reggae and dub basslines?

Every1TookMyName · #1 10-09-2002, 08:04 PM

I'm not happy with my playing style right now... I want to add some groove to it, which I think would work well for the music I'm trying to make.

Could you guys recommend some reggae and dub songs with great basslines? And while you're at it, name some of the bassists who are the most influential in that genre... bassists who you have HAVE to know to understand dub.

- jamey

munkycharmz · #2 10-09-2002, 08:38 PM

listen to sublime. eric wilson. he's got a grooovy, dub, rumble in your chest but still kick ass sound.
so.. yeah.

Every1TookMyName · #3 10-09-2002, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by munkycharmz
listen to sublime. eric wilson. he's got a grooovy, dub, rumble in your chest but still kick ass sound.
so.. yeah.

Well I was hoping to learn about some of the greats... you know, its the difference between learning the blues from SRV rather than Robert Johnson. I'd like to learn where it all came from, so that while you'd hear dub in my playing style, you wouldn't necessarily hear a certain person.

tallguybcs · #4 10-09-2002, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Every1TookMyName

Well I was hoping to learn about some of the greats... you know, its the difference between learning the blues from SRV or Robert Johnson. I'd like to learn where it all came from, so that while you'd hear dub in my playing style, you wouldn't necessarily hear a certain person.

Great point. I'm keeping a very close eye on this thread. If it develops like I hope it will, it'll help me a lot.

DigMe · #5 10-09-2002, 11:21 PM

Dub
Sly and Robbie (bassist: Robbie Shakespeare) Get any of their albums... Taxi Fare is interesting. You can often find their CD's discounted too. I got Dub Rockers Delight for 2 bucks.

Reggae
Bob Marley and the Wailers (bassist: Aston "Family Man" Barrett) Rastaman Vibration is one of my favorites of the original albums but One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley is a great compilation.

brad cook

dancehallclasher · #6 10-10-2002, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Every1TookMyName
Well I was hoping to learn about some of the greats... you know, its the difference between learning the blues from SRV rather than Robert Johnson. I'd like to learn where it all came from, so that while you'd hear dub in my playing style, you wouldn't necessarily hear a certain person.

well you asked for great basslines, and eric plays a lot of them. don't discount him because he's not old enough. check out his line on "righteous dub" with the long beach dub allstars. i love grooving on that one.

slam · #7 10-10-2002, 11:11 AM

A few of my favorites:

Willie Williams "Armagideon Time"
Michigan and Smiley "Diseases"
Luciano "He Is My Friend"
I Roy "War and Friction"
Mighty Diamonds "Pass the Kutchie"
King Tubby "King Tubby's Answer"
Bob Marley "Rastaman Chant"
Tappa Zukie "MPLA"
Tenor Saw "Ring the Alarm"
Admiral Bailey "Punanny"
Frankie Paul "Pass the Tusheng Peng"

Also you can go to reggae riddims to see versions of classic reggae riddims and jamrid to hear the riddims that most reggae is based upon.

odie · #8 10-10-2002, 02:52 PM

I second, Aston "Family Man" Barrett from the Wailers.

peteroberts · #9 10-10-2002, 02:57 PM

yes, Family Man, check out Bob Marley's live album 'Babylon by Bus'. Great deep grooves and deeper tone.

Philbiker · #10 10-11-2002, 07:54 AM

I'm not really a big reggae fan....

but I am a big Third World fan.

Check out Richie Daley's work with Third World if you get the chance. Their last album "Generation Coming" was their best since the 70s IMO and they have a new one coming out soon. I particularly recommend that and the 1979 record "The Story's Been Told", which has some particularly infections grooves by Daley and company.

**baba** · #11 10-11-2002, 08:11 AM

Family Man!

DanGouge · #12 10-11-2002, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by babadingding
Family Man!

Yeah! Family Man is the original.
In addition to his playing with the Wailers, he also worked with Lee Perry, the godfather of dub.

BTW: try to find an interview of Lee Perry, think long-term excessive pot usuage has no side-effects?

slam · #13 10-11-2002, 11:17 AM

Probably the most influential bass player in reggae history is Leroy Sibbles of Studio One. His bass lines have been versioned (reused) far more than anyone else's. There are thousands of songs that use his bass lines. He was also the lead singer for The Heptones, one of the best early reggae vocal trios.

Also very influential is Flabba Holt of the Roots Radics, the premier backing band in the early dancehall era. You can hear him on many of the big songs of the 1980's. Roots Radics now tour with Isreal Vibration. Go see them if they come to your town.

Of course there is also Robbie Shakespeare of Sly and Robbie, Peter Tosh, and Black Uhuru fame. He was a protege of Family Man.

Family Man is also one of the greatest reggae bass players, and he still tours with The Wailers.

If you want to play reggae you should check all of these guys out. They all were heavily involved in the studio scene in Jamaica and are responsible for at least 75% of all the reggae bass playing coming out of Jamaica.

If you want to hear the best dubs you need to check out King Tubby. He was the most prolific producer of dub reggae has ever seen, and the greatest. Many of the top producers took their tapes to his studio to get the Tubby treatment. Also great in dub is Scientist, who got his start as Tubby's assistant.

jerry · #14 10-11-2002, 04:02 PM

I'll second the Flabba Holt & Roots Radics nod....also Dennis Bovell is great.....the Black Uhuru Dub Factor is a great Robbie Sheakspear C.D... Arkology by Lee Perry is like a Bible of dub grooves!
There is also a very good compilationon on Hip-O records called ' Dub Reggae Essentials' that has a lot of killer dub including U-Roy/ kingTubby/ Black Uhuru and others on a single disc in case you only want to buy a single disc.

deepbob · #15 10-12-2002, 01:52 PM

lynton kwesi johnson has a kick-ass reggae band behind him, some great riddims (jamaican dance bass lines) in there.

if you want real history, all you need do is buy any one of the many mutliple CD compilation albums of bob marley's early career from 50s and 60s, when and where most of this stuff was made.

indeed it's very interesting to listen to the whole of marley's career, to see how the riddims were refined over the decades.

by the 70s they'd mastered the various riddims they lay claim to, and then absorbed the technology that pumped them to the amazing stuff we heard at the end.

jerry · #16 10-12-2002, 02:58 PM

What really sucks is how Rita Marley has been pushing the importance of the Barrett brothers out of the Marley picture. If you watch the newer documentary's of Bob, they never mention the Barrett brothers or Lee Perry......plus she has been taking their name off of some of the songs they co-wrote with Bob. She has become the Yoko Ono of reggae music.........money changes everything......since she was gained control of the Marley catalog the prices for the older C.D.'s has gone up.....and she is trying to rewrite history.

mingustoo · #17 10-21-2002, 12:03 PM

great reggae----chalice---i think they only have two albums.

DanGouge · #18 10-21-2002, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jerry
What really sucks is how Rita Marley has been pushing the importance of the Barrett brothers out of the Marley picture. If you watch the newer documentary's of Bob, they never mention the Barrett brothers or Lee Perry......plus she has been taking their name off of some of the songs they co-wrote with Bob. She has become the Yoko Ono of reggae music.........money changes everything......since she was gained control of the Marley catalog the prices for the older C.D.'s has gone up.....and she is trying to rewrite history.

The whole BM&W legacy is a mess. If you interview Lee Perry, he implies that he was the architect behind Bob's best work. I'm sure that Rita backs up her man. No one can decide who owns the songs or their various recordings (the Wailers seemed to have recorded most of their stuff multiple times in different studios). It really is a shambles and I'm not sure how anyone would get to the bottom of determining the exact importance of the contributions of Bob, Peter, Bunny, Lee Perry, the Barrett boys, Leslie Kong or anyone else.

Bill Brasky · #19 10-23-2002, 06:13 PM

Toots & The Maytals (don't know who the bassist was... I think the Maytals is just the name of the 3 singers in the group, and I've read that the Skatellites used to be the band that played for them.) I've got Monkey Man/From the Roots (two records combined onto one cd, with some bonus tracks) and Funky Kingston. Both cds have some great songs and every one has good basslines and some funky drumming.

A really good Marly and the Wailers recording I would recommend is a bootleg of them playing live on a San Francisco radio station (KSAN) in 1973. It has some of their best songs, all have nice basslines, and Peter Tosh sings on a couple of them, which I kinda liked. You could probably search the net and find it somewhere, or I bet furthur would have it (www.furthurnet.org). Or if you can't find it and you really want it, you could email me and I could maybe send it to you in mp3 or something.

edited to add:
I just did a search on Furthur, and there are two versions of that Bob Marley show. One is labeled 10/31/73, and the other is labeled 12/2/73. I think the December date is the correct one, but they are both the same show still.

Andrew Jones · #20 10-24-2002, 12:05 AM

I believe the marley broadcast you talking about has been made into a official release."talkin blues"

I wouldnt bet on this but I was under the impresion that Family man was the musical director of the band. being the bass player his lines were half of the song! Money is a ugly motive

A reasent discovery for me is some albums by studio one organ player Jackie Matue(sp?)KILLIN!

AJ