STYLEGUIDES » lee scratch perry

RIP Wycliffe ‘Steely’ Johnson

styleguides — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:18:08 +0000

the news report that steely from the jamaican production duo steely & clevie passed away yesterday due to complications from pneumonia. the electro riddims of keyboardist wycliffe ’steely’ johnson and drummer cleveland ‘clevie’ browne heavily influenced the jamaican dancehall sound since the 80s, with hit productions made for gregory isaacs, maxi priest, foxy brown etc. clevie had pioneered the use of drum machines in reggae and both steely and clevie were instrumentalists for the house bands of reggae kings such as lee scratch perry, king jammy and bob marley. rip steely!

Reggae Dub ‘79-’83

styleguides — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:55:29 +0000

part three of the styleguides reggae excursion to kingston, this time seriously deep in dub with subsonic basslines, infinite echo clouds and intense grooves in slow motion:

bonus video is king jammy on the controls explaining dub:

Reggae Soul ‘73-’77

styleguides — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:15:57 +0000

reggae may be easy to reduce to a silly cliché, but it’s influence to hip hop, funk and soul music can’t be underestimated. no matter how lofi some of these 4-track tape recordings may be, reggae music brought some fantastic song writing and alot of creativity and inventiveness to the music world. reggae disco, dancehall and dub compilations will follow up on styleguides sometime later.

the bonus track is yet again a small music treasure not available on amazon and in need of a proper reissue, susan cadogan’s ‘nice and easy’ (trojan records 1975):