Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better…

Various Artists, Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee Story: I mean, where do I even start? Four discs. FOUR DISCS. Nearly every one of these songs a massive reggae classic. I mean, Pat Kelly’s “How Long” is like a reggae Sam Cooke. “Wet Dream” shows up here again, along with Linval Thompson’s seminal “Don’t Cut Off Your Dreadlocks,” Delroy Wilson’s “Better Must Come,” Ken Boothe’s take on the Satta Massa Gana. Also, simply phenomenal covers: Ken Parker on “Sad Mood,” Slim Smith tackling “Aint Too Proud to Beg…” One giant warning: there appears to be some kind of screw-up in the tracklisting for Disc 4. Track 17 is identified as Horace Andy’s classic “Skylarking,” but it’s actually Track 18, so II’m going to try to figure out what’s going on here. In the meantime, though, if you have the credits, this is a must. You can probably skip the dubs of most of the songs, thought that might just be my personal preference talking.


8 Responses to “reggae! reggae! reggae! part 2!”  

  1. 1 Captain Wrong

    Skip the dubs??? No way. The dubs are some of the highlights of the Striker Lee legacy, IMHO.

  2. 2 Ryan Holloway
  3. 3 kinqaid

    Joe, you have made my day! Two entries on the now huge eMusic reggae collection. My heart rejoices. No better way to open the summer, for true.

  4. 4 porieux

    We also just got a bunch of albums from Linton Kwesi Johnson!

  5. 5 Daniel, Esq.

    That box set sounds great. By the way, it received a good review from AMG:

    http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kzfexq9sldfe

    Basically, it says that the disc is filled with “hits galore . . . a slew of rocksteady classics from a stable of magnificent vocalists . . . and more crucial cuts from the reggae age.” Apparently, Lee’s two biggest reggae singers were Johnny Clarke and Cornell Campbell, two of my favorite vocalists. The review says that Lee’s 80s output declined in quality, but ends the review by noting, “[t]hree decades later, the Jamaican dancehalls are still reverberating to [Lee's] innovations.” Anyway, seems well worth the 100 DL investment.

  6. 6 Mr B

    Look essential download to me.

    @Porieux, Linton Kwesi Johnson! Brilliant. Unfortunately no Bass Culture or Forces of Victory but 2 LKJ in Dub albums I don’t have. And my downloads have refreshed too :-)

  7. 7 porieux

    Yeah the ‘In Dub’ were the ones I was eyeing as well. Samples sound good.

  8. 8 Daniel, Esq.

    Downloaded the whole box set last night. Worth it!

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