Pressure Sounds Vinyl, CD & Tape 35 Items

A giant of the UK reggae scene since the late 70s and founder member of Matumbi. Bovell went on to produce a trail of classics by a genre-defying roster of artists, from Fela Kuti, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, to The Slits and The Pop Group, while also recording as Blackbeard for EMI. As if that wasn't enough, he also recorded the early Lovers chart hit, Janet Kay's Silly Games, and later a slew of Lovers Rock.

An essential collection of late 70s dubs by this living legend.

Conscious lyrics on this lesser known Yabby track. Never before pressed on 45 and comes with the correct version on the flipside. Comes in a printed Yabby bag. Tommy McCook on flute Sly and Robbie on rhythmic duties.

Excellent horns instrumental from ex Alpha school student Bobby Ellis. As ever from Lee Perry as a producer there is a twisted effect on the rhythm (something recorded backwards?) that gives the tune a totally unique feel. Comes with a version on the flipside, in 7’ custom sleeve.

Terrific single from Patrick Andy, written and produced by Yabby You. This is the first time this track has been released on vinyl. Killer dub on the flipside mixed at King Tubby’s. Heartfelt uncompromising and rootsy vocal from Patrick Andy as good as anything he recorded for Yabby. A smooth rhythm punctuated by Tommy McCook’s led horns section. Comes in a Yabby You sleeve. You need this.

A conscious roots celebration on the A side with Patrick Andy on lead vocal and Yabby You on harmony. A thumping rhythm with Tommy McCook leading the horns on a tasteful arrangement. The flip side is a plea to ’Show a little love’ You can hear all the familiar trademarks of Yabby’s production techniques, attention to detail on the rhythm and the recording. Yabby, like may top quality producers undoubtedly involved in the songs text as well as production. Quality music. Comes in a grey Pressure Sounds custom disco bag.

A lovely selection of mixes from Paolo Baldini’s Dubfiles, all mixed at his Alambic studio in San Foca Italy. The vocal is supplied by Al Brown and music is from his band from the 80s the Inner Force.

There are 3 rumbling dubs as well as the opening vocal cut from Al Brown. We have added some keyboard action from Toike Mitsuhiro.

The best of the traditional elements of Jamaican music, with modern mixing, and all done with a strong sense of respect towards the original recording and playing. Comes in a custom Pressure Sounds sleeve.

In the early 1970s the island of Jamaica, and in particular its reggae musicians, developed a love affair with small Japanese motor bikes. Honda bikes were eulogised in Big Youth’s ‘s90 Skank’ and Dillinger’s ‘cb200’, whilst their rival was lauded on Shorty The President’s ‘Yamaha Skank’, to name the most obvious examples. The plot of the film ‘Rockers’ revolved around how transformative a motorbike could be, providing a livelihood whilst projecting an image of success in the ghetto. Vivian ‘Yabby You’ Jackson had been fiercely independent as a singer and producer, and the success of his early self-pressed productions, mostly on the Prophets or Vivian Jackson labels, had given him a sense of hard earned autonomy. A motorbike was one of the fruits of his labours, acquired as a way of zipping around the capital’s roads to deliver records and organise recording sessions. His wife Jean could often be see hanging on to the back. Twelve years after his death, she remembers various exploits on the pot-holed roads of Kingston. Jean Vencella Williams: ‘His first motorbike was a Honda 50 and then a 100, a Yamaha. I remember the Yamaha, it was a dark blue colour, it must have been from the mid 70s til the early 80s. I used to ride around on the back and we ride all over, like we go to the country cos his mother lived in Clarendon. And he had a little carrier thing for boxes of records, so we go to Mandeville in Manchester, sometimes to Spanish Town fe sell records. Most of the time he sell them to the shops, like Randys, and the people them buy it from there. He had pressing plants like Byron Lee and later Tuff Gong, so when the records pressed we find out the time when we get back the records, which usually was at least a couple of days or about a week. And later when we living in Clarendon we come into Kingston to pick them up at the pressing plant. And when he book the studio he might book two or three days and we come in and usually stay til late.

‘He used to carry the records from the different pressing plants on the bike, but because of the rain and weather you know it not so good for the records, and also the sun beating down. Then Wayne Wade had an accident on the Yamaha, and he was hurt quite bad, and he had to go to the hospital for quite a while. Well Yabby didn’t ride it after that, cos it was getting dangerous with so many cars coming in. So he gave up the Yamaha and bought a Toyota Carina, and that car was very good to him. Then the Carina become a little shaky, so he got a Toyota Corolla which he drove until his death.’

This album presents a sample of the best of those ‘Dubs and Versions’ that Yabby was ferrying around town, whether rarities, B-sides or tracks culled from albums that showcase the breadth of Yabby’s productions between 1975 and 1982.

This release comes with sleevenotes original artwork.

Cover with a dented corner. Small light scratch on side C & D.

A tumultuous selection of recordings from Black Ark, Perry's legendary studio and hotbed of creation. Rare 12" versions, unreleased mixes and featuring a stellar line-up, including:

Drums: Mikey ‘Boo’ Richards, Lowell ‘Sly’ Dunbar
Bass: Boris Gardiner, Radcliffe ‘Dougie’ Bryan
Guitar: Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, Ernest Ranglin, Robert ‘Billy’ Johnson, Lynford ‘Hux’ Brown
Keyboards: Winston Wright, Robbie Lynn, Keith Sterling
Percussion: Noel ‘Scully’ Simms, Lee Perry

A quick internet search brings up some extraordinary footage of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry producing a session at the Black Ark. Taken from the film ‘Roots, Rock, Reggae’, directed by Jeremy Marre, the sequence shows Junior Murvin collaborating with members of the Congos and the Heptones on a song improvised on the spot for the film crew. Before the vocals are recorded, the Upsetters lay down the backing track. The musical director of the session is the afro-haired bass player, Boris Gardiner; unusually, it is he who counts in the band to start each take. After a long conversation with Boris a few years back, I asked Lee about his contribution to the Black Ark sound.

Lee Perry: ‘Boris Gardiner was a good person, just a humble person, and he’s the best person I ever met in the music business so far. Boris is a very top musician, and with him you could put anything together, him do “Police And Thieves” and all that. You just tell him what you want and him can do it. A very great person.’

Boris is probably best remembered today for his huge international hit from 1986, the schmaltzy ‘I Want To Wake Up With You’. Yet in the 60s and 70s he was one of Jamaica’s top bass players and arrangers, having an international hit with ‘Elizabethan Reggae’, and creating a run of classic tunes at Studio One.

Boris Gardiner: ‘I did at least seventy or eighty songs at Studio One, all in this one short period between January and April 1968. And we used to work four days per week, and we did four rhythms per day for 30 pounds a week – it was good money. I played on songs like “Feel Like Jumping”, “Nanny Goat”, “Baby Why” by the Cables, the whole “Heptones On Top” album, and “Party Time”. Lee Perry used to be at Studio One same time as me, kind of working around, so he know me from there. So he came and roped me into the group when the Black Ark studio was in progress. He built it right there at the back of his home. So Scratch called me and asked me to come and do some sessions around his studio. I was always ahead of my time as I can see it, in the music in Jamaica. So the songs that I made you always hear chord progressions and changes. Sometimes I think it’s as if I was born in the wrong country, because I just couldn’t do a two chord tune – heheh! To me it need more than two chords to give it some excitement, like it need some changes or something.’

After years of moving between Jamaica’s competing facilities, Perry had decided to build his own studio at the back of his house in Washington Gardens.

Lee Perry: ‘The Black Ark make over a pile of shit – my pile and me put it under the Black Ark. I make the Black Ark over my shit piss, so the bass always go “Poo Poo Poo Poo”! Errol Thompson put the machines in there, and make the patch panel. So the studio was all waiting, but only me could operate it. I didn’t have the Soundcraft mixer then, I did buy a lickle thing you call a Alice mixer. We didn’t have anything professional, but the sound was in my head and I was going to get down what I hear in my head. And it’s like a toy, a toy affair, that’s the way music is. You see like when you buy a kid’s toy, well you bring a joy to them, so is that way I see music. I don’t see music like how other people see it, I see it just like a toy.’

Unusually, Lee decided to do everything himself, both producing and engineering. The film clip shows Lee fully relaxed as he simultaneously directs the musicians and adjusts his recording machines.

Boris Gardiner: ‘To me Scratch always knew what he wanted. Out of all of them Scratch was a true producer, because he would be in the studio and he would listen and say change this or I don’t like that, and he was his own engineer also, so he was always around there listening. So he knew what he wanted and how to try and get it from the start, unlike Coxsone Dodd or Duke Reid, who knew what they liked or didn’t like only after they heard it. Scratch was in there with everybody, so he is really doing a full production as a true producer.’

Lee Perry: ‘I used to do them all by myself. Anybody in my studio could sit down in the visitor’s chair and look, but me do everything – me have a chair that can move from here to there, a chair that have wheels. So I could be turning in any area or any direction, so I could have my hand over here and my hand over there. Heh heh.’

And at a time when 8 and 16 track recording had become the norm in most high end studios, Lee recorded everything to a semi-professional TEAC 4 track recorder, which he can be seen casually adjusting with a screwdriver in the film clip. He explained that since he would end up mixing down to a stereo (or two track) master, more tracks would just be a distraction.

Lee Perry: ‘It was not a professional tape recorder, I was using those TEAC 4 track set that they was trying like experiment to see what would happen. Well, I have it all set up. The first thing I’d think about, all right, is you have to mix everything back down to the 2 track stereo or 1 track mono. Then you can press it and release it. So I knew what I wanted at the end, and I balance it just like that in the studio with the instruments. Sometime when you put only four or five instrument in the studio, you have a better, cleaner record, you can hear what everybody play. And if you have maybe eight musician in the studio, it’s more like a confusion, because everybody wants to play a different thing, yunno. If you is the producer and you can tell them what you want to hear it will be better. So I can put the bass and drum together on one track because me know exactly what me need. If you don’t know, then you need more tracks so you can balance it later. So for the backing, I would just do the two tracks: the bass and drum and percussion track, that is one; and the guitar, organ and piano on another track, that is two. So you still have two more tracks if you want to do vocal, that would be three. And if you want to do horns or a harmony vocal, you can do that on the fourth track. To me it’s a waste of time, a waste of energy with a 24 track machine, waste of current and waste of money. Because it all have to come down to one or two tracks in the end.’

The early Black Ark sound was stripped down and minimal, often with only one or two musicians playing keyboard or guitar. Lee would also use extreme EQ to emphasize the bass and tops, and his hi-hat sound is instantly recognisable from the earliest days of the Ark.

Lee Perry: ‘Well, I used to have an equaliser for the bass drum, and it’s like for heaviness on the beat, and then I had another equaliser for the cymbal, to give it that “Ssshhh ssshhh”. So we have different machine to send different instrument through that they can sound different. I managed to change the vibration of the music, because the music was just local music produced by rum drinkers and cannibals. So me turn on the music to a higher range.’

Boris Gardiner: ‘I think I always use a DI box to record bass at the Black Ark. Because bass want to fade into the other instruments’ microphone, so we often plug it straight into the board and then Perry sets the EQ on the board and take it straight. Then we built a drum booth so the drums really sound separate too – it give him more control.’

As the Black Ark evolved, Lee developed a richer collage of sound, built around three primary effects: the Mu-tron Bi-Phase phaser, a spring reverb and a Roland Space Echo.

Boris Gardiner: ‘One thing about Scratch was that he always used his effects – that was his sound. He always phase the ska guitar, but you don’t always know he’s recording it like that until he play it back. So until he play it back you have no idea what it will sound like.’

Lee Perry: ‘I did have a phaser that I buy, and then when I’m in the studio, in the machine room, and phasing them, the musicians don’t hear it, what I am doing, until them come in the studio, and them hear the phasing. So we did it all live. And the musicians they won’t even know what goes on! While the musicians are playing, I am doing the phasing. I take the musician from the earth into space, and bring them back before they could realize, and put them back on the planet earth. The phaser was making things different, like giving you a vision of space and creating a different brain, a phasing brain. So that’s where I take the music out of the local system and take it into space. The Space Echo also have something to do with the brain. You send out telepathic message and it return to you, so that’s how the Roland Space Echo chamber come in – what you send comes back to you. And while you know you send the telegrams out, you are waiting for what is the reply of the telegrams coming back. So that’s why the Space Echo go and come, rewinding the brain and forward winding the brain. I was also using a spring echo chamber, but just for drum, for the clash of the drum. And everything just fit in, like the thing I want to do it just come to me and come from nowhere, and then it appear and it happen.’

Boris Gardiner: ‘He loved to do things that nobody had done before, him always try a new thing. And he was a good writer too you know. Perry bring in a drum machine sometimes and we use that on some songs for the Congos and everyone. Well I actually like playing with a drum machine cos a drum machine is always steady. Most drummers they either push forward or pull back – they call it the human touch, but I call it out of time! Hahaha. “Row Fisherman Row” was really the great hit with the Congos, but that is all real drums and percussion, it’s just that Perry makes it sound almost like a machine with his echoes on the percussion. I played on “Police and Thieves” and that was a big hit too, maybe it was Sly Dunbar on that. One day Bob Marley came to him with a song on a tape and said “boy Perry, I don’t really like the bass and drum on this song here, if you can do anything to it then just change it and see if we can get something better”. Well Perry had only 4 track tape at his studio, but this was a 24 track tape that Bob bring. So Perry called me and Mikey Boo and took us down to Joe Gibbs studio and started playing the rhythm and all that on the 24 track. So I was on bass and Mikey Boo was on drums and we listen and we listen, and then we dub it back over to make new drum and bass. Well that song became “Punky Reggae Party”, so that shows you how Bob trusted Perry.’

Lee’s other great innovation was adding layers of sound effects, sometimes live through an open mic, but often pre-recorded onto a cassette tape which he would add to the collage on mixdown. Because these effects – bells, cymbals, animal noises, dialogue from the TV – were not synched to the music, they would add a layer of randomness to the sound.

Lee Perry: ‘You know cassette? I make cassette with sound track, and all those things with cymbal licking, flashing. In my Black Ark studio if you listen the cymbal was high, like “Ssshhh ssshhh”. But I did have them all recording on cassette, and while I was running the track and it was taking the musician from the studio, I was playing the cassette to balance with the drum cymbals and things like that, so them didn’t have to play that because it was already on cassette playing. You could call that sampling. And I have this “Mooooow”, like the cow, running on the cassette, and it go onto the track that I wanted to sound like that. Somebody discover it in a toilet. You know when the toilet paper is finished, and you have the roll, and the hole that come in the middle. Well you put it to your mouth and say “Hoooooo”, and it sound like a cow. You put it to your mouth and you imitating a cow and say “Moooooo”. Heh heh heh. Yeah, sound sampling. Well somebody had to start it, and we was loving to do those things.’

Boris Gardiner: ‘Well the Black Ark did have a strong vibe, but, once everybody all there, most of those guys who smoke really like it, but those who didn’t smoke didn’t really like it, like myself. Scratch is a man who never joke fi draw him herbs, you know? Heheh. But I am not a smoker cos it’s not good for my heart. I have a heart problem called tachycardia, an irregular beat of the heart. So it could be upsetting at times when there’s so much smoking going on.’

By the late 70s the relaxed atmosphere at the Black Ark had soured, as Lee attempted to extricate himself from various outside pressures, and his behaviour became more erratic.

Lee Perry: ‘What happened I did for myself not to be working with jinx and duppy called dread. And those duppies they think that me owe them favour. I open the door, and the duppies them find that me is the door opener, and then the duppies them take shape inna me yard and inna me house, and they were a jinx. Jinx mean bad luck. So to get rid of them, me had to burn down the Black Ark studio fi get rid of jinx.’

Boris Gardiner: ‘Was Scratch crazy? Well some say now that he was just putting on an act. But I think, why did he put it on? After all the problems he was having and that sort of thing, and they were saying that he was getting off his head, and he start to act strange, well I just stopped going. I stopped working there. It wasn’t a good atmosphere – nobody could really enjoy that again. So I called it a day. It is sad after all the good work we did. But when you try to be smart and try to outsmart others, well it don’t work out for long with you. He came and did a show here in Jamaica the other day, but I didn’t really know Lee Perry as a singer. He won the Grammy not long ago, but I find it surprising that he got a Grammy as a performer not a producer. He’s been very lucky: now he is successful in a sense and some people love him cos he’s a character, and they don’t see nobody dressed like that. Hahahah!’

Speaking to Lee in February 2021, via WhatsApp to Jamaica, he sounded relaxed and positive, with more praise for Boris and optimism for the future.

Lee Perry: ‘Boris Gardiner was very good, very great in the brain. He really intelligent in music, and me and him work miracle together! And remember that there was no end to the Black Ark, the Black Ark will be coming back. The Black Ark keep on living and cannot die.’

Produced by Jimmy Radway, originally released in 1975

Bunny Lee recorded a massive volume of remarkably consistent music in the 70s. This compilation brings together rare and unreleased cuts that put the listener bang in the middle of a typical recording session, complete with false starts and studio banter.

Lee Perry’s playful nature credited this 45 to Jane Fonda’s character in Klute!! About as post-modern as you can get. The music is a storming uptempo joy ride. ‘I may forget your name but not your face’ possibly relates to the story of ‘Klute’ which obviously caught ‘Scratch’s’ attention. Comes with a lush version on the flipside. A custom printed sleeve as well. ‘You build me up and get me high’. Killer

Hypnotic and the jewel in Yabbys musical crown. A side taken from the Beware dub Lp and the flipside is the same off key but still charming keyboard cut of the same rhythm.

Run Come Rally aka ‘Jah Speak with Lightning and Thunder’ 1975.

King Tubby’s Prophecies Of Dub almost looks like an album that was designed to confuse record collectors and dub enthusiasts. Firstly, the record carries nearly the same title as a slightly earlier release - also produced by Vivian Jackson, aka Yabby You.

Yabby You: “First we do ‘King Tubby’s Prophecy Of Dub’, it come just after my first vocal LP. Then there was ‘King Tubby’s Prophecies Of Dub’ that was mixed by Pat Kelly, who was working at Tubby’s at the time.”

Pat Kelly: “Well fortunately Yabby You put my name (on it). I think I made them three one night, and then another week also he come back and do another three, and so it was done over some period of time. Yabby was with me most of the time, but I was always left to do what I wanted with the mix.”

Secondly, King Tubby is named in the title, but the rear sleeve states that the album had ‘Pat Kelly at the control’. This is more understandable, as the record was mixed at Tubby’s studio and carries its signature sound. After 1975, Tubby had partly stepped back from mixing work, but was still credited with most of the music coming out of his studio.

And thirdly, further confusion comes from the fact that most of the backing tracks used were not actually produced by Yabby, but belonged to Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee.

Bunny Lee: “Yabby You and Pat Kelly go behind my back and make it up. Me never even know about it till years later when Steve Barrow bring it to my attention. But it was my riddims and they used them.”

Bunny stored his multitrack tapes in a big wardrobe in the studio, allowing King Tubby to cut dubplates from them to be played in the dances.

Whether due to a misunderstanding or some long forgotten agreement, it was these 4-track tapes that Yabby presumably felt entitled to use to create this LP. The two producers had shared backing tracks before, with Yabby recording Tommy McCook’s sublime ‘Death Trap’ over one of Bunny’s rhythms, and Bunny had long acted as a mentor to Yabby.

Whatever the reason, eleven of the album’s tracks were dubs of the latest Bunny Lee productions, and by delving into Bunny’s tape archives we can see that the rhythms were often pulled from the same 4-track reels, and sequenced pretty much in the order they came off the tapes. So the opening two dubs are from the same multitrack: Linval Thompson’s ‘Long Long Dreadlocks’, and an unreleased cut of ‘Simmer Down’ by Johnny Clarke on a modified ‘Move Out Of Babylon’ rhythm. This is followed by Johnny’s version of Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Ten To One’ as covered by the Mad Lads. Then there are four cuts pulled from Delroy Wilson’s ‘Sings For I’ album, and two from Horace Andy, ‘Serious Thing’ and ‘Man To Man’. After Johnny Clarke’s ‘Live Up Jah Man’ and ‘Stop The Tribal War’, the album concludes with the sole Yabby You rhythm, a dub of Dicky Burton’s ‘God Is Watching You’ that is noticeably different from the Tubby’s mix as heard on the ‘Beware Dub’ album. Throughout, Pat’s mixing is detailed and subtle, focusing the listener into the musicality of the backing tracks.

The LP was released in 1976 in very limited numbers on the Prestige label, probably with the involvement of Prince Tony Robinson, with a further limited pressing appearing on the Prophets label. This reissue at last allows an obscure and mysterious album to be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Yabby You: “Dub music carry the message. If you play the music it captivate your mood, it bring you and draw you out of that folliness, and brings you into consciousness.”

Musicians include:
Drums: Leroy ‘Horsemouth’ Wallace, Sly Dunbar, Carlton ‘Santa’ Davis
Bass: Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett, Robbie Shakespeare
Guitar: Earl ‘Chinna’ Smith, Tony Chin
Keyboards: Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett, Bernard ‘Touter’ Harvey, Ansel Collins, Winston Wright
Horns: Tommy McCook, Richard ‘Dirty Harry’ Hall, Bobby Ellis, Vin Gordon
Percussion: Noel ‘Scully’ Simms, Herman ‘Bongo Herman’ Davis

Recorded at King Tubby’s Studio, Dynamic Sounds, Channel One Studio, and Harry J’s Studio.
Mixed at King Tubby’s Studio, engineer Pat Kelly, produced by Vivian ‘Yabby You’ Jackson.

The original cut of the Althea and Donna ‘Gone to Negril’ track. Released by Pressure Sounds in 2005 and then deleted. Back by popular demand. Presented now with original Talent 77 label in a hand stamped bag. Produced by Tommy Cowan and more on the roots tip than the playful Althea and Donna cut.

A reissue of a classic roots reggae album, originally released in 1982.

A reissue of a classic dub/reggae album, originally released in 1982.

Re-issue of the 1979 album comes with superb sleeve-notes by reggae expert Roger Steffens who was a friend of Joe Higgs and spent much time reasoning with him. LP vinyl is 180 gram heavyweight - an excellent package!

“On August 5th 1962, after 300 years of British rule, which had soaked the earth of the island in blood, Jamaica was finally independent. The country that the British left behind was certainly a place of widespread poverty and deep inequality, but there seems to have been a real burst of confidence that came with independence. Newsreels of the day show well-dressed crowds reacting with enthusiasm and excitement, and the era found its perfect soundtrack in the boldness and exuberance of ska music, which was erupting all over the island. This optimistic mood found probably its greatest artistic expression in the music of the Skatalites, who formed in June 1964 as a kind of Jamaican supergroup. Philip “Justin” Yap was a young, upcoming producer who had used members of the Skatalites for his first tunes, recorded either at RJR (Radio Jamaica and Redifussion) or at Federal studios. As Steve Barrow documented in the sleevenotes for Pressure Sounds’ reissue of the classic “Ska-Boo-Da-Ba” album, Justin had also befriended Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, and when Coxsone opened his own Studio One facility in December 1963, Justin immediately switched most of his production work to this new recording room. Studio One opened just in time to catch the formation of the Skatalites, and is where Justin recorded most of his classic Skatalites sides. He also recorded lots of excellent instrumentals with a smaller brass section, still mainly using members of the Skatalites, but crediting instead the composer or arranger of the tune. Combined with Coxsone’s own recordings, these productions for Justin’s Top Deck and Tuneico labels really captured the members of the Skatalites at their magnificent best in the unique atmosphere of Studio One.” - From Diggory Kenrick’s expansive sleeve-notes.

a Sino/Japanese twist.

In the early 1960s Justin Yap and his brother Ivan [aka ‘Jahu’] ran the Top Deck sound system from their family’s ice cream parlour and restaurant in Barbican, Kingston. The local success of the sound system encouraged them to venture into the recording business, and by 1962 Justin had recorded singers Larry Marshall, Ephraim ‘Joe’ Henry and Ferdie Nelson. The fledgling label enjoyed a modest local Jamaican hit in 1963, with trumpeter Baba Brooks and the Trenton Spence Orchestra's “Distant Drums” issued on Top Deck Records as the b-side to Larry Marshall’s hit “Too Young To Love”. As a fan of exotica composer Martin Denny, Justin had heard “Jungle Drums” on Denny’s 1959 LP “Afro-Desia”. His liking for Martin Denny would prove fruitful later, when Justin recorded the Skatalites in a mammoth all-night session in 1964 at Clement Dodd’s Studio One on Brentford Road.

By 1963-1964, hundreds of ska tracks were being recorded by Clement Dodd, Arthur ‘Duke’ Reid, Vincent Edwards, Vincent Chin, Leslie Kong and Prince Buster and others. Justin had linked up with Allen ‘Bim Bim’ Scott, a friend of Clement ‘Coxson’ Dodd, owner of the Studio One label who had already recorded the musicians who became the Skatalites.

Justin and Ivan organised a session in November 1964 at Studio One; it lasted 18 hours. The length of the session allowed for alternate takes to be recorded, but the highlights of the sessions were the five original compositions by Don Drummond – “Marcus Junior”, “The Reburial”, “Confucious”, “Chinatown” and “Smiling”. The first two are in tribute to the Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey; “The Reburial” refers to the occasion of his interment in Jamaica in 1964, his remains having been brought from the cemetery in Kensal Green London, where he was originally buried in 1940, and reburied in King George VI Memorial Park Kingston [later renamed National Heroes Park].

Along with these originals were some well-chosen cover versions. Two came from the Duke Ellington songbook: “Ska-Ra-Van” is of course Ellington and his trombonist Juan Tizol’s classic composition “Caravan”, while “Surftide Seven” is Ellington’s “In A Mellotone”. The LP title track “Ska-Boo-Da-Ba” is a version of Bill Doggett’s 1958 “King” US 45 “Boo-Da-Ba”. “Ringo” had also appeared on Arthur Lyman’s “Taboo” LP [1958] as “Ringo Oiwake”. Originally it was sung by Hibari Misora – a very famous vocal song in Japan, recorded in 1952, the melody composed by Masao Yoneyama. Yet another tune copped from Lyman’s “Taboo” LP is “China Clipper”, composed by the pianist / arranger / orchestrator Paul Conrad.

The last track on this fine LP is “Lawless Street”, a feature for Roland Alphonso. Unlike the other Skatalites, Roland wasn’t a graduate of the celebrated Alpha School, like many of Jamaica’s top musicians from Bertie King to Yellowman. Alphonso was a graduate of Boys Town School in Denham Town. “Lawless Street” was another tune that was recorded twice at the session – the second version features vocal ‘peps’ and exhortations by DJ King Sporty.

By late 1966, Justin emigrated to the USA, settling permanently in New York. There he took up US citizenship and was called up to serve in the US Army in Vietnam, In the early 1970s he worked in computers and eventually drove a New York cab. In his all too brief involvement in the competitive Jamaican music business he certainly left his mark as a producer. He produced some of the best ska ever made, and the LP reissued here is perhaps the most coherent LP in that genre, deriving as it does from a single session.

The celebrated record producer at Randy’s Studio, Clive Chin:

“It wasn’t the fact that they [the musicians] really love Justin; it was the fact that Justin used to pay them the right money and make them comfortable. Make sure them have them smoke, them food, them drink, and after them finish they got paid.” Unlike many other producers, Justin actually attended the sessions.

It stands as his defining legacy in Jamaican music history.