Death Is Not The End's 333 series is back with another dig into the catalogue of the NYC-based Flames label on this reissue of a highly coveted Revolutionaries LP, Meditation in Dub.
One of reggae music's most famed session bands, The Revolutionaries were an often r/evolving cast of some of the finest session musicians on the island during the roots and early dancehall periods of the mid/late 1970s and early 1980s. These would include Earl 'Wire' Lindo, Radcliffe 'Dougie' Bryan, Ansell Collins, Bobby Kalphat, Lloyd Parks, Uziah 'Sticky' Thompson, Bongo Herman, Stanley Bryan, Bo Peep, Eric 'Bingy Bunny' Lamont, Errol 'Tarzan' Nelson, Skully Simms, Robbie Lyn, Mikey 'Mao' Chung amongst many others. The enduring core of the group, however, was undoubtedly in the coming together of the legendary rhythm section of drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare - with the formation of The Revolutionaries marking the first time that this often unparalleled duo worked together.
The group laid down these rhythm tracks at their base at the storied Channel One recording studio, Maxfield Avenue, Kingston sometime in the mid 1970s - under the arrangement of one of reggae music's great undersung figures, Ossie Hibbert. Early in 1975 Ossie was to move to Maxfield Avenue just as Jo Jo & Ernest Hookim's studio was starting up. A well-respected session musician himself through the late 1960s and early 70s (he played keys for Bunny 'Striker' Lee and Keith Hudson and would also form part of another foundational session band, The Soul Syndicate) he was initially summoned by Jo Jo to be a band member for The Revolutationaries but quickly assumed the role of producer, engineer and talent scout for the studio, responsible for selecting the artists to bring into the studio.
These tracks were recorded by Hibbert around this time for Winston Jones, the original singer and composer of Stop That Train (later made world-famous by Keith & Tex's version) with his Spanishtonians for Prince Buster's label in the early 1960s. Jones had moved from JA to NYC in the early 1970s where he established and ran the Flames label. The imprint would go on to form a core part of Brooklyn's reggae scene from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, though Jones often employed the use of Channel One, Hibbert and The Revolutionaries back home in the recording of rhythm tracks for his productions. Thus the Meditation in Dub LP is essentially formed of stellar dub versions to many of the early Flames labels 45s, produced and released by Jones throughout the mid to late 1970s, including crucial takes on a great many popular rhythms of that period. One of any self-respecting dub LP collectors' holy grails, with originals going for up to £400, it is issued here under license from the now Texas-based Jones with the kind assistance of RB at DKR in sourcing the audio for this new cut.