Label: Soul Jazz
Release date: 28.05.2021
Soul Jazz Records’ new Studio One collection ‘Fire Over Babylon: Dread, Peace and Conscious Sounds at Studio One’ features a stellar selection of 70s roots music - classic and rare tracks recorded at Clement Dodd’s musical empire at 13 Brentford Road in the 1970s. Rastafarian-inspired Roots music was an ever-important aspect of Studio One’s output from the start of the 1970s onwards and this album features many of the groundbreaking groups and artists that established the sound of Jamaica during this decade and beyond. Featured here are seminal artists such as Freddie McGregor, The Wailing Souls, The Gladiators, Horace Andy, Devon Russell, Cedric Brooks, Count Ossie and Judah Eskender Tafari alongside a host of lesser-known rare cuts made at Studio One from artists such as The Prospectors, Viceroys and Pablove Black. Studio One and founder Clement Dodd’s connection with Rastafarianism dates back to the early 1960s, with Dodd accompanying members of the Skatalites up to the hills of Kingston to listen to the music of the Rastafarian Count Ossie and his drummers. The album sleevenotes discuss how Clement Dodd’s musical links, as well as his role in heading the most important record label in Reggae, are in many ways linked to the beliefs of Rastafarianism.
Freddie McGregor - I Am a
Revolutionist
The Silvertones - Burning
In My Soul
Wailing Souls - Without
You
Devon Russell - Jah Jah
Fire
Trevor Clarke - Sufferation
The Gladiators - Sonia
Judah Eskender Tafari -
Always Trying
The Viceroys - Ya Ho
Im and Count Ossie - Give
Me Back Me Language
And Me Culture
The Gladiators - Serious
Thing
The Prospectors - Glory
For I
Wailing Souls - Things and
Time
Pablove Black - Inner
Peace
The Gladiators - Peace
Horace Andy - Mr. Jolly
Man
Wailing Souls - Rock But
Don’t Fall
Albert Griffiths and The
Gladiators - Righteous
Man
So Many Problems - The
Viceroys