Across five seminal albums, Burning Spear would do more than just define roots; he would leave a fiery legacy that no other artist has equalled. Kicking off with the stunning Marcus Garvey in 1975 and encompassing the equally exceptional string of Man in the Hills, Dry & Heavy, Social Living, and Hail H.I.M., the final album in this series of masterpieces, Spear had undergone a continuous evolution. Over this five year period, Spear had truncated from a trio to Winston Rodney alone, grown to include the accompanying Black Disciples aggregate of elite sessionmen, then pared down to a smaller grouping, and had seen Rodney move into self-production.
We're excited to announce the release of our brand new, 22-song, 2-disc retrospective album, "Cheers And Echoes"! The compilation spans all of our studio albums going all the way back to 1998, and also includes a brand new song called "Mrs. Elliott" and a new live recording of "Lanigan's Ball", recorded at the Turning Stone Casino in 2014.
Declaration Of Dub (New Version) is a remake. The long-awaited Declaration of Dub is the dubwise companion to the Abyssinians' classic album Satta Massagana, an archetypal roots-reggae document featuring nothing but the deepest, darkest and dreadest riddims churning beneath the supernal trio harmonies of Bernard Collins, Donald Manning and Lynford Manning; the lyrics are all standard Rastafarian fare, dealing with African repatriation, sociopolitical observations and the goodness of Jah.
1978 Roots Reggae album reissued on CD for the first time. Born 1944 in Kingston, Jamaica Pat Kelly is rightly revered as one of the island’s best ever singers although he is less well known for his considerable contribution to reggae music as a highly accomplished recording engineer. Always a keen hard working student, while studying Electrical Engineering at Kingston Technical High School, Pat worked part time at Chin’s Radio Services on Church Street in downtown Kingston where the proprietor, Ivan Chin, operated one of Jamaica’s first recording studios. Pat was awarded a scholarship to continue his education in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA where, after three years, he graduated with a degree in Advanced Electronics.