Thanks for your reply, Dread. Luckily, I did buy Dread At The Controls on vinyl and played it for the first time yesterday. It sounded great and a bit familiar, I think, because so many people have taken bits of his style and used/adapted them for themselves. I already like the album and suspect that on further listening, it will become a favourite.
Anyway, all the best from down in the Westcountry.
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Glad your enjoying it, if your liking Dread At The Controls, hopefully you picked up an original Trojan pressing, I would highly recommend getting original vinyl (on the DATC label) of African Anthem (The Mikey Dread Show Dubwize) and World War III.
Then for further exploration if the vibe takes you…
Master Showcase is a great album consisting of multiple versions of Jumping Master from World War III.
S.W.A.LK is good with Mikey embracing Lovers Rock in his own idiosyncratic style.
Rockers Vibration is a great various artists compilation of Mikey’s productions.
I have all his other albums but after the ones I mention they start getting a bit patchy.
The many 12" and 10" singles he put out on the DATC label are also well worth tracking down.
Full joy
Really interesting guy and I didn’t realise he did so much studio work. Thanks for that, Dread.
On a different subject, I have been thinking of dipping my toes into streaming and I saw you post on another thread about this. Would you mind redirecting me?
Hope you’re keeping well where you are
Cheers…Shep
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Morning SHEP, hope your well.
Not sure which post your referring to I may have mentioned it in a few posts.
I recently auditioned a “budget” Bluesound Node 2i (£500) and have trialled both Qobuz and Tidal. I’m no expert when it comes to streaming. That said to my ears ( my reference is a fairly well advanced LP12) is that the Bluesound is sonically excellent and a bargain imo for the money. It supports just about all the music streaming services and radio your ever likely to want, its easy to set up, no issues over wifi, it’s small and understated, tasteful aesthetics with good build quality.
In terms of SQ I suspect a lot more money would need to be spent to better it.
Tidal & Quobuz are probably the 2 services most people on this forum go too for their Hi Res capabilities.
I found that Quobuz and Tidal do sound different though so it’s worth comparing.
Qobuz seems to have more Hires content, however I have started to favour Tidal as it seems to better serve my core tastes and better geared up at introducing new music to explore.
I initially got interested in the idea in order to check out new music before buying but I’ve increasingly found myself listening to the Node2i as a credible source in it’s own right.
@TheKevster has recently trialled one and I believe is very positive about it.
Hope this helps
Stay blessed!
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@SHEP I overlooked this album from my list of Mikey Dread recommendations.
Junior Murvin of Police & Thieves fame. Bad Man Posse produced by Mikey Dread, presented “showcase” style, in other words vocal followed by its dub cut.
Again best heard on original DATC LP
Oh and this one
@SHEP
Don’t get me started on Mikey Dread - he is the MAN!
Want to check out the CONSUMMATE Mikey Dread tune?
Go listen to
HEAVYWEIGHT SOUND
and then follow it up with
ROOTS AND CULTURE
The fantastic film Rudeboy The Story Of Trojan Records is now available on DVD with soundtrack compilation CD
Excellent, highly recommended
A film about the love affair between Jamaican and British Youth culture told through the prism of one the most iconic record labels in history, Trojan Records. Combining archive footage, interview and drama, Rudeboy tells the story of Trojan Records by placing it at the heart of a cultural revolution that unfolded in the council estates and dance floors of late 60’s and early 70’s Britain and how that period of immigration and innovation transformed popular music and culture. A loving tribute that reminds us that music has the power to break down cultural barriers and change lives.
Featuring a cast of legendary artists including Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Toots Hibbert, Ken Boothe, Neville Staple, Marcia Griffiths, Dave Barker, Dandy Livingstone, Lloyd Coxsone, Pauline Black, Derrick Morgan and more.
DVD is PAL.
- Lover Boy – Derrick Morgan
- Tougher Than Tough (Rudie In Court) – Derrick Morgan
- Rudy, A Message To You – Dandy Livingstone
- 54-46 Was My Number – The Maytals
- Liquidator – Harry J All Stars
- Moon Hop – Derrick Morgan
- Monkey Man – The Maytals
- Long Shot Kick De Bucket – The Pioneers
- To Be Young Gifted and Black – Bob & Marcia
- Double Barrel – Dave & Ansel Collins
- Israelites – Desmond Dekker & The Aces
- Everything I Own – Ken Boothe
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The question on everyone’s lips right now
Early eighties roots/dub reggae this is an essential Greensleeves 12" Classic
Wayne Wayde Poor & Humble/ Bunny Lie Lie Babylonian
Recorded at Channel One with the Roots Radics Band and dub mixed by the legendary Scientist at King Tubbys.
A very welcome re issue.
Catch it while you can
Cheers folks. I will definitely audition the Bluesound when dealers are allowed to reopen. I will get my State pension at the end of this month so can afford to loosen the purse strings a little. Getting older isn’t all bad news.
Still loving Mikey Dread. Cheers for now.
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Just a thought if your itching and dont want to wait through lockdown.
You can buy direct from Bluesound with a no quibble 30 day return
Great Wayne Wade tune - thanks for that.
It led me to Qobuz and Tidal where I found the compilation album containing the track - “Dread Meets Greensleves” - as well as another compilation “Don Letts presents The Mighty Town Sound”
Since this post is now onto Don Letts I will circle back to @Shep and his Mikey Dread question and now lead him to Mikey’s work on The Clash’s Sandinista - and then follow up with one of my all time favorite Clash tunes - Armageddon Time - Kick It Over/No Justice Tonight. I guess for good measure we can add The Clash’s cover of Police and Thieves as well.
It is all a big circle - Mikey Dread, The Clash, Don Letts
Best
Gregg
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Armageddon Time is actually another Clash cover version. The Willie William’s Studio One Classic
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As well as Sandinista, various singles including this
I think it is in the Clash Documentary Westway To The World, where Paul Simonon is enthusing about meeting Lee Scratch Perry, he asked Scratch what he thought of their version? Scratch replied “you ruined it!” 
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Mikey Dread pays credit to the Clash on the back sleeve of World War III
Not forgetting their cover of Pressure Drop
Which along with the aforementioned Justice Tonight/ Kick It Over (Armagideon Time), and Bank Robber/Robber Dub can be found on Black Market Clash
Or the later expanded version Super Black Market Clash
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Multi-award winning singer-songwriter Zara McFarlane, is the UK’s Black British foremost Jazz Vocalist. Eloquent and provocative her sound is distinguished by her melding of multiple influences from jazz, reggae, folk and nu-soul.
Tracing the musical heritage of the Caribbean, Zara McFarlane explores her interconnected vision of the diaspora.
On Arise, Zara McFarlane returns to a buoyant UK jazz scene with a head-turning third album. Exploring the musical possibilities of British-Jamaican identity, it’s a cultural exchange that’s born of London’s current musical climate. Released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings, it sees her working with much-feted drummer and producer Moses Boyd. Both rose through London’s Tomorrow’s Warriors programme, a finishing school for many young vanguards of the live, ascendant jazz scene springing up across the UK capital. Sharing Caribbean family heritages, it’s a product of their joint exploration of the meeting points between jazz and the rhythms of Jamaica; reggae, Kumina, calypso and nyabinghi, shaded with hints of the psychedelic.
Zara’s breakthrough 2012 track, a jazz cover of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’, provided a jumping off point to further explore the blurred, colourful territory in between jazz and roots-reggae. Covering Nora Dean’s ‘Peace Begins Within’, she breathes a syncopated groove into a soulful, reggae classic. A beautifully poised version of the Congos’ Fisherman teases out the poignant lyrical content of the 1977 classic. Meanwhile new, original compositions from Zara, like ‘Fussin’ and Fightin’’ and ‘Freedom Chain’, combine a deep, reverberating bass with a steady-stepping roots rhythm.
Album opener ‘Ode To Kumina’ touches on the kumina tradition brought to Jamaica by indentured labourers from The Congo in the later part of the 19th Century. Part of Zara’s deeper research into her Caribbean heritage, it alludes to a deep-rooted culture encompassing music, dance and religion. Similarly, ‘Silhouette’ arose from that same research; in this case, however, it was about how records and documents often get lost in Jamaica. “It kind of came out of the idea of black history and blackness and feeling like you’re trying to find yourself,” she explains. “Trying to be proud of your history and who you are. And never forgetting the things that brought you to where you are.”
Alongside drummer Moses Boyd on production, the album features a stellar line up of some of the key players on the London scene Binker Golding on tenor sax, Peter Edwards on piano, Shirley Tetteh on guitar, Nathaniel Cross on Trombone and an unusually restrained turn on Clarinet from Shabaka Hutchings. Shared between all of them is a tendency to find the common points between different musical ilks: from US hard bop jazz, to dub and London-rooted hybrids and permutations, the band on Arise reflect the musical diversity of their home. Boosted by new platforms, like East London showcase Church of Sound and a newly-refreshed Jazz Café, the record surfs the momentum currently propelling jazz-influenced music in the UK.
For Zara, Jamaica’s musical legacy is deeply intertwined with her sense of the place itself. Spending whole summers in the hills of Jamaica, it’s the sounds and smells which she most vividly associates with her stays there. In particular the local sound systems which were an everyday feature of the local area; be it in shops or bars, each of the small local shacks would have a sound system where they’d play music through the day and evening.
“From where my nan used to live, in Cauldwell there’s a sound system almost opposite her house,” she says. “So you feel this boom of the bass, and then all the smells of the hills and the greenery of Hanover. When you land in Jamaica and you go to walk off of the plane, the heat and the smells hit you and it feels like home away from home for me. When I hear Jamaican music, these are the senses that come.”
Zara’s fourth studio album pushes the boundaries of jazz adjacent music via an exploration into the folk and spiritual traditions of her ancestral motherland, Jamaica. The album is a rumination on the piecing together of black heritage, where painful and proud histories are uncovered and connected to the present.
Partnering with cult South London based producers Kwake Bass and Wu-lu, Zara has created a futuristic sound palate, electronically recreating the pulsing, hypnotic rhythms Kumina and Nyabinghi – and the music played at African rooted rituals like the emancipation celebration Bruckins Party, and the lively death rites of Dinki Minki and Gerreh. These richly patterned electronic rhythms are balanced throughout by McFarlane’s distinctive, clear vocal tones, and vivid song writing.