CHAPTER SIX: DUB

REGGAE: THE ROUGH GUIDE

ON ORDER FROM PENGUIN BOOKS

The word 'dub' is now used throughout the world of dance music to describe a remix. It's not so widely recognized, however, that the technique of the remix was pioneered in Jamaica as far back as 1967, initially in the quest for sound-system exclusivity, but soon exploited as an economic and imaginative way of reusing 'already recorded rhythm tracks. Broadly speaking, the history of dub in Jamaica has passed through three phases. First there were the so-called 'instrumentals'. not originally conceived as such, but becoming so by the removal of the vocal track. Initially these instrumentals were strictly for sound-system play, but before too long they were being issued commercially. Versions on which the contribution of the studio engineer was more obvious then emerged around the end of 1968, and by 1970 these remixes - called 'versions' - were appearing on the Bsides of most Jamaican singles. The producer would have the engineer remove all, (or most), of the original vocal, leaving the raw rhythm track, which could be spiced up with a deejay adding shouted exclamations and/or extra instrumentation. Besides offering further entertainment to dancers and record buyers, these 'versions' provided sound systems with tracks for their own deejays to talk, or 'toast', over.

Dub, in the now familiar sense of radically remixed versions, arrived in 1972, and was largely the contribution of one man: Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby, boss of the leading sound system in Kingston and a superb engineer. Soon many of the leading producers were leaving their tracks at his studio to be given the Tubby treatment. During the remainder of the decade the remixes made by Tubby and his apprentices (Prince Jammy, Prince Philip Smart and Scientist), and by other pioneers such as Errol Thompson (aka ET), added a further dimension to Jamaican music, eventually influencing dance culture worldwide.

During 1973-74 record buyers in Jamaica became accustomed to checking labels not just for the producer or artist, but also for the engineer. Records bearing a B-side credit like "King Tubby's Version" or "Drum & Bass by King Tubby's" were often selling on the strength of these, rather than their official top sides. This was also the year in which the first handful of dub albums appeared. They were usually pressed in very small quantities and disappeared quickly, but their followers were the most committed of the reggae public, and over the next few years hundreds of dub albums were issued, as every producer maximized the financial return on his vintage rhythms.

As every craze must, this eventually ran its course, and by the early 1980s few dub sets were being issued. Still, every single being pressed in Jamaica maintained what by then had become a tradition - the 'version' side. As digital technology became better integrated into Jamaican studios, a new generation of engineers came to prominence. As their experience grew, they in their turn sought to express themselves in dub. Dub has continued to exert a powerful influence on hip-hop and such dance forms as jungle, and the convention of the version continues today in Jamaica itself, even if some modern singles feature variants such as the 'acappella' version, or 'vocal remix'. With increasing frequency in recent years, 'version' sides of new Jamaican 45s have harked back to the form's golden age, particularly those mixed by the young engineers Colin 'Bulby' York and Lynford 'Fatta' Marshall. However, the revival of interest from the outside world in vintage 1970s dub has yet to prompt any return to a regular supply of new dub albums from Kingston.

INSTRUMENTAL, CHAPTER AND VERSION

By 1967 rocksteady had replaced ska in the dancehall, and many newer sound systems had come to rival the established ones. In the former Jamaican capital, Spanish Town, about fifteen kilometres from Kingston, sets such as Seymour Williams's Stereo, Son's Junior and the longer-established Ruddy's the Supreme Ruler of Sound played venues like Prison Oval and Ackee-Wackee Lawn, and were proving tough competitors. Rudolph 'Ruddy' Redwood had started a record shop in Spanish Town around 1957; he built a little sound system with just four speaker boxes to entertain friends at private parties. Ruddy continues the story: "Then I started improve on the sound, and start playing at dances and competitions. I get involve with Duke Reid, Coxsone, and then I started gettin' [exclusive] records from Duke Reid mostly - they call it dubs that time, yunno, special records." These 'dubs' were in fact one-off acetates which he was previewing at his sound long before their commercial release, rather than what would later be understood as dub remixes. The next step in the development of dub was the instrumental version of songs that had already been released to the public.

Ruddy Redwood and the first version

With Duke Reid's rocksteady dominating the Jamaican scene in 1967, Ruddy Redwood's became the dominant set in Spanish Town. His long relationship with Duke enabled Ruddy to feature an unrivalled selection of music recorded at Duke Reid's Treasure Isle studio on Bond Street by singers such as Alton Ellis and Phyllis Dillon, as well as legendary vocal-harmony groups the Techniques, the Melodians and, most significantly for the history of dub, the Paragons. Late that year, as Ruddy remembers: "I was playin' at a dance one night and I was playin' this record [the Paragons' "On the Beach"] - it was released as a 45 before, but in those times they don't put the version on one side, they only put another record on the other side. So I was playin' it and it was nice for the people, so I went back to Smith [Duke Reid's engineer], Smithy's was his name, he was cuttin' some dubs for me." As he ran through the tapesof "On the Beach", Byron Smith inadvertently left the vocal track off - and Ruddy realized he'd hit on something new.

When Ruddy left the studio that evening, he was carrying an acetate with just the backing track on it. Armed with this Paragons 'dubplate', exclusively remixed by Byron Smith, Ruddy went off to his next dance. "They used to call me Mister Midnight in Spanish Town. I used to come in at midnight an' play fifteen, sixteen new music that nobody know about. So, the dance was very nice - I tell you, I love to entertain people. I come at 12 o'clock, and the deejay's name was Wicked, an' he introduce me - 'Mister Midnight, otherwise from S-R-S [Supreme Ruler of Sound].' I start playin' - that time you have two players. I put on "On the Beach" and I said, 'I'm gonna turn this place into a studio,' and I switch over from the singing part to the version part, cut down the sound and, man, you could hear the dance floor rail, man - everybody was singing. It was very happy, an' I get a vibe. So I went into Duke Reid - Duke was my good friend, yunno - an' I says to him, 'Man this ting - you can put the riddim on the other side.' He says, 'What!?' I say, 'Yes man, I play it las' night.' Duke use to depend on me to tell 'im which records goin' good. I tell 'im: 'Well, try it yunno? An' 'im try it, an' it work."

Ruddy lost no time in cutting versions of other well-known Duke Reid tracks to play at dances with the guitarist Lynn Taitt, for instance, making instrumental cuts for the sound system of many Treasure Isle classics. Most of, these 'instrumentals' appeared only as dubplates for Ruddy's sound, but, as Ruddy says, Duke Reid soon picked up on the idea himself. By 1968, Reid was releasing tunes like "Black Power", which used the rhythm track of the Silvertones , rocksteady cover of "In the Midnight Hour", with Winston Wright's keyboard replacing the group. Reid soon issued other instrumentals using backing tracks from vocal hits - saxman Tommy McCook's "My Best Dress" and organist Neville Hinds' "Sunday Gravy" (treatments, respectively, of the Paragons' "My Best Girl" and Alton Ellis's "Sunday Coming") being good examples of the sort of material that was given a general release (see p.63).

Version to version

Before long practically every producer on the island was following in Ruddy's footsteps. Engineer/producer Lynford Anderson (aka Andy Capp) made an undervalued contribution to the development of early remixing techniques. His further 'versions' of Derrick Morgan's second cut of "Fat Man" - "Pop A Top" and "Pop A Top (Ver. 2)" (both Tiger) - were ground-breaking variations of the hit vocal that displayed the potential of the studio mixing board itself as an 'instrument'.

By 1970 the convention of having a different song on each side of a 45 had been replaced in Jamaica with a new one - the B-side now carried an instrumental which used the same rhythm track as the top side. Organ versions predominated, but most other lead instruments had their say on the rhythm. Sometimes they were titled "Chapter I" or "Volume 2", as on "Stealing Stealing Volume 2", the flip side of John Holt's "Stealing Stealing" (Treasure Isle). This has the straight rhythm track (drums, bass, organ and guitar) augmented by a deejay's percussive effects emerging in and out of the mix: Holt's original vocal can be heard very faintly in the background, but the recording engineer was on his way to becoming the featured artist.

In the same year, Clancy Eccles released "Phantom", an instrumental version (credited to his studio band, the Dynamites), of the rhythm employed on the deejay King Stitt's "Herbsman", itself an updating of the Skatalites' "Beardman Ska". What made the record different from other contemporary instrumental 'versions' of hits was that it had been subjected to remixing that reduced the track to its fundamental element - the lethal bassline.

'Version' soon became the favoured term for these new Jamaican remixes. Again in 1970, Joe Gibbs released "News Flash, Versions I & 11", an instrumental which not only edited together parts of the rhythm tracks of three hits - Lloyd Willis's "Mad Rooster", the Inspirations' "Ease Up" and the Pioneers' "Mama Look Deh" - but was one of the first records to use 'version' in its title. Even more importantly, these versions were used in the dancehall, as the stripped-down mixes allowed the deejays - previously confined to introductions or interjections which spiced up the tune - to take centre stage. Deejays could now invent new lyrics which answered or commented on the original hit vocal - snatches of which had often been left in the mix.

TWO KINGS - JAMMY ON TUBBY

Before developing into Jamaica's most successful record producer of the 1980s, Lloyd James, aka Prince/King Jammy, was another of King Tubby's apprentices. Here he looks back to the heyday of dub.

"The great King Tubby's - yunno, they don't call people 'great' or 'King' for no reason - the reason why they call 'im great King Tubby's was he was such a nice person. If 'im ever get vex with you for five minutes, the nex' minute he is okay. A lotta good 'im do fe the community. Well, that's like a neverendin' friendship. It's like family, yunno - I grew up with King Tubby's. I used to live on Dromilly Avenue. His loss was of the greatest loss to me - I don't know about the music fraternity, but to me personally, because he was my teacher, yunno. It was so unfortunate that he had to go that way - that was terrible.

In the Seventies at King Tubby's studio, dub records used to sound fantastic to what we hearin' nowadays as dub. The main reason for this is because King Tubby used to have a four-track studio. We way how we used to create the dub, the feelin' of the music, we only had four controls to deal with, four slides to deal with. It was easier to mix with your slides instead of buttons. Nowadays you mix with buttons, because you're mixin' on a 24-track console. But music has to be a fast mixin' thing - most of the instruments were already mixed on one track. So when you draw down like the riddim track, you draw down horns, guitar, piano an' organ. So it was easier for you to mix it, and faster. That's why you got the dub in those days so brilliant. It can be mixed on these modern consoles, but you have to group the instruments. And the slides are not flexible like the mixin' board console that King Tubby's had. Those slides were flexible.

Dub means raw riddim. Dub jus' mean raw music, nuttin' water-down. Version is like your creativeness off the riddim, without voice. "

Version galore - the rise of U-Roy

The man who was to rely on the 'version' more than any other in the 1970s was Bunny 'Striker' Lee, who also played a crucial role in these early developments. In 1968 he took his friend Osbourne 'Tubby' Ruddock (b. 1941, Kingston; d. 1989, Kingston) to one of Ruddy's dances in Spanish Town. Tubby saw for himself the electrifying effect the alternative versions were having in the dancehall. Tubby was a skilled electronics engineer, who also had a Duke Reid connection - he was often called to the Bond Street studio to carry out repair work. He operated a small sound system called the Home Town Hi-Fi, playing local parties in his home patch, the tough Waterhouse ghetto of Kingston. Ruddy's innovations made a strong impression on Tubby: he resolved to upgrade his own set in order to challenge the big sounds.

By 1969 he had secured the services of a man who would enable him to achieve this. Ewart Beckford, better known as U-Roy, became the deejay for Tubby's sound. An admirer of Jamaica's first selector/deejay/MC, Count Machuki (see p.113), U-Roy had also served his apprenticeship on such legendary 1960s sets as Sir Mike the Musical Thunderstorm and Dickie's Dynamic. MC-ing at Tubby's popular dances during 1969, U-Roy knew exactly how to create exciting and spontaneous lyrics in the new space offered by the 'version', waiting for a track to start and let a line or two of the original vocal be heard before beginning his own 'toasting'. John Holt, then lead singer of the Paragons, heard the deejay at a dance and reported back to his producer, Duke Reid, advising him to record this new phenomenon. As Ruddy recalls: "An 'im get U-Roy - that time, firs' time at the dancehall, you only hear - like, a deejay would be talkin' on a record - it's not really a rhythm, the record would be singin' and part of the introduction of the record, the deejay would talk. But U-Roy come in an' mek it a splash, man, an' I couldn't do nothing wrong for Duke Reid."

U-Roy had already recorded a handful of titles in 1969 - "Earth's Rightful Ruler" for Lee Perry, "King Of the Road" for Bunny Lee and "Dynamic Fashion Way" for Keith Hudson - before he went in the studio for producer Lloyd Daley in October that year, cutting "Sound Of the Wise" and "Scandal". Early in 1970 U-Roy went down to Bond Street to voice for the Duke. The combination of his new approach - the deejay injecting his high-powered Machuki inspired jive lyrics with whoops and screams and some of Reid's sweetest rocksteady rhythms proved unstoppable. The first three U-Roy records on Treasure Isle were massive hits, and nothing would ever be quite the same again. U-Roy's "Wake the Town", a version of Alton Ellis's "Girl I've Got A Date", rapidly rose to the #1 slot on both Jamaican radio station charts. It was soon followed by "Rule the Nation", which rode the Techniques' "You Don't Care" rhythm. By the third release, "Wear You To the Ball", a version of the Paragons' hit of the same name, the deejay is so confident that he lets the group deliver the first two lines of the song:

"I'm gonna wear you to the ball tonight

Put on your best dress tonight"

before making his extraordinary entry:

"Did you heard what the man says baby

Said be your best

'Cos this gonna be your musical test

So come to school

Let I teach you the musical rule

Dig me soul brother, dig me soul sister

Come to I

An' maybe you can make it if you try...

The deejay's message was to be taken to heart by a whole generation of toasters, boasters and rappers. The modern deejay had arrived, riding the wave on a sea of versions.

DUBWISE SHOWER

All of the above variations of the 'version' fed into the later development of dub. But the first vocal record with a full dub version on its flip (ie a dub that dropped parts of the rhythm in and out of the mix, and added other tricks such as equalization effects) is usually recognized as Little Roy's "Hard Fighter" on Lloyd 'Matador' Daley's Syndicate label, recorded in March 1971, with the splendid "Voo-doo" as its strictly drum and bass

counterpart from the Hippy Boys. This was probably mixed by the pioneering Lynford Anderson, but the man who really popularized the dub B-side and then entire albums of versions was King Tubby. However, Tubby was

not the only brilliant mixing engineer. Errol 'ET' Thompson was experimenting on the four-track board at Randy's downtown studio, mixing versions for Joe Gibbs - such as 1973's "Echo"/"More Echo" by Johnny Lover and "More Dub'/'Chapter Two" - that clearly indicated his awareness of the new trend. Producers Prince Buster and Herman Chin Loy also played a part in the spread of the new form, as did Clement Dodd, Augustus Pablo and the endlessly inventive Lee Perry.

Tubby takes the controls

By 1972, Tubby's Hi Fi, deejayed by U-Roy, had become one of the leading sound systems in Kingston, being known especially for its superior sound quality - Tubby's was the first set to employ separate tweeter boxes, and he also introduced a reverb unit to the sound. These technical improvements fed into King Tubby's work in the tiny studio at the back of his home, where he pursued similar goals of aural excellence. There he had a dub-cutting machine on which he would make acetates (known as 'specials') for his set and, increasingly as time went on, for other sound systems. The .same year Bunny Lee brokered a deal with Byron Lee's Dynamic Studios that enabled Tubby to buy their old four-track board when they graduated to more sophisticated equipment.

Bunny and other producers now began leaving their multi-track tapes with Tubby.

Tubby was not the producer of the rhythms he was mixing at this time; nonetheless, his contribution as remix engineer was to become increasingly crucial over the next few years. Dub really became established with the series of Tubbymixed dub sides that emerged in 1972-74, principally on Lee Perry's Justice League and Upsetter labels, Glen Brown's Pantomine, Roy Cousins' Wambesi, U-Roy's own Mego Ann, Augustus Pablo's Hot Stuff and Rockers, Winston Riley's Techniques, Prince Tony Robinson's High School, Bunny Lee's Jackpot and Carlton Patterson's Black & White. Tubby's method of mixing on these sides was subtle, with only one or two effects employed on the rhythm tracks; the huge thunderclaps and deeply echoed snatches of vocal would come later. Years later Lee Perry said: "Tubby come to meet me, 'cause him was looking for adventure. I am the only adventurer. Because Tubby was there in the beginning, he was looking for that adventure, that make him act from a baby, from nothing, from a sperm to a baby, and he still see the adventure, and recognize the adventure, that this is the adventure, dub's adventure. He was brilliant. I thought he was my student, maybe he thought I was his student, but it makes no matter. I'm not jealous."

Together Tubby and Scratch mixed Blackboard Jungle, released in 1973. By the end of the year Scratch would be in his own studio, the Black Ark (see pp.164-169), where he could both build and mix his own rhythms, but his studio never became a centre for dub in the same way that Tubby's did. The sheer number of producers who used Tubby meant that he always had more than enough rhythms to mix, and with which he could experiment endlessly. 'Mere is no doubt that the main reason for this experimentation was simply economic, but had the remixes not sounded completely fresh they would not have been so successful, and their freshness was the result of both musical imagination and engineering ingenuity.

Tubby continued to acquire additional studio hardware; he was also very inventive at customizing or indeed making his own equipment. King Jammy, an old friend and fellow sound system operator who became one of Tubby's apprentice engineers, and later one of Jamaica's most successful producers, gives an insight into this improvisatory aspect of dub: "The reverb unit that we used to use there, it was a Fisher reverb, an' we change it to become a King Tubby and Fisher! The slides that we use to use, we change them from the original slides, because the mixin' console was so old you couldn't get replacement parts. We use other models to incorporate in that console." In every sense, the art of the 'version' was that of taking something old and renewing it. By mid-1973 Tubby had another four-track machine, which enabled him to record vocals, as well as mixing. Roy Shirley was the first to benefit from Tubby's new studio set-up, voicing his song "Stepping Razor" there.

The new style of Tubby's dub versions began to catch on with record buyers, who appreciated the way the song was reconstructed on the Bside. These versions were also a godsend to smaller sound systems; often lacking access to exclusive dubplates, they could use these commercially available dubs for their deejays to 'toast' over.

In 1974 Tubby mixed a dub of former Studio One vocalist Larry Marshall's "I Admire You" for CarIton Patterson. Ca lled "Watergate Rock", it was one of the first dubs to be credited to him on the label - indeed Marshall considers it the dub that really established Tubby's name with the public. The A-side is a beautifully sincere love song; Tubby's dub mix dispenses completely with the vocal and puts the emphasis on the bass and drums, which are subjected to varying amounts of equalization and reverb. Occasionally, the rhythm guitar and melodica slide in; sometimes the bass and drums drop out completely, leaving the the rhythm guitar chipping away on its own. Simple though these techniques may be, Tubby was able nonetheless to make it appear as if the rhythm track was perpetually mutating, and when heard through themassed speakers of a big sound system the effect was even more dynamic. Similar mixes, placing the drum and bass track in the front of the mix, were performed on other Patterson-produced tracks, such as "Locks Of Dub", the version side of another Larry Marshall song, "Can't You Understand".

The first dub albums

The popularity of the 'version' side, particularly when credited to King Tubby, led to the release of entire albums of dub versions, but producers were at first tentative. The first few dub albums appeared in 1973 and were pressed in such limited quantities that they cost about three or four times the normal price. There are three contenders for the title of first dub album to hit the street: Lee Perry's epochal Blackboard Jungle Dub, mixed by King Tubby; Clive Chin's Java Java Java Java (often referred to as Java Java Dub), which displayed the distinctive style of Errol Thompson; and Herman Chin Loy's Aquarius Dub, probably mixed by the producer himself. Late in 1974, Bunny Lee released his first Tubby-mixed dub album, Dub From the Roots, followed by another set, also featuring the producer's 'flying cymbals' sound, early in 1975.

The first dub album to gain a UK release was Keith Hudson's Pick A Dub, issued by Atra Records in 1974. Here Hudson had a dozen of his best rhythms deconstructed at Harry J's studio, showcasing the drum and bass artistry of the Barrett brothers from the Wailers band. The results managed to combine an almost scary starkness with just enough melodic touches, and obstinate rhythms aimed squarely at sound-system play. A strong seller in England was Niney's Dubbing With the Observer set, released by Trojan just before they went into liquidation in 1975; featuring Tubby mixes of many of Dennis Brown's hits for the producer, it tapped a demand created by the leading UK-based sound system Sir Coxsone, which had been playing similar dubs of many of Niney's rhythms.

Errol 'ET' Thompson

At about the same time as Tubby's groundbreaking experiments, another engineer, Errol Thompson, was developing his own style of 'version' sides at Randy's studio on North Parade. Thompson had worked briefly at Studio One in early 1969 under Sylvan Morris, voicing Max Romeo's enormous hit "Wet Dream" for Bunny Lee there. Unable to get on with Morris, he moved to Randy's, where he completely rebuilt the studio. There he recorded some of the most successful Jamaican music of the next six years, including much of the work of such producers as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee and Winston 'Niney' Holness.

Photographer and reggae journalist Dave Hendley summed up the main difference between Tubby's approach and ET's In terms of the equipment they had at their disposal: "It would be unfair to credit Tubby with the invention of recorded dub, as Errol Thompson was at the same time pioneering bass and drum at Randy's Studio 17 with a great deal of success. But Tubby's was managing to refine the sound using faders, delay echo and a phase shifter to bend the music still further." Thompson was reliant on having to push buttons, rather than sliding tracks smoothly in and out of the mix (as Tubby was able to do to such great effect). Nonetheless, on tracks like the version side to Lloyd Parkes' "Ordinary Man" (Impact), mixed in 1973, Thompson was able to introduce novel sounds - backwards-running and slowed-down vocal tracks - to great effect. This was a precursor of the work he mixed for Joe Gibbs at his new studio on Retirement Road, after the Chin family, Randy's owners, relocated to the USA in mid-decade. In 1974, while still at Randy's. he mixed the Dub Serial set for Gibbs; the following year the first of the African Dub series appeared. Both sets were characterized by their relative restraint, compared to the dubs which would follow during the next phase.

Dub from the roots: Augustus Pablo and Yabby You

Singer/producer Vivian 'Yabby You' Jackson, who was consistently making heavy-duty roots records (see pp.155-157), had been encouraged by Tubby from the beginning of his career in music. Indeed it was Tubby who gave the singer/producer his nom de disque of Yabby You, after the chorus on one of his earliest tunes. Jackson. also had Tubby mix the version sides of his self-produced singles, as well as the Prophecy Of Dub album, originally released in the UK early in 1976, in a pressing of 500 copies and with a blank sleeve. Yabby You's majestic rhythms were ideal for Tubby's mixing style; over the deep basslines of such as 'Family Man' Barrett and Robbie Shakespeare, Tubby created mixes saturated in delay and reverb effects, which gave the impression of sounds - snatches of vocal, guitar chords, organ stabs, etc - coming across vast distances. In addition, Tubby was responsible for the half-dozen dubs on the vocal/version set variously titled Chant Down Babylon Kingdom, Walls Of Jerusalem and King Tubby Meets Vivian Jackson. The producer used Tubby's studio until 1981, when a crippling arthritic condition forced him to stop recording. In the 1990s, his health improved, he began recording again (he collaborated with UK-based dub master Mad Professor for a couple of sets) as well as repressing his vintage material.

Tubby mixed the earliest -releases on the Hot Stuff and Rockers labels run by instrumentalist/producer Augustus Pablo (see pp.158-161), who cut many specials for Tubby's sound system, including "Spangler's Clap", a tribute to the wellknown bad-man posse that followed the sound before the police destroyed it in early 1975. That year in the UK, Island released "King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown", the B-side of Jacob Miller's Pablo-produced "Baby I Love You So". It was a record that introduced many outside of the reggae world to dub, as Island actually issued the dub as the A-side; however, it wasn't until 1976 that the best of the Pablo/Tubby collaborations were compiled on the album that many see as a high point of the entire dub genre: King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown. The tough rhythms spur-red King Tubby on to some of his most imaginative work, with Pablo's plaintive melodica phrases echoed to infinity in the spacey mixes. Other Pablo dub albums almost equalled this, particularly the dub set to Hugh Mundell's "Africa Must Be Free By 1983", with the majority of the rhythms built at Lee Perry's Black Ark studio and mixed by Prince Jammy at Tubby's. Like Yabby You,' Pablo's most artistically successful period coincided with the reign of Tubby's studio as the leader in dub technique - basically, up to the early 1980s.

Lee Perry

Interestingly, Lee Perry was not as prolific as might have been expected during the boom years for dub albums. However, he pioneered the form with bass-heavy instrumentals like "Clint Eastwood" and "Sipreano", as well as some of King Tubby's earliest mixes on 7", including "French Connection", Ipa Skank" and "Dub Organiser", as well as sets like Blackboard Jungle and Rhythm Shower (both 1973). He was also responsible for instrumental sets that can be considered proto-dub, such as Cloak & Dagger (1972).

When he moved into his new studio, he issued further instrumental albums like Return Of Wax and Musical Bones (1974), but the first pure dub album to come from the Ark was Revolution Dub, from 1975. The subsequent Super Ape (1976) wasn't a typical dub outing by any means, being an atmospheric solo album from the producer, saturated with dub techniques like reverb and delay; far from stripping the tracks down to their essentials, Perry added layers of sound, including a female chorus, a couple of Heptones, his own vocals and even a Prince Jazzbo toast. Hailed as a tour de force by much of the new crossover audience, it disappointed some of his older fans, who were perhaps hoping to hear another raw Tubby-mixed extravaganza in the style of Blackboard Jungle. After all, Tubby was still mixing at least some of the 'version' sides to Perry's singles at the beginning of 1975 - most notably the classic dub to Max Romeo's "Three Blind Mice". Yet, judged on its own terms, Super Ape was one of the most progressive and imaginative sets of its time.

Subsequently, Scratch made no more dub albums, although his Black Ark-produced singles continued to carry his trademark dubs - one of his favourite tricks was to take a halfsyllable of vocal, throw it into echo and use it to punctuate the mix. The sound that Perry achieved at Black Ark is unmistakable: like Tubby, Scratch was seemingly able to invest his dub mixes with a feeling of wide open space, all the more remarkable taking into account the size of the room, a twelve-foot square box. When he destroyed the studio in 1979, this unique and wonderful sound was lost for ever, although Scratch has had a profound influence on such modern remixers as Adrian Sherwood and the UK 'new roots' producers.

Clement Dodd at the dub store

The foundation producer, Clement Dodd, of course possessed a far larger stock of classic rhythms than anyone, and from 1974 to 1980 he released a series of twelve Studio One dub albums, all of which are worth at least a listen. As Dodd's talented recording engineer, Sylvan Morris (see p.218), left Brentford Road before the series began, it is likely that Studio One's owner mixed all of these himself. In the final analysis, the mixes on these sets are not really what is most interesting about them. Rather, the albums tend to make it on the strength of the Studio One rhythms, which, however arbitrary their treatment at the mixing-board, always shine through on purely musical grounds. Any developments in the mixing style - on the earlier sets, tracks are dropped in and out in fairly rudimentary fashion - seem largely dependent on what new equipment Dodd had at hand at the time, which at least prevents the albums from sounding too uniform.

Bunny and the dub master

Bunny Lee was the major patron of Tubby's until Channel One and Joe Gibbs wrested dancehall supremacy from him. The huge number of productions that Tubby mixed for Bunny is enough to support this contention, but Bunny also had a qualitative influence on Tubby's style, for he encouraged him to mix in an ever wilder way. As Bunny once said to the dub master: "Yes, Tubbs, madness - the people dem like it!"

Tubby's mixes for Bunny sometimes came complete with sudden and momentous thunder effects (created by striking the spring reverb unit), the sound of the tape being rewound to build up tension, and either the bass or the hi-hat being emphasized for almost intolerable periods. Indeed, the 'flying cymbals' sound that drummer Carlton 'Santa' Davis developed for Bunny Lee seemed made for Tubby's radical deconstructions.

Lee's productions were issued either as the B-sides or, following those already mentioned, as albums like the very popular Dub From the Roots, Creation Of Dub (aka King Tubby Meets the Aggrovators At Dub Station and Roots Of Dub. Some of the dub albums Bunny and Tubby put out were relatively unexciting, but when the rhythms were above average and Tubby was not just going through the motions, the results were explosive - even psychedelic. Equally strong examples of dubs which created at least as much interest as the vocals they accompanied were the more developed King Tubby's extravaganzas that appeared on Bunny Lee's many labels, primarily

Jackpot, Attack and Justice, from 1974 onwards. Johnny Clarke's 45s for Striker always seemed especially well served in this respect - the singer's distinctive tenor seemed particularly suitable for the dub treatment, with the versions to songs like "Blood Dunza", "Declaration Of Rights", "Don't Trouble Trouble", "Crazy Baldhead" and "Poor Marcus" standing out as landmarks of the dub territory. From late 1976 most of Bunny's productions were mixed by Prince Jammy (see p.202); Tubby mixed less and less as the 1970s went on, and newer engineers, like the teenage Scientist (see pp.223-224), emerged at the controls of the mixing desk at 18 Dromilly Avenue.

Channel One and Joe Gibbs

From late 1975 both the new frontrunners in Jamaican music - Joe Gibbs and Joseph 'Joe Joe' Hookim - had remarkable success with dub sides and albums of their updated recuts of Studio One and Treasure Isle classics.

The Hookim brothers had moved into recording from jukebox and gambling machine distribution, building Channel One studio on Maxfield Avenue in 1972. By 1973 the studio was operational, with engineer Syd Bucknor in charge of recording, assisted by Ernest Hookim. "Don't Give Up the Fight" by Stranger & Gladdy was the first release on the Channel One label in

1973, and it sold moderately well. Nevertheless, the sound of the studio was not right. Although they had an MCI high-pass filter which let the bass frequencies through, this equipment was not actually being utilized by Bucknor. The deejay I-Roy - who was fully tuned in to the sound-system world, having deejayed King Tubby's Hi-Fi when U-Roy was not available - encouraged the Hookims to visit Tubby's to observe for themselves the effect of the same piece of studio outboard in operation there. Subsequently, I-Roy became unofficial house producer at Channel One.

When I-Roy and Joe Joe suggested to drummer Sly Dunbar that he make a 'clap' sound on his snare, the result, combined with the improved bass response, was enough to impart just the right amount of freshness to the vintage rhythms updated by I-Roy and the Revolutionaries. These rhythm tracks supported highly successful new vocals, by such outfits as the Mighty Diamonds, but were at least as viable in their stripped-down - and sometimes augmented - forms. Blazing, horns-dominated singles credited to the Revolutionaries, including "MPLA" (also used for Tappa Zukie's popular deejay record with the same title), "IRA", "Angola" and "SNCC" displayed dub techniques on their A-side mixes (the straight instrumentals were relegated to the B-side) which emphasized to maximum effect Sly Dunbar's ground-breaking drumming style and Robbie Shakespeare's equally assured basslines.

Channel One also played a pioneering role in employing dubbed-up rhythm tracks on their , vocal records, like the heavy reverb used on the backing for the Meditations' "Woman Is Like A Shadow" or the distinctive klaxon sound effect on John Holt's "Up Park Camp". Joseph's brother Ernest is usually credited with the slightly more drastic remixes of these and many other Channel One rhythms issued on the popular series of dub albums, that appeared on the Well Charge label. I-Roy, however, confirmed years later that he had also been heavily involved in these sessions.

When the fashion for dub LPs began to subside towards the end of the decade, the Hookim brothers economized and placed just four different dub tracks - usually titled as variants of a theme -on EP-style 12" singles,. The studio's no-nonsense approach was perhaps best expressed by the titles they used on one disc in the series of dub 12" they issued during 1977-78: "Headache"/"Bellyache"/ "Toothache"/"Heartache".

Former Randy's engineer Errol Thompson livened things up yet further (or, some would say, vulgarized the form) with generous use of sound effects such as car horns, barking dogs, ringing telephones and running water, on his dub sides for Joe Gibbs. Even if these effects are not to your taste there's no denying the assured nature of their studio band - essentially the Channel One Revolutionaries, usually substituting Lloyd Parkes for Robbie Shakespeare on bass - and their reinterpretations of much of Jamaica's foundation music. Keyboards player Ossie Hibbert effectively produced the musicians, while Thompson, if not as innovative as Tubby or Jammy, showed little signs of losing his deft touch at the mixing-board - the music always remained much more than the gimmicks that were tagged on (and helped sell it to a wider audience). The second and third volumes of Gibbs' African Dub series sold by the cartload, and remain amongst the best-remembered dub albums of the period.

DUB EXPLOSION

By the end of 1976 the initial trickle of dub albums had become a flood, and in the summer of the next year it was possi ble for the UK music weekly Black Echoes to publish a three-part article on the genre that included a chart of 125 recommended albums. Some of the sets copied Tubby's style of reverb and echo, while others often consisted of little more than the rhythm tracks with bass and drum 'drop-out' featured. While the earliest dub sides had featured effective but fairly minimal reorder ings of the original instrumental mixes, by mid decade improved studio equipment and the enthusiasm of dancehall crowds for the form led to far wilder remixes. By 1977, virtually every producer had his or her own dub album(s) on sale or were about to release them, and a variety of styles were on offer - based on the divergent kinds of rhythms employed, from rocksteady originals to Pablovian rockers, and the different approaches of the engineers reworking them.

Vintage rhythms, new dub

Errol Brown, a nephew of Duke Reid, had been a junior engineer at his studio and became the senior man after the Duke's death, when Sonia Pottinger took over. He remixed the old rocksteady and early reggae masterpieces, most of which, of course, had already enjoyed a second lease of life through the U-Roy, Dennis Alcapone and Lizzy deejay versions at the dawn of the 1970s. As with those successful deejay cuts, almost all the stripped-down dub versions of Treasure Isle hits retained snatches of the original vocals - pointing to the nostalgia element that was part of dub's initial appeal. Not only were vintage basslines eminently suited to being dubbed up, but voices such as those of Pat Kelly, John Holt or Alton Ellis sounded even more astonishing - even haunting - as echo effects made them disappear into themselves. Brown, who went on to become resident engineer at Tuff Gong studios in the 1980s, also showed himself to be a dab hand at dubbing up Mrs Pottinger's mid-late 1970s productions.

When former Technique Winston Riley issued his first dub set in 1976, this too comprised mostly rhythms from the turn of the decade, and mixed in a very similar style. Derrick Harriott was another producer who dug out his rocksteady and early reggae rhythm tracks for a couple of excellent dub albums which characteristically retained the very musical qualities of the original hits; indeed the second of the albums was among those that inspired the naming of a further sub-genre, 'instru-dub' (records that bordered on being traditional instrumental albums), and highlighted the talents of the rest of the musicians involved at least as much as the bass player's.

Harry Mudie similarly took time and care over his records, and his classy productions always seemed to have the potential for international appeal. The three dub albums he made with King Tubby are outstanding for highlighting both the strength of his refined rhythms and Tubby's skills at the mixing-board.

The bandwagon rolls on…..

There was soon a deluge of albums crediting engineers and mixers as the artists, including work by Prince Jammy (b. Lloyd James, 1947, Montego Bay), who was to graduate to being one of the most successful producers ever, Sylvan Morris, 'Prince' Philip Smart, Hopeton 'Scientist' Brown, Maximilian and Anthony 'Crucial Bunny' Graham. Yet quite a few dub workouts appeared without any credit being given to the engineer. In this category falls the King Tubby-mixed Morwells masterpiece, Dub Me, featuring versions of the vocal group's debut album, as does the far from prolific but astonishingly consistent producer JIMMY Radway's one dub classic, a creation possessing all the hallmarks of a vintage Tubby mix. When the UK company Fay Music released the very popular King Tubby Meets the Upsetter At the Grass Roots Of Dub set, the back cover Simply pictured the different mixing-boards allegedly used by the two dub masters; by now, the technological process itself was recognized as being at least as important as the engineers - let alone the producer, in this case Joe Gibbs associate Winston Edwards. Astutely marketed by Edwards, the album sold widely, and like the Augustus Pablo single, "King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown", it played a part in introducing dub to an audience other than sound-system followers. Subsequent attempts by Edwards to repeat this success fell far short of the mark, and he soon moved on to become a pioneer in recording UK lovers rock (see pp.337-338).

Former member of the Treasure Isle vocal group, the Jamaicans, Tommy Cowan further displayed his credentials as a rootsy producer with a popular dub set based on hits from his Sweet City, Starapple, Arab and Talent Jamaican labels. Another figure associated with sweet harmonies over strong rhythm was the Royals' leader, Roy Cousins, who, despite having some excellent dubs on the backs of the 7" releases on his Wambesi and Tamoki labels, showed little interest in releasing dub albums at the time (he was very much a believer in traditional musical values). A couple of decades would go by before a collection that did his version sides justice would appear. The fact that a marvellous selection of rhythms was not all that was needed for a totally successful dub LP, however, was demonstrated by the slightly disappointing drum and bass counterpart to Burning Spear's classic Marcus Garvey set. This was curious, as the Burning Spear singles released by Jack Ruby had all featured strong version sides mixed by Errol Thompson or King Tubby. Presumably someone at Island thought that a mix at Hammersmith, London, was what was required to sell the album to Spear's new audience.

The singer/deejay Pat Francis/Jah Lloyd not only consistently made exceptional versions to the singles that he produced for himself - often featuring either Bongo Herman or the trombonist Vin Gordon - but had his strongest rhythms reconstructed at King Tubby's and Randy's for a generally underrated set. Another deejay whose heavyweight dub album impressed even those who were not enthusiastic for his work at the mike was Tappa Zukie. The mix of Tappa Zukie In Dub was made by Philip Smart, who later became a successful recording studio owner and producer in New York, but early in 1976 was still working at King Tubby's. The fact that Tappa Zukie In Dub was not released in Jamaica and the initial UK pressing was limited to a few hundred copies only added to its later status among collectors.

In the UK, where from the mid-1970s onwards quite a few dub albums from Kingston were released in advance of Jamaica, Lloyd Coxsone, the premier sound-system man of the mid-late 1970s, brought together an excellent LP of his own productions and those of Jamaica's Gussie Clarke in true sound-warp style. Mixed at King Tubby's Dromilly Avenue studio in West Kingston and various London locations, they eventually appeared to great effect on Coxsone's Safari imprint in 1975, and pointed to London's continuing importance in the reggae market - particularly for dub.

SYLVAN MORRIS AND THE SOUND OF STUDIO ONE

The finest recording engineer ever to work at 13 Brentford Road, Sylvan Morris played a considerable role in creating Studio One's foundation sound. In the mid-1970s he moved to Harry Johnson's studio, where he not only contributed to the success of albums such as Burning Spear's Dry & Heavy, but was responsible for some outstanding dub workouts.

"I was considered to be a genius at a very young age. I used to work in telecommunications at a place called Comtec. I was called at that time the "Reporter Professor". Because there was a two-way radio by the name of the Reporter, and I was considered to be a genius at fixing these radios. So, Byron [Lee] heard about me, and he sent and asked me if I would like to work with him. So I came, and I was given some training, in the actual music sense, engineering from an audio point of view. I was there for a short time, and then I left.

I went first to Duke Reid. I was there for a short period, about seven, eight months, then went to Coxsone. He had a two-track - everything then was two tracks, Ampex machines. Coxsone had a long console with eight inputs. So we actually recorded, say, drum and bass on one track, and the rest of the rhythm on another. Sometimes we would do like horns; sometimes we didn't want horns. Again we mix everything onto one track of the two-track, and then the horns on another. Then we went from there to another two-track to voice. From the time I went by Coxsone's studio he recognised me for being very sufficient for whatever he had to do. So most of the time he wasn't really even in the studio. When it come to recording, I used to have a lot of input. Sometimes I would say what bass line to play. And if he don't see me dancing, he stop play and say 'Wha happen?' And I say: 'Well, I don't like what the drum sound.' Or: 'I don't like the bass.' In terms of the singers, I was very strict on lyrical perfection. So if a singer came and he wasn't perfect in what he was doing, he had to go home and practise. They used to rely on me for that sort of input.

When I went to Studio One, Jackie Mittoo impressed me in what he was doing, arranging and everything. But he left shortly after I went there. And some other musicians came. Robbie Lynn, if the tune needed a keyboards player, had a lot of qualities that was very good. Then again, Leroy Sibbles - he and myself were the two main factors for a lot of this music that they're even doing over now. Because he's a very great bass player and writer. And he did- a lot of co-ordination when it came to harmonies. Eric Frater, the guitarist, was extraordinary in being very steady on the rhythm. It was a guitar sound that he created and it was brought about by a piece of equipment called the Sound Dimension. It was a catalyst that he moved manually to get the chicka-ta-chick, and eventually he created the sound himself, without the piece of equipment.

In Coxsone's studio I actually created a sound, a bass sound. There was an electrovoice mike which had a very unique bass sound. What happen was the ribbon for it got broke one night, and they couldn't find a another one. So I created a ribbon from one of the tapes. On the end of the tape, you have a piece of silver tape, and I took that and made a ribbon out of it, and put it into the mike. And it seemed to know just how to respond to the right bass frequency. I also designed a box. I remember when listening to speakers, I always notice the back of the bass speaker always get a rounder sound. So I create a box with a support whereby I put the mikes on the back, and that's where I got most of the bass sound heard when I was at Coxsone's."

Sylvan Morris: "You had to improvise... "

Sylvan Morris, the recording engineer who had been largely responsible for the distinctive recorded sound of Studio One, left the employ of Clement Dodd just as the dub craze was about to take off. He then joined Harry Johnson, mixing early 'version' sides on singles and a couple of dub albums under his own name (Morris In Dub and Cultural Dub), versioning all over again the classic originals he had recorded at Studio One. In a 1989 interview be remembered the period well: "The dub thing was just coming to the fullness at that time ... it was brought about to a degree by the sound men. They came and they wanted probably just a rhythm, a particular rhythm, and if you gave it to one man, another would want a different version. So you had to improvise - you had to give some a little bass and drum - every one of them sound different. This is how the drum and bass thing come about."

Morris also played an important engineering role later in the decade, recording three Burning Spear albums, Man In the Hills, Dry & Heavy and Marcus' Children. He was also responsible for Spear's Living Dub sets which featured remixed versions of the tracks on Marcus' Children, and the Hail H.I.M. set which followed it, in addition to -mixing the first two Bunny WaiIer dubs . Though Morris made only a handful of dub albums (his forte was recording, rather than remixing), he did engineer some subtle and atmospheric 7" version sides. The dubs on late 1970s records like the Light of Saba's "Lambs Bread Collie" (Light Of Saba), Burning Spear's "Bad To Worse" (Burning Spear) and Peter Tosh's melodica instrumental "Anti Apartheid" (Solomonic) were far removed from the more outrageous dubonic antics of the time, but stand up to repeated listening far better. Several of Big Youth's self-produced singles also have strong version sides by Morris, and the Reggae Gi Dem Dub album (the dub counterpart to the deejay/vocal set, Progress) further displayed the strength of the deejay's later self-produced rhythms. Since the mid-1980s Morris has supervised cassette manufacture for Dynamic Records in Kingston.

DUBBING INTO THE 1980s

The advent of the 12" single, with either a dub section or a deejay's commentary added to the vocal, and of the 'showcase' album, which collected half a dozen vocal/dub mixes on one album, kept dub alive as the 1980s dawned. However, dub was becoming less surprising, even formulaic, and Jamaican music was undergoing another major change. A new generation of singers and deejays became known for their ability to improvise lyrics live in the dance over wellloved Studio One rhythms. This became the new dancehall style (see Chapter 6), which would dominate until Jammy led the digital revolution in 1985 with the first totally digital reggae record - Wayne Smith's "Under Me Sleng Teng".

Nonetheless, King Tubby's small mixing and voicing studio continued as a major focal point for dub, though its owner tended to delegate work more and more to apprentices like Scientist. While Prince Jammy and Scientist were forging their own distinctive mixing sounds using the same equipment as Tubby, there were also newer producers coming to employ the studio's facilities, several of whom were able to make dub albums that equal the triumphs of the earlier years. Among them was the innovative radio deejay Michael 'Mikey Dread' Campbell, and two men based in the Greenwich Farm area of West Kingston, both of whom were making particularly hard music in a cultural mode - Bertram Brown and Don Mais.

Producer Tommy Cowan, working from various studios, released impressive dub sides on 45s -from such as Jacob Miller, Devon Irons and Desi Roots - and heavyweight albums that were simply credited as the work of the studio band, the Fatman Ridim Section, otherwise known as the musical nucleus of the Inner Circle band. Gussie Clarke was another producer who omitted from record labels the names of the engineers responsible for both his outstanding early 1970s version sides and the worthwhile dub set from later in the decade - deserving though such credits would have been.

A king in waiting: Prince Jammy

Prince Jammy had begun his career in music in the late 1960s when he built amplifiers for sound systems, a prelude to running his own system. When he returned to Jamaica for a holiday in 1976 after living in Canada since the early 1970s, Bunny Lee persuaded him to make his return more permanent, particularly as Tubby's main engineer, Philip Smart, was emigrating to New York. Soon Jammy was installed at Tubby's tiny studio, and mixing dubs that were firmly in the style of his boss. Jammy mixed most of Bunny Lee and Yabby You's productions from 1977, but the most important album-length dub encounters for which he was responsible were Horace Andy's In the Light Dub, for the New York-based Jamaican producer Everton DaSilva, Gregory Isaacs' Slum and his own Jammy's In Lion Dub Style, largely a stripped-down variation of the debut vocal set he produced by Black Uhuru (see p.142), which had just appeared on his own recently launched label. In general his dubs were characterized by their brilliantly clear sound and the precision with which he marshalled the considerable array of effects now installed in Tubby's studio. The loss to the dub genre when he became Jamaica's most successful producer was, of course, the gain of practically every singer and deejay with whom he then worked - as well as all the other studio owners who followed his lead into the digital era of the late 1980s.

Dread at the controls - Mikey Dread,

In the late 1970s Michael Campbell (b. 1948, Port Antonio) deejayed a four-hour radio show on JBC that was the rootsiest Jamaica had ever heard. Whereas foreign - that is, largely American -records had been dominant on the airwaves, the dreadlocked Campbell's Dread At the Controls show was hip to the latest developments in local music, and displayed an in-depth knowledge of reggae's history - he regularly dropped in the original Studio One cuts to the rhythms currently running things in the Kingston dancehalls. Having built his reputation on radio, the man who called himself Mikey Dread then made the obvious move to deejaying on record, and cut his first couple of 45s for Lee Perry. Both of these presented him in the style he used on his show, with the first appropriately having the same title, "Dread At the Controls".

Imaginative singles followed for Joe Gibbs, Sonia Pottinger and Carlton Patterson, but even more important was the launching of his own label, again called Dread At the Control. He produced some of the freshest-sounding records of 1978-81, recording himself as deejay, as well as hard roots singers like Rod Taylor, Earl Sixteen, Junior Murvin and Edi Fitzroy. But what made the greatest impact, in Jamaica and in the UK (where tapes of his radio show had been circulated), were the dub sides, and version sides like "Internal Energy", "Robbers Roost", "Parrot Jungle" and "African Anthem" helped create a new interest in the form. People were again buying the records purely for their dubs - and that kind of thing hadn't happened since Tubby's heyday with Bunny Lee a couple of years previously.

The Greenwich Farm connection, and Scientist at the controls

As the 1970s drew to a close, a couple of the Greenwich Farm roots producers, Bertram Brown and Errol 'Don' Mais, also turned out singles with notable dubs. Brown employed King Tubby for all the version sides on his Freedom Sound label, the rhythms built by the Soul Syndicate band for the young producer inspiring the founder of dub to a return to vintage form. Mais, on the other hand, had Tubby's apprentice engineer, the young Hopeton 'Scientist' Brown (b. 1960, Kingston), mixing the ground-breaking reworkings of Studio One classics that appeared on his Roots Tradition imprint. Though no one ever quite matched the impact of Tubby's pioneering efforts, it was Scientist who came nearest; Tubby's apprentice was using the same equipment as the original dub master, but he seemed to find parts of the board his mentor had not reached, creating a style that was far more stripped down than either Tubby or Jammy.

Scientist was only 16 when he was first let loose on Mais's rhythms - he had been assisting at Tubby's studio, winding transformer coils and helping out generally, and had already shown Tubby that he could mix, if the chance came. The chance duly came one day when Jammy was too tired to continue with a mixing session that Mais had booked, and the producer asked Tubby to send for the youthful apprentice. The first hit that Scientist mixed was Barrington Levy's "Collie Weed", and he soon gained a lot more attention with version sides of 45s like the True Persuaders' "Roots Man Skanking" and "African Girl", Phillip Frazer's "Never Let Go" and Tristan Palma's "Bad Boys". The young man whom Mikey Dread called the "apprentice master" in his rundown of the Kingston studio talent on 1980's "Jumping Master" was soon to displace Tubby as the dub master. Both before he left King Tubby's employ and after he was hired by the Hookim brothers at Channel One, Scientist was the preferred engineer of Henry 'Junjo' Lawes, the dominant producer of the first half of the 1980s (see pp.249-250). Scientist's radical approach to Tubby's mixing-board could not have better suited Henry 'Junjo' Lawes and the Roots Radics, the most in-demand session band of the period. The slower Radics rhythms were perfect for a minimalist mixing style that applied reverb to alternate drumbeats or keyboard chords and then punctuated the mixes with them. Scientist put his finger on the originality of the dubs that were created back then, describing the form in terms of: "engineers using the recording equipment to bring about musical changes, a musical environment where reggae music is the music what brought forward the remix, or most of what we hearin' in hip-hop. There is no other music in the world that has the kinda versatility that you could make dub. Hip-hop is slightly there, but not like reggae. With reggae, when you make a mistake, it finds a place and fits in."

As the new decade unfolded, Scientist became even more popular, mixing for other leading dancehall producers like Linval Thompson and Jah Thomas. He made a series of albums in which he was featured in clashes with opponents such as the Space Invaders or the Pac-Men, utilizing rhythms from Lawes and Thompson. In 1982 he moved to Tuff Gong as second engineer to Errol Brown, before relocating to Washington DC in the mid 1980s, where he still continues studio work.

Tubby's new studio

As one decade closed and another began, King Tubby occasionally demonstrated that he was still capable - when sufficiently interested - of mixing outstanding dub, as shown by the version sides of practically all of the Glen Brown-produced singles of the period, continuing a mutually rewarding relationship established in the early 1970s. He also maintained links with Vivian Jackson, and mixed a particularly strong - and quite traditional - version side for "Influence In Me" (Vivian Jackson), while displaying just as fine a touch with the dub to Leroy Sibbles' "Love & Happiness" (Rock Jam) or Sugar Minott's Ghetto-ology Dubwise set.

As the 1970s ended, Tubby began formulating plans to build a studio where he could record music as well as remix it. The studio eventually opened in late 1985, hitting almost immediately with one of his first productions, Anthony Red Rose's "Tempo". After that his apprentices Peego and Fatman recorded early works by such as Ninjaman, King Kong and Courtney Melody, but this promising beginning to Tubby's career as a bona fide producer soon came to a tragic end: King Tubby was gunned down in the early morning of February 6, 1989, outside his home in Duhaney Park, Kingston. The killer has never been found.

SCIENTIST: AN APPRENTICE AT TUBBY'S

Born Hopeton Brown, the mixing engineer who became known as 'Scientist' while mastering his craft at King Tubby's Dromilly Avenue studio made the most innovative strides in the development of dub techniques since his mentor's own initial experiments.

"My father, he was a repair technician, repairin' television, radios. He usually have a lotta parts that he would take from televisions, and having the opportunity to be around electronic test instruments and parts, I got to know the names of the components. The first place I ever did work was at King Tubby's studio, an' how I got to bein' a engineer was that I got to the stage on electronics where I started to build amplifiers. After you build a amplifier you need a record that is properly mixed with all the frequency range to be able to test how the amplifier is gonna perform. Usually, the mixes from around Tubby's, they had a heavy bass and real crisp high end. That was a good way to analyze the performance of the amplifier.

How I got introduced to Tubby's is by a next friend that was doing a welding job; he was telling me that I should try and meet Tubby's, because he build amplifiers and he knew that

Tubby's could wind some of the transformers that I needed to build my amplifiers. So he had a welding job to do around Tubby's property, and I went there with him. When he introduced me, I told Tubby's that I like the mixes that he were doin', and that they were a good way to analyze the performance of the amplifier.

After goin' to Tubby's, buyin' parts from him like transformers, I use to tell 'im: 'Hey Tubby's, I can do that sort of work,' and he used to laugh it off and say: 'You're a little kid - you know a lot of big men come here and take years and they still can't do it.' So he had some extra work that he needed done in the shop, windin' transformers, repairin' televisions, he would ask me to help. Then we develop a friendship and he made me a bet one day, when Jammy's was in Canada: 'I bet if I send you in that studio there you don't know the first thing to do.' So I said: 'Okay, I'll go in there!' He gave me the first opportunity. I don't remember exactly which record was the first I get to actually mix, but from that time I didn't pay much attention to repairin' televisions - I found recordin' a little less boring! I did Barrington Levy's, "On My Way To Maverley" ["Collie Weed"]. I think that was the first hit record I ever mixed. At that time I was so anxious to get behind the controls, if somebody want me to go to studio six o'clock in the morning, I would make it there. I had to make use of the opportunity that I was given.

Each day workin' there was completely different. A lotta great things happen there. At first, it wasn't so much of a big deal, but when you 'ave the opportunity to sit back years later and actually remember, so many great things happen there. At the time we all was takin' all these things for granted. One thing I learned from Tubby's, though, like when I would mix a record, I would tek it to 'im and say 'Tubby's how's that sound?' He used to say it don't really sound too good, but his reason for doin' that is to let you always keep tryin' harder. Years after he confess; he said, 'A lot of that stuff you were doin', it was good but I was scared at the time that if I let you know how good you doin', you probably would have gotten swell headed an' stop tryin'. He was truly a genius."