The Reggae Scrapbook (Hardcover)

by Roger Steffens (Author), Peter Simon (Photographer), Toots Hibbert (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Though less than comprehensive, Steffens and Simon's illustrated history of reggae music is nonetheless essential reading on the subject. The duo have spent decades covering the genre (Steffens as the founder of reggae magazine The Beat, Simon as an award-winning photographer), and they enthusiastically share their bounty in this interactive scrapbook packed with pull-out ephemera like stickers, postcards, set lists and flyers. The equivalent of spending a long evening with a friendly, eager collector, it's hard not to get caught up in the authors' enthusiasm. Fans will find all their favorites here in bright, full-color photographs, from lesser-known but seminal figures like Joe Higgs to legendary figures like Lee "Scratch" Perry, Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. The authors frequently share their own vibrant, first-hand experiences with the performers: Judy Mowatt discusses a performance in Zimbabwe with Marley that turned into a riot; eccentric Perry provides a tour of the "Throne Room," his home studio; and Steffens recounts the time he presented Peter Tosh with a marijuana bud the size of a cricket bat. Augmented with a DVD featuring a handful of interviews with artists and hundreds of candid snapshots, it's the next best thing to a trip to Jamaica.
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Product Description
From its birth in the vibrant Kingston ghettos through it phenomenal popularity in the 1970s to its iconic standing in today's global culture, reggae and its close relations--ska, rock steady, dj, dub, dancehall, and raggamuffin--have taken the world by storm.

In The Reggae Scrapbook, scintillating words and images propel our appreciation of Jamaican music into the 21st century. Accomanying us on this journey is one of the men who introduced reggae to America and helped rock the world with its syncopated beat, Roger Steffens.

Through lectures, books, magazine articles, radio, and television, Steffens has shared his knowledge of reggae around the globe as the world's premier archivist and collector of reggae memorabilia. Here he traces reggae's history and roots, supplemented by an audio CD featuring interviews with such reggae greats as Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff and "Toots" Hibbert.

Divided into chapters on "Roots and Ska," "Rock Steady," "The Golden Age," "Rockers," "Digital and Dance Hall" and "Internationalization," and enhanced by sidebar features on historic figures, styles, and events, The Reggae Scrapbook is all you could wish for in a celebration of the rise of this irresistable musical and social force.

The Reggae Scrapbook also conveys reggae culture through a treasure trove of memorabilia, the cream of Steffen's collection of more than 30,000 photographs, 800 T-shirts, 3,000 buttons, 10,000 posters and flyers as well as innumerable, seven-inch singles and album covers, posters, postcards, and tickets.

Photographer Peter Simon presents a stunning collection of evocative images, from reggae's rough beginnings to the latest festivals, providing a stunning visual accompaniment.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 124 pages
• Publisher: Insight Editions (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933784237
• ISBN-13: 978-1933784236
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 10.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #423,251 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a reggae bounty, December 2, 2007

By	reggae culture reader (USA) - See all my reviews

Steffens and photographer Peter Simon, two long-time chroniclers of Jamaican music, have emptied their files into a deeply satisfying guided tour of reggae in chronologico-topical form. Simon's photography has been seen in such works as Reggae Bloodlines and Reggae International. As many readers of this magazine know, Steffens has written and lectured extensively about Bob Marley and reggae music and is also co-founder of The Beat. Reggae Scrapbook brims with the contributors' knowledge as well as their infectious love of the genre and the culture that produces it.

And their memorabilia is now ours, in handy facsimile form. Produced in the same vein as James Henke's recent Marley Legend, Reggae Scrapbook surveys reggae from origins to present and handsomely houses removable reggae artifacts by the fistful.

Page after page, Reggae Scrapbook delights. If you're like me, you'll get your hands on this and wonder whether to read it properly as one should with all books, from start-to-finish, or consume it giddily, turning at random for the treats. At one point, the Scrapbook opens to a splashy little 12-page magazine gummed to the page about the phenomenon of Jamaican dances. Page 43 contains an envelope with three gorgeous postcard-sized photo/illustrations of Haile Selassie. Fastened elsewhere in the book are concert handbills (pages 11, 91 and 129), two panels of peel-away stickers (page 81), miniature reproductions of singles in little white sleeves (pages 85 and 139), some of them autographed by the artists. (Among the latter is Cornell Campbell, who writes a sleeve note correcting a mis-identified 45 of "You're No Good.") Steffens and Simon, mighty repro men for the reggae generation, leave no dead space anywhere in this deluxe volume.

Lodged in a pocket inside the front cover is a dvd culled from the many hours of interviews Steffens has conducted over the years. Steffens likes to query for defining moments and he elicits fascinating replies. After a sound check one night, Joseph Hill narrates, with a riveting performative quality, his harrowing near-fatal encounter with Jamaican police. Luciano explains his decision to leave a high-profile concert in mid-performance in order to trod forward to the hills for sabbatical. Betty Wright gives a memorable explication of the charisma she witnessed of Bob Marley when she toured as opening act for the band in 1979. Judy Mowatt describes the pandemonium of the Wailers' epochal Zimbabwe concerts of 1980. The Wailers Band, Peter Tosh, the Heptones and Alton Ellis are the other interview subjects. The memories and insights are rendered with engagingly varied levels of formality.

The readings shift from overview to close focus. While not exhaustive, the narrative is invariably absorbing and inclusive of career surveys of seminal artists and many wonderful sidebars ranging from aspects of Jamaican culture to such things as a fable composed by Gregory Isaacs and a verbatim eyewitness account by Junior Reid of the shooting death of Hugh Mundell. The book weighs heaviest on artists from the 70s and 80s, although coverage of soundsystems, festivals and a few dancehall artists bring the subject forward to the now moment.

Steffens writes with authority and wit and a heightened ear for poetic utterance.

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful chronicle, May 19, 2008

By	dma202 "dma202" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

Jamaica is simultaneously an old country (a crucible of colonialism and slavery for 400 years) and a new country (only independent since 1962). Similarly, reggae is an old music, rooted in tradition (influences range from the griots of West Africa to the old testament) and a new, pathbreaking music (the originator of the term "reggae," Toots Hibbert (who wrote the book's forward), isn't old enough to collect social security, and what we know today as the "remix" was invented in a West Kingston ghetto). Jamaica isn't exactly a world power. But somehow, over 40 some-odd years, its music has spread from gullybanks and zinc shacks to the far corners of the earth.

If you get this book, you will understand why. Steffens and Simon are a "dream team" - a combination of the premier reggae critic and the top photographer. The book, which is conversational in tone, is jam-packed with interesting lore and arresting images of colorful people, places and memorabilia. It's a loving chronicle of a fascinating culture that the authors have been intensely involved with for 30+ years.

To top it off, the book includes a whole host of little "surprises" and a DVD that are themselves probably worth the price...

To be clear, the book has no pretensions of being a complete history of the music, so if you want (for example) a long exigesis of the skinhead/reggae association, as one reviewer mentioned, you'll need to look elsewhere. Rest assured that most fans will find the book enormously satisfying.

The bottom line: If you like reggae, you will love this book, and if you don't like reggae, you'll probably like it by the time you're through.

5.0 out of 5 stars The REGGAE SCRAPEBOOK - A crucial "coffetable" book on Reggae!, May 12, 2008

By	Jack D. Miller "Steppin' Razzah" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Roger Steffens, the world's premier Reggae archivist and founding editor of "Beat Magazine", with Peter Simon, an award-winning photographer and co-author of "Reggae Bloodlines" and "Reggae International", have put together a captivating visual and musical journey into the multicultural world that is Reggae Music. Steffens brings a lifetime of experience as a Reggae writer, broadcaster, collector and fan. From Roger we get fascinating in-depth interviews with Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Toots Hibbert as well as a chronological overview of historic figures, styles and events. With Simon's stunning images of Reggae's greatest artists and the Rasta culture this collection adds up to a most personal and insightful look into the Reggae Music Revolution. Included is a bonus dvd of Steffens interviews and a treasure chest of artifacts from his archives. An absolute must for any music lovers collection. It just doesn't get any better than the REGGAE SCRAPEBOOK!

Jack Miller
Director of "DREADLOCK ROCK"-Reggae Documentary