The first song to use the term was Toots and the Maytals' "Do the Reggay," of 1968. though the song must have referred to a previously existing dance, and was essentially a rock steady bass with a cool drum turnaround, stomped right at the beginning. The form derives directly from rock steady, which is in turn a hyper-slowed-down version of Jamaican ska. Indeed, there is not that much of a directly musical distinction between rock steady and reggae, though the latter has a bit more lilt, a bit more pull on the backbeat, and perhaps uses somewhat different percussion instruments and styles, some of them derived from Rasta ceremonial drumming ("nyahbingi").

The real distinctions are spiritual and ideological. Rock steady in the hands of its great exponents such as Bob Andy and Ken Boothe was essentially soul: the vocal style and subject matter recalled Curtis Mayfield or Lou Rawls, even as the underlying bass-and-drums were insistently Caribbean. But reggae - not in every single instance but as a whole - is a gospel style, a religious expression devoted to ganja as a sacrament and the coming apocalypse, as well as to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It is thus not exactly pop music: it is marked by the utmost seriousness and urgency.

The way reggae is made is fundamental for understanding it. Already in the rock steady era, producers had pulled out the rhythm lines from hit songs, and played them alone or under a DJ toasting at sound system parties. As time went on, at the hands of Lee Perry, Niney the Observer etc. reggae production mutated into the sort of sonic collaging that made hip hop possible and has fundamentally conditioned all world popular music ever since. Jamaican reggae artists were usually not "bands," but vocals-over-production. Often a single riddim would give rise to many versions, some of them hits.

Haile Selassie died in 1975, which caused a bit of crisis in Rasta ideology, and one has to expect that people will remember that music is good for dancing, drinking, partying (nor had Jamaicans ever forgotten that). So by 1980 at the latest, religious reggae was in decline, and "dancehall" came into style: an inherently secular form, fundamentally tied as well to rock steady and to reggae DJ music, but also to American hip hop, and sharing with latter explicit sexuality, glorification of gangsta-style violence, party anthems etc. I know it's useless to whine, but around the same time digitial rhythms began to replace the organic variety. What a sad idea for an island that produced Horsemouth Wallace and Ras Michael. The recycling of riddims itself was largely an economic measure, and to some extent so was the move to digital. But not only has Jamaican music not really sounded as good since, in my view, but a lot of specific artists in the roots tradition have recorded over drum machines and sounded sadly autonomic.

anyway: "tougher than tough" is a great four-disk set, from ska through ragga, put together by the people who did the amazing Rough Guide to Reggae, an unbelievably knowledgeable and detailed treatment of the whole thing. If I were starting a reggae collection, I'd make sure I had some Burning Spear, Abyssinians, Israel Vibration, Althea and Donna, Black Uhuru, Toots, and Augustus Pablo.

links:

blood and fire, steve barrow's reissue label, exquisite taste and expertise.

reggae reviews.com

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