desmond Dekker & The Aces with The Dynamites at Beverly’s Michael Garnice
13
Toots & The Maytals Michael Garnice
14
The Ethiopians Michael Garnice
15
Great Studio One rock steady and reggae instrumentals Michael Garnice
16
More great Studio One rock steady and pre-roots reggae songs Michael Garnice
17
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 2: Self-produced singles in their middle period Michael Garnice
18
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 3: The JAD productions in their middle period Michael Garnice
19
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 4: An LP produced by Leslie Kong in their middle period Michael Garnice
20
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 5: Produced by Lee Perry in their middle period Michael Garnice
21
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 6: Work with sundry other producers in their middle period Michael Garnice
22
More great early reggae Michael Garnice
23
Jimmy Cliff Michael Garnice
24
Nora Dean Michael Garnice
25
Augustus Pablo Michael Garnice
26
Lee Perry before the Black Ark Michael Garnice
27
Lee Perry and the Black Ark sound Michael Garnice
28
Junior Murvin at the Black Ark Michael Garnice
29
The Congos at the Black Ark and elsewhere Michael Garnice
30
More great dub Michael Garnice
31
Great mento-reggae by Stanley Beckford and others Michael Garnice
32
Great mento after the golden age Michael Garnice
33
More great reggae instrumentals Michael Garnice
34
The Abyssinians Michael Garnice
35
Burning Spear Michael Garnice
36
More great Nyabinghi and Nyabinghi-reggae songs Michael Garnice
37
Dennis Brown Michael Garnice
38
Gregory Isaacs Michael Garnice
39
Black Uhuru and Michael Rose Michael Garnice
40
More great Sly & Robbie songs Michael Garnice
41
Black Slate Michael Garnice
42
Steel Pulse Michael Garnice
43
More great roots reggae Michael Garnice
44
Big Youth Michael Garnice
45
More great DJ songs Michael Garnice
46
Bob Marley & The Wailers, Part 7: The internationally released LPs Michael Garnice
47
Bunny Wailer, after The Wailers Michael Garnice
48
Peter Tosh, after The Wailers Michael Garnice
49
Great dub poetry Michael Garnice
50
Great Jamaica Jazz Michael Garnice
51
Barrington Levy and the birth of dancehall Michael Garnice
52
Johnny Osbourne Michael Garnice
53
More great dancehall Michael Garnice
54
Coda: More great songs, but difficult to categorize Michael Garnice
End Matter
Bibliography Michael Garnice
Index of names Michael Garnice
Index of songs Michael Garnice

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Reviews

This volume, heavyweight yet absorbingly readable, is indeed close to being the ultimate guide to this endlessly absorbing music.
Mike Atherton, Echoes

Plenty of useful reference materials for the casual listener. A major strength of this book is that it rehabilitates mento, rightly pointing to its pride of place as the true root of reggae itself.
Volume! La revue des musiques populaires