Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Prince Douglas: Dub Roots
Engineer Douglas Levy was part of the original Wackies set up from 1974-75, alongside Lloyd Barnes and Jah Upton. For a while he would have his own label - Hamma - within the Bullwackies group; but besides Sugar's International Herb, this 1980 dub album is his finest work. Wackies' fans have been clamouring for its reissue ever since Rhythm & Sound began making the catalogue available again.
Many of the rhythms are derived from a tape given to the studio by Sly and Robbie, containing their versions of recent Joe Gibbs hits. And there are brilliant treatments of Tribesman Dub - the rhythm for Tyrone Evans' Black Like Me - and Wayne Jarrett's definitive interpretation of Every Tongue Shall Tell. Elsewhere Jah Batta takes deejay duties - likewise Prince Douglas himself. (And there are lovely skewed graphics by team regular Leslie Moore, self-styled 'LAM International'). But the deadliest cut of all reworks another gift, Steel Pulse's Handsworth Revolution, which arrived in a parcel of records from England the same weekend as the session: March Down Babylon Dub, with Bullwackie himself at the microphone in his Chosen Brothers guise, as steely and apocalyptic as Douglas Levy's fabulous production.
Jam Love Dub
Hard Times Dub
Let Me Love You Dub
Tongue Shall Tell Dub
March Down Babylon Dub
Sunshine Dub
You And Me Dub
North Of The Border Dub
Tribesman Dub
W-295 (LP/CD) 2005
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