Roots Reggae

This CD went into the Mac laptop and the sounds burst into 2009 to take me back over 30 years. Great selection and worth buying for "On the Track" alone - play loud and lose yourself. Captures those years perfectly for anyone who was there and will introduce some new ears to a rich source of Jamaican music.

I won't be shopping with tax cheats like Amazon this christmas or any other time in the future and invite you to do the same.

DJ Scratchy was a regular figure at Punk gigs in the late 70's. He was the DJ who introduced Reggae, Ska and Dub to the bondage trousered crowds at Clash gigs, tirelessly promoting the Jamaican sound. Here with this double CD he relaunched his career, and what a wonderful collection it is, with a mixture of old favourites and obscure gems. If you listen carefully, you can still feel the Punk vibe here and relive the whiff of stale beer and marijuana in the air of those grungy London clubs.

If you like early Ska with rough production then you'll like this.For me, I am a late comer to Ska after the updated version developed by bands like Madness, the specials, Selector and so on. That's why, to my ears, a lot of this stuff is just too early, too badly produced.The same comments apply to the dub tracks - again, all too early with nowhere near the bass lines I was hoping for.I prefer later reggae, dub, ska or the earlier stuff that was better produced. This double CD is of it's time and unless you are into (as the cover says, roots)it is too dated. Ignore 4 star rating - you cannot change it once given and I thought I was reviewing another CD.Two stars only then!

A nice collection of roots reggae with cuts that only the most avid reggae fan are likely to have.

Great collection, too scratched to load in my CD player