2CD compilation album released by the label Trojan in 2018. The influence o… Read Full Bio ↴2CD compilation album released by the label Trojan in 2018.
The influence of dub upon contemporary music over the past few decades has been nothing short of profound, with traces of the style clearly evident in a diverse array of genres ranging from techno to dubstep.
Given the magnitude of its impact upon such a variety of contemporary sounds, it is therefore not surprising that interest in the music created throughout the seventies and early eighties by a relatively small group of Jamaican-based innovators within the confines of often cramped, technologically limited studios, continually attracts new followers.
The beginnings of dub date back to the late sixties, when Rudolph ‘Ruddy’ Redwood, began cutting one-off custom discs for followers of his Spanish Town-based sound system, the Supreme Ruler of Sound. On these ground-breaking acetates, Redwood had the vocal track intermittently dropped in and out of the mix, creating a style that was quickly adopted by a number of enthusiastic and innovative local producers, most notably Bunny Lee, Clancy Eccles and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
By the dawn of the seventies, these so-called ‘versions’ featured widely on the alternate sides of 7” singles, but such was the determination to push back the boundaries of music, the practice soon developed a stage further, with echo and effects added to the mix. Among those that orchestrated such changes was Kingston-based engineer and sound system operator, Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby.
A modest man of immense talents Tubby had received an education in electronics and operated a successful TV and radio repair shop prior to making his name in the music industry with his popular Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi sound system, which operated in and around his local neighbourhood of Waterhouse.
The success of his sound was due in no small measure to his innovative approach and technical wizardry, which had resulted in the creation of an amplifier capable of reproducing sound louder and with more clarity than any of those possessed by his rivals. He was also the first Jamaican operator to introduce separate tweeter boxes and a reverb unit – developments that led to Home Town Hi-Fi gaining a reputation for having one of the finest sounds on the Kingston scene.
During this period, Tubby also continued to explore the possibilities of sound from his small studio sited at the back of his home at 18 Drumallie Avenue in Kingston. From here, he created new mixes of popular recordings over which his set’s resident DJ, U Roy toasted at Home Town’s dances, with audience reaction to these compelling performances swiftly coming to the attention of one of Jamaica’s leading producers.
Around the close of 1969, Tubby gave his consent for U Roy attending a recording session at Duke Reid’s famed Bond Street studio, where the DJ duly toasted over a number of the producer’s most popular rock steady rhythms. Subsequently released as 7” singles, the recordings proved so overwhelmingly popular that within weeks of their issue, a plethora of similarly-styled discs by a host of up-and-coming toasters had reached record shops.
Over the next year or so, Tubby continued to experiment, creating radically new sounds by dropping sections of the rhythm and vocal track in and out of the mix, using slide faders, echo delay and phasing. The acquisition of an old four-track desk from Byron Lee’s Dynamic Sounds studio in 1972 enabled the boundaries of the music to be pushed even further, resulting in his mixing talents becoming increasingly in demand from numerous local producers, who began crediting his creations as ‘dubs’. During this time, other engineers, most notably Errol Thompson and Sylvan Morris had also begun to experiment with sound, their work contributing significantly to the rapid development of the style.
As time passed, the popularity of the newly created sound was reflected in the growing number of albums on which it was showcased, with even the most traditional of producers eventually releasing collections that championed the style. By the close of the decade, a new generation of engineers was pushing the sound to its most extreme limits, often stripping the music of all but its essential components, with Hopeton ‘Scientist’ Brown, Lloyd ‘Prince Jammy’ James, and ‘Prince’ Phillip Smart among the most innovative and creative of this new breed.
But over the years immediately following the arrival of the technologically driven Digital era in the mid-eighties, studio experimentation largely ground to a halt, resulting in the dub sound stagnating to the point of virtual irrelevance. Its salvation eventually arrived in the early 1990s when a number of young musicians and producers successfully revisited the genre, their work attracting new followers that in time led to dub reclaiming its position around the glove as one of the most popular Jamaican music styles.
This collection compromises some of the finest dub recordings from its original golden age, with each of these deep and heavy sounds performed by the island’s most celebrated session players, mixed by the genre’s most gifted engineers and produced by some of the most creative and influential music makers at Kingston’s finest studios. Whether you are a long-term fan, a recent convert or simply curious to learn more about the music, the tracks featured here ably demonstrate why dub continues to influence and inspire decades after its creation.
-Laurence Cane-Honeysett (2018)
The influence of dub upon contemporary music over the past few decades has been nothing short of profound, with traces of the style clearly evident in a diverse array of genres ranging from techno to dubstep.
Given the magnitude of its impact upon such a variety of contemporary sounds, it is therefore not surprising that interest in the music created throughout the seventies and early eighties by a relatively small group of Jamaican-based innovators within the confines of often cramped, technologically limited studios, continually attracts new followers.
The beginnings of dub date back to the late sixties, when Rudolph ‘Ruddy’ Redwood, began cutting one-off custom discs for followers of his Spanish Town-based sound system, the Supreme Ruler of Sound. On these ground-breaking acetates, Redwood had the vocal track intermittently dropped in and out of the mix, creating a style that was quickly adopted by a number of enthusiastic and innovative local producers, most notably Bunny Lee, Clancy Eccles and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
By the dawn of the seventies, these so-called ‘versions’ featured widely on the alternate sides of 7” singles, but such was the determination to push back the boundaries of music, the practice soon developed a stage further, with echo and effects added to the mix. Among those that orchestrated such changes was Kingston-based engineer and sound system operator, Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby.
A modest man of immense talents Tubby had received an education in electronics and operated a successful TV and radio repair shop prior to making his name in the music industry with his popular Tubby’s Home Town Hi-Fi sound system, which operated in and around his local neighbourhood of Waterhouse.
The success of his sound was due in no small measure to his innovative approach and technical wizardry, which had resulted in the creation of an amplifier capable of reproducing sound louder and with more clarity than any of those possessed by his rivals. He was also the first Jamaican operator to introduce separate tweeter boxes and a reverb unit – developments that led to Home Town Hi-Fi gaining a reputation for having one of the finest sounds on the Kingston scene.
During this period, Tubby also continued to explore the possibilities of sound from his small studio sited at the back of his home at 18 Drumallie Avenue in Kingston. From here, he created new mixes of popular recordings over which his set’s resident DJ, U Roy toasted at Home Town’s dances, with audience reaction to these compelling performances swiftly coming to the attention of one of Jamaica’s leading producers.
Around the close of 1969, Tubby gave his consent for U Roy attending a recording session at Duke Reid’s famed Bond Street studio, where the DJ duly toasted over a number of the producer’s most popular rock steady rhythms. Subsequently released as 7” singles, the recordings proved so overwhelmingly popular that within weeks of their issue, a plethora of similarly-styled discs by a host of up-and-coming toasters had reached record shops.
Over the next year or so, Tubby continued to experiment, creating radically new sounds by dropping sections of the rhythm and vocal track in and out of the mix, using slide faders, echo delay and phasing. The acquisition of an old four-track desk from Byron Lee’s Dynamic Sounds studio in 1972 enabled the boundaries of the music to be pushed even further, resulting in his mixing talents becoming increasingly in demand from numerous local producers, who began crediting his creations as ‘dubs’. During this time, other engineers, most notably Errol Thompson and Sylvan Morris had also begun to experiment with sound, their work contributing significantly to the rapid development of the style.
As time passed, the popularity of the newly created sound was reflected in the growing number of albums on which it was showcased, with even the most traditional of producers eventually releasing collections that championed the style. By the close of the decade, a new generation of engineers was pushing the sound to its most extreme limits, often stripping the music of all but its essential components, with Hopeton ‘Scientist’ Brown, Lloyd ‘Prince Jammy’ James, and ‘Prince’ Phillip Smart among the most innovative and creative of this new breed.
But over the years immediately following the arrival of the technologically driven Digital era in the mid-eighties, studio experimentation largely ground to a halt, resulting in the dub sound stagnating to the point of virtual irrelevance. Its salvation eventually arrived in the early 1990s when a number of young musicians and producers successfully revisited the genre, their work attracting new followers that in time led to dub reclaiming its position around the glove as one of the most popular Jamaican music styles.
This collection compromises some of the finest dub recordings from its original golden age, with each of these deep and heavy sounds performed by the island’s most celebrated session players, mixed by the genre’s most gifted engineers and produced by some of the most creative and influential music makers at Kingston’s finest studios. Whether you are a long-term fan, a recent convert or simply curious to learn more about the music, the tracks featured here ably demonstrate why dub continues to influence and inspire decades after its creation.
-Laurence Cane-Honeysett (2018)
More Genres
No Artists Found
More Artists
Load All
No Albums Found
More Albums
Load All
No Tracks Found
Genre not found
Artist not found
Album not found
Search results not found
Song not found
This Is Trojan Dub
King Tubby & The Aggrovators Lyrics
To view the lyrics for a particular track, select it from the track list above, or search for it.