Beyond 'Legend'

Five Reggae Artists You Might Like (That Aren't Bob Marley)

You find yourself at a party, discussing music with a few people, and you let it slip that you like reggae music. The host's girlfriend happens to overhear.

"You like reggae?! I LOVE reggae," she exclaims, and off to the sound system she skips.

You wait for it. You know it's going to happen. Sure enough, Bob Marley's Legend is switched on, most likely track 3 ("Could You Be Loved") or track 4 ("Three Little Birds").

You smile and nod, realizing at least it's better than the Katy Perry, Psy, or whatever else that was just on the speakers.

*          *          *

This isn't a knock against Bob Marley & The Wailers or Legend; I happen to have Legend as well as a few other Marley albums. I think he was an amazing talent, an amazing individual, and I thoroughly enjoy listening to Marley. I particularly like listening to Live!, Catch a Fire, and Uprising over Legend, but hey, that's just me.

Saying you love reggae music but only having select tracks of Legend in your music library is like saying you love sushi, but only order the chicken teriyaki roll. 

You're missing a whole bunch o' awesome doing that. In both cases.

So I'll help you out a bit; below are my five reggae artists (and a few of their albums) to ease you off of Legend and into a new realm of groovy beats.

1. Peter Tosh
Legalize It is his most popular album, followed by Equal Rights. Another option is Live & Dangerous, or you can get a taste of almost everything from The Best of Peter Tosh.

2. Black Uhuru
Their Red album has been one of my most frequently listened to albums in the past few months, but I haven't dived into any of their other albums...yet. Bear with me.

3. Aswad
London-based Aswad have busted out over 20 albums since the mid-seventies. Albums to pick from are their self-titled Aswad or Live & Direct; personally I went with Aswad's The Complete BBC Sessions double album set; I couldn't resist a good deal.

4. Gregory Isaacs
More "make out" reggae than "party reggae," Gregory Isaacs pioneered the lovers rock sub-genre of reggae. Unbelievably, he has over 500 albums released in his name. So where to start? Try Night Nurse or one of the many compilations, such as Best of Gregory Isaacs or The Millennium Collection.

5. Burning Spear
Winston Rodney, aka Burning Spear, first arrived on the roots reggae scene in 1969 and continues to perform and release albums to this day. With over 30 albums released, there's lots to pick from. Get started with the Marcus Garvey / Garvey's Ghost double album, Jah Kingdom or Resistance, or dive in with a compilation album such as Burning Spear: Gold.

BONUS ALBUM
King Tubby & Soul Syndicate
I debated including, and decided not to include, King Tubby & Soul Syndicate in the list of five. For one, they cross the boundary from roots reggae to dub. Secondly, this was (to my knowledge) their only collaboration. King Tubby was a pioneering sound engineer with his name on, in my estimates, three million reggae albums; if you like what King Tubby does with Soul Syndicate in Freedom Sounds In Dub, it won't be hard to find more of his work. I really like Freedom Sounds in Dub, and you might, too.

*          *          *

Disclosure #1a: I am not a reggae guru, nor do I claim to be. I like listening to reggae music, but I have never desired to dive into the history or the backstories and connections that exist within the genre.

Disclosure #1b: Nowhere in this list do I say "Top 5" or "the five best" or anything of that sort; it is simply "five," as in "Five Artists That Aren't Bob Marley That You Could Possibly Listen To And Like Instead Of Listening to Bob Marley." Also, as I said above, this is not to shit on Bob Marley or to say these artists are better than Bob Marley. They're just different.

Disclosure #2: I prefer roots reggae to the other sub-genres of reggae, as this list will demonstrate. Perhaps exposing Legend-only reggae listeners to other roots reggae artists might make it a little easier to broaden their music libraries.

Disclosure #3: I will state again, for the record: I am a non-pot-smoking reggae fan. It's true: we do exist. Also, for the record: I don't give a rat's ass if you smoke pot or not...just don't do it on my damn job site.

Disclosure #4: All of the album links go to Amazon.com, of which I am an affiliate. In plain words: you click on the Album link, go to Amazon.com, and if you buy the album, I get a commission of 4% (I think...).

Housekeeping + tunes

I (semi-unintentionally) changed the domain name of this site from 411number3.net to mattrevors.com this morning.


This was something I was considering doing in the near-future, to help tie in my twitter handle (@mattrevors) and my fairly-new tumblr page for Instagram/Lightbox pics (mattrevors.tumblr.com).


Unfortunately, the hamsters that spin internal wheels at Google/Blogger, the Secret Society of the Stonecutters and whoever else might hold the puppet strings of fate had other things in mind, as the change occurred instantaneously.


This means every single link to posts I've made over the past year & some are now broken. I did manage to dive deep into the machine and create an URL redirect, but unfortunately anything will move on to the home/top page. I'm not overly computer-savvy beyond that, so...yeah.


However...if you happen to have a link with the 411number3.net domain (e.g., http://www.411number3.net/2012/01/back-to-school.html ) all that is required to get to the post you're looking for is change the 411number3.net to mattrevors.com (e.g., http://www.mattrevors.com/2012/01/back-to-school.html ). The rest of the URL remains the same.


As for you RSS subscribers (which there are surprisingly quite a few of you...thanks!), I think...THINK...I have things all straightened away. I'll confirm that tomorrow morning for sure; if it's all fubar'd, I'll go back to the drawing board. It's a big drawing board (see lack of computer-savviness above) so I'm hoping it's all straightened out.


For those of you not subscribed yet, you can still do that via email & RSS on the upper right of the page, in the sidebar.


I'm pretty sure this is messing up me far worse than it is you, loyal readers, but still, I write to be read. An unintended domain name change is a pretty good way for the reading part of that to not happen.


Here's that music I promised you. A tune that is more for my benefit than yours right now, I'm sure.

The Gulag

Time/Date: 0635 PST, 06-Jul-11
Location: A Top-Secret Alpine Facility, British Columbia (near the Alaskan border)

I'd like to tell you where I am, but I'm not really sure. Things got confusing after leaving Smithers, BC.

I landed on a gravel runway and this scary woman started going through our bags for drugs, alcohol, weapons...

...and apparently fly fishing gear, as well.

That's right. My stuff was confiscated.

I went along with it, but now, seeing I'm probably closer to the moon than I am fishable water...it's a little ridiculous.

I'm totally surrounded by snow-capped mountains & glaciers. It's actually quite scenic and I'd love to show you a picture, but we're not permitted to take photos of the project site to post on social media sites such as "Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Hi-5..." (when the hell did they write that policy? And what the f**k is Hi-5?)

So this black-ops fly fishing trip they assume I'd go on if I had retained possession of my 3 rods & reels is pretty much out of the question, unless I commandeered a helicopter as well.

But it's policy.

I will get my gear back, of course, when I leave. That is, if it doesn't go missing. If it does, that's my problem, as they're "not responsible for any and all lost or stolen property." How do you think that possible scenario would play out for them?

Potential CBC headline: "Numerous People Kicked in Groin By NB Geologist Over Fly Fishing Gear"

For those unawares, I took on this project pretty much just to get a flight to northern BC to fish once the project is over & to visit friends in Vancouver on the way back home. The irony of potentially losing my gear before I got to fish is not lost on me. Not one little bit.

I will someday soon declare war on these legal-beagle types that draft up all these ridiculous rules, regulations, bylaws, laws, policies and any other name they go by. Kidney punches for all!

By governing to the lowest common denominator, the people who draft these policies breed out common sense, independent thought & creativity.

Then again, maybe that's what 'they' want...

I'd rather embed some new music...but we're not allowed to stream music or video here, either.

The quality of this one, if I remember correctly, is pretty good:

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