Toast Anyone?

Lee Perry was the first of the new breed to have success - in his case also as the recording artist. In 1968 he released "People Funny Boy" - a dig at his previous compatriate Coxsone Dodd. It sold well, and by 1969 gave Perry the opportunity to 4establish his own label, Upsetter Records, and establish is own house band which included two brothers, Carlton and Aston (Familyman) Barrett as the rhythm section.

Perry recognised, however, that success would be dependant on being able to attract the right artists to his label. The Wailers had some success working with Coxsone Dodd, but the relationship had deteriorated - in particular Dodd's relationships with the volatile (and sometimes violent) Peter Tosh and Rastaman Bunny Wailer were strained, and he visibily kept his distance from them, preferring instead to befriend Bob Marley. The net result was that the Wailers temporarily split up, and in 1966, Marley moved to the US (Delaware), where he worked on a car production line for Chrysler. Eventually he would lose this job, and not qualifying for welfare as well as receiving a draft to go to Vietnam, Bob Marley returned to Jamaica.

In 1967 the Wailers were to try again, forming their own label, Wailin' Soul. However this was doomed to failure as all three of the founders ended up in prison. Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley were improsonned for the possession of marijuana, and Tosh for an obstruction offense during a demonstration against the regime in Zimbabwe (then Rodesia), and even after their release, the reputation and rebellious attitude of the Wailers made them unnattractive to the established and larger labels. The Tuff Gong label enabled them to make a living, but did not promise any global exposure, and lacked the marketing capability to bring reggae into the mainstream.

Lee Perry was able to attract the Wailers to his label, and whilst he was unable to obtain chart success with the band, he established a partnership between the Wailers and the Barrett brothers, and eventually, Aston Barrett was to become the Wailer's arranger. However, the Wailers were not destined for great success until they left the Upsetters label, and moved to Chris Blackwell's Island label (even though Peter Tosh once threatened Blackwell with a machete), taking the Barret brothers with them. With Bob Marley & The Wailers, Familyman went on to be recorded on every Island Records' album, touring the world dozens of times over, performing other duties besides bass, including acting as the band's musical director and helping to mix and produce several albums.

In the UK, the reggae scene continued to grow. From 1970 to 1975, Trojan Records were able to rack up some 23 Top 30 hits, proving that Reggae had a market outside of the Caribbean. Chris Blackwells Island Label also experience some real success. Whilst Island had begun to explore some more rock styles of music, one artist, Jimmy Cliff, remained on the books, and between 1967 and 1971 he racked up a number of hits including "Many Rivers to Cross", "Wild World" and "Wonderful World, Beautiful People".


However, in 1972, Jimmy Cliff was to turn away from music to acting, starring in the movie "The Harder the Come" - a gritty movie about the life of a Rude Boy in Kingston, Jamaica, and featuring a hard-hitting soundtrack of gritty Jamaican reggae.

Whilst all this was going on, King Tubby was looking in another direction. His work as a producer, combined with his homemade echo-chambers and sound effects, led him to begin to experiment with the acetates - also known as dub-plates. Tubby found that by manipulating and editing them, he could create alternate 'versions', ideal for the purposes of a particular young man who had been working with Tubby for some time. Ewart Beckford had been working with Tubby on the Sound Systems - rapping or talking over instrumental breaks and tracks. This style of rapping or "toasting", was developed even further by Tubby and Ewart Beckford, who by now had taken the name "U-Roy", and the combination of U-Roy's toasting and Tubby's effects and production skills (always focused on Bass and Rhythm), would lead to a new style of Reggae, launched in the track "Wake the Town", recorded at Duke Reid's studio.

U-Roy became the most political of all Toasters, and the dominating force for the first half of the 1970's. Even his deeply political tracks, such as "Sufferer's Psalm" released in 1974, would sell 27,000 copies in the Caribbean alone.

Next.... The Harder the Come and Marley breaks through