yardie's reggae collection - artist page
JOE GIBBS
AFRICAN DUB ALL MIGHTY - CHAPTER ONE
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1975 - 17 North Parade - studio - discs: 1
Joe Gibbs (born Joel Gibson in 1945 in Montego Bay) got involved in the Reggae business in 1967 when he financed some sessions for Lynn Taitt's band with Lee Perry supervising them. He formed a new label called Amalgamated. Soon followed some Rocksteady hits, including Perry's "I Am The Upsetter". Gibbs built his own studio in Duhaney Park, and in the meanwhile he kept selling records from his 32 Beeston St. shop. By mid 1968 Joe worked with Winston "Niney" Holness, and when Winston quit he emplyed the great engineer Errol Thompson who was coming from Randy's Studio 17. Years later Joe and Errol became "The Mighty Two": a duo of friends and producers. In the meantime Perry and Holness were bringing new sharp ideas. Thompson became a pioneer of Dub when he worked on Clive Chin's "Java Java Java Java" (aka "Java Java Dub") in 1973. Two years later Gibbs opened his new studio in Retirement Crescent. Thompson kept working with him and in the meantime releasing cuts for his own Errol T label. From 1975 Gibbs with Thompson had some good success with Dubs built over Studio One and Treasure Isle old classics. The latter had two huge competitors: King Tubby and Prince Jammy. But he deserves a high status among the engineers and therefore inside the Jamaican music. So here in 1975 comes "African Dub All Mighty - Chapter One". With a huge bucket of Studio One and Treasure Isle material to pick up from and employing The Professionals, Thompson created some interesting Dubs spiced by the emerging new "Rockers" sound. For sure this set and the following "African Dub All Mighty - Chapter Two" helped to spread Dub in Jamaica and in the UK. It must be also said that these sets confirmed how the Rocksteady rythms could be manipulated again to achieve new musical shapes. These Dubs come from material as different as that from The Techniques, Jackie Mittoo, Burning Spear, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, Errol Dunkley, Sound Dimension, Dennis Brown, The Jamaicans, Bob Andy, Soul Vendors and Soul Syndicate. The musicians that played on these tracks are many: there were some members of the Soul Syndicate, some musicians that would become Lloyd Parks' We The People band, and many that when working together were called The Professionals. Must be also remembered some great talents of the horn session. Among the others there was Tommy McCook, Dean Fraser, "Dirty Harry" Hall and Vin Gordon. The man responsible for the music presented here is of course Errol Thompson, who engineers and mixes. The alchemy brought by the encounter of old classic rythms with the skills and musical visions of Thompson created some very interesting landscapes. Here there is a good part of technical aspects that make the set working properly, but most importantly are Errol's ears and heart that make the difference. Check the originals and than go back to this set: this is very very good (and almost melodic) Dub.
AFRICAN DUB ALL MIGHTY - CHAPTER TWO
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1976 - 17 North Parade - studio - discs: 1
A couple of month aftrer "African Dub All Mighty - Chapter One", The Mighty Two came back with a second chapter. This is not a straight follow up to the first chapter, since here the majority of the Dubs get more edgy. Here The Professionals are formed by less musicians than the previous set. Here the band is reduced to the bone. Here they are: on drums : Santa Davis, on bass : Fully Fullwood, on rhythm guitar : Tony Chin, on keyboards : Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, on horns : Dirty Harry, Tommy McCook and Bobby Ellis. Again the sources come from old Rocksteady classics, and to be more precise from: The Techniques, The Paragons, Alton Ellis, The Melodians, The Wailers, Bob Andy, The Heptones, The Soul Brothers and The Cables. So the inspiration is the same but the way in which the originals are approached at the end it delivers some quite different results. We could say that the ingredients are the same as in the first chapter, but the recipe and therefore the result is sometimes different. Again the engineer is Errol Thompson and the mixes were controlled by him and Joe Gibbs.
yardie-reggae.com - 2007