One way I get through my black dog days is mixing music, and here is my latest volume featuring from the U.K. Jah Shaka and from Jamaica Erroll Dunkley. Also some of my Dub favourites.

Jah Shaka is one of the most important roots reggae and dub artists. He’s a composer, musician, singer, mixing engineer, producer, record label owner, and the operator of the heaviest roots/dub sound system in the world!

His name is an amalgamation of the rastafarian term for God and that of a zulu warrior.

Jah Shaka has been operating his roots reggae soundsystem since the early 1970s. Shaka is perhaps best known for sticking to his rastafarian beliefs in the 1980s whilst other soundsystems followed the Jamaican trend towards playing “slack” dancehall music. His refusal to compromise inspired a host of new UK reggae artists and soundsystems such as Eastern Sher, The Disciples, Iration Steppas, Jah Warrior, Conscious Sounds, The Rootsman and Abashanti-I. Non-reggae artists such as Basement Jaxx have also cited Jah Shaka as an influence during interviews.

On his own record label he has released music from Jamaican artists such as Max Romeo, Johnny Clarke, Bim Sherman and Prince Alla as well as UK groups such as Aswad and Dread & Fred. He has released a number of dub albums, often under the Commandments of Dub banner.

The Jah Shaka soundsystem continues to appear regularly in London, with occasional tours of the USA, Europe and Japan.

http://www.last.fm/music/Jah+Shaka/+wiki

Errol Dunkley is a Jamaican reggae singer, born in Kingston in 1951. Dunkley’s recording career began in 1965, when he was fourteen, with “Gypsy” (a duet with Roy Shirley) for Lindel Pottinger’s Gaydisc label, “My Queen” (with Junior English) for Prince Buster, and “Love Me Forever” on the Rio label [1]. Between 1967 and 1968 he recorded several singles for Joe Gibbs including “Please Stop Your Lying” (1967) and “Love Brother” (1968), before switching to Coxsone Dodd in 1969.[2]

In the early 1970s, together with Gregory Isaacs he formed the African Museum record label, although Isaacs soon took sole control of the label, while Dunkley formed a new label, Silver Ring. In 1972 he teamed up with producer Jimmy Radway for two of his most popular singles, “Keep The Pressure On” and “Black Cinderella”. The same year saw the release of Dunkley’s Sonia Pottinger produced debut album, Presenting Errol Dunkley, which included the track “A Little Way Different”.

Dunkley continued to record throughout the 1970s and towards the end of the decade his popularity in the UK grew, resulting in a breakthrough UK Singles Chart hit in 1979 with “OK Fred”, a cover version of a John Holt-penned song, that reached number 11[3]. He also avoided the one-hit wonder tag, by securing a minor chart placing with the 1980 follow-up release “Sit Down And Cry”.

Dunkley’s biggest hit, “OK Fred”, was re-recorded in 1996 with Queen Sister *N*.

http://www.last.fm/music/Errol+Dunkley

Horace Andy