GUN MONEY...

Clint Eastwood

I inherited my Dad’s weapons. A whole arsenal. Twenty-one hand guns and three rifles. He had ‘em stashed everywhere- I guess in case of an ambush. When I was a youth, he had a pair of .22 Derringers hidden up his coat sleeves. My Dad was an Italian cowboy, if there ever was such a thing. He loved Smith and Wesson big caliber revolvers. Yep-he favored old school six-shooters like Clint Eastwood’s weapon of choice. Dad was a connoisseur of .357 and .44 Magnums. All pistols were loaded with hollow points. In that collection were a few 9 millimeters automatics, nothing special, so no love lost when I pawn shopped them. With the gun violence happening on our favorite West Indian Island I figured turning the gun money profit into Roots Reggae music would be Karmic justice.


and Clint Eastwood!

What tunes I traded my bullets in for!



Wake the town and tell the people...



...it is U-ROY rockin' the mic down at KING TUBBY'S sound system!

Okay, first off, U-Roy was not the original DeeJay to toast something wicked over a Dub plate but he was dubbed the "Originator" for he invented a new necessity. U-Roy copped the sly wisecracking style of Count Matchuki and crafted something so slippery that his lyrics would slide straight off the beat. Yep, Ewart Beckford, I mean U-Roy would slide those lyrical messages straight to the back of your unsuspecting subconscious! And you could still shake your ass to it! Within months, imitators sprang up like weeds in JAH'S garden. Not all the copies would choke out the sunlight though... Big Youth and I-Roy would flourish. Even threaten U-Roy's chart domination. But these songs are where the modern DeeJay style was born. Immerse yourself in Roots Rock History.



I do not claim to be an authority on such matters as U-Roy's jumbled discography. (Maybe it is my brain that is jumbled.) Thankfully websites like www.strictly-vibes.com help sort out the mess my memory is in. Jah knows I can not learn anything from reading the inserts. So my nitpicking gripe is with the presentation-all these Virgin/EMI editions have the same generic liner notes. Cheap MF's is what I call 'em. I mean Virgin has released and re-released the same batch of tunes. Damn sure Mr. Ewart Beckford does not see his fair shear of royalties. These 2004 editions are the 1991 remasters pretending to be new editions disguised with different front covers. But that is okay, because the sound is infinitely better than the snap, crackle and pop of my old vinyl.



Stay tuned - I am going to continue to add things up.