Customer Reviews

Who Say Jah No Dread

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This showcase collection features all six of Jacob Miller's Augustus Pablo produced single A-sides back to back with their respective dub versions. It's a great collaboration: Miller's impassioned vocals, Pablo's uniquely strong rhythms, melodies and arrangements played by some of Jamaica's finest musicians; plus the legendary King Tubby at the mixing desk. All the tracks were recorded over an 18 month period (1974-75) at Randy's and Dynamic studios and provided much of the source material for the landmark "King Tubby meets rockers uptown" album, after being mixed at King Tubby's studio by the master himself.

Miller was still a teenager when he started working with Pablo, but handles each vocal performance with an assurance that belies his youthful inexperience, whether it's the dread lyrics of tracks like "False rasta" or love songs like "Baby I love you so", and Tubby's dub mixes beautifully complement the A-sides. Dub was still a relatively new phenomenon when these recordings were made and hardly known outside of Jamaica. The idea of stripping a track down to its bare bones, adding effects such as echo and reverb, and dropping its constituent musical elements in and out of the mix was pioneered by Tubby, opening the door to a whole new world of sonic exploration.

It's difficult to pick favourite tracks on a compilation as good as this one. The most famous of these singles is undoubtedly "Baby I love you so" or rather its dub version "King Tubby meets rockers uptown", which was one of the first examples of dub to make any sort of impact internationally. But from the opening "Keep on knocking", which begins with a statement of intent by Miller ("This is rockers! Original rockers!") it's non-stop quintessential mid-70's reggae from start to finish.

Miller wanted to make more records with Pablo (who can blame him?) but given Pablo's dire financial status (he was often dependent on many of the musicians playing on his records for free on the basis that he would do the same for them), the promises of fame and fortune from other producers soon became too tempting. Before long Miller would become hugely successful with his band Inner Circle, but artistically at least, he never surpassed the recordings on this album. Sadly he was killed in a car crash in 1980, while Tubby was tragically gunned down outside his studio in 1989 and Pablo died a decade later in 1999.

Although the rhythms collected together on "Who say Jah no dread" are all available elsewhere, these are the definitive versions and if you only ever buy one Augustus Pablo record make sure this is it. In view of the album's title it's also pertinent to mention that Pablo was a deeply religious man who often credited Jah as co-producer of his works and this one is no exception. On the sleeve, after the words "produced by Augustus Pablo" you can read the following in parenthesis: "produced by King Selassie I through his divine powers working through I and I to manifest these inspirations". What more can I say?

This is truly one of the best reggae CDs in existence......and I've collected reggae for years. The combination of Miller's unique delivery with Augustus Pablo's wonderful melodies is flawless. And you'll love the dub versions every bit as much as you love the songs themselves. Pablo was simply a genius.

How interesting it is to finally hear the song that "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown" is dubbed from!! This is REAL roots reggae music.........this isn't UB40 or Maxi Priest.....this is the real deal. This is what people need to hear if they want to go beyond Marley.

Not a bad track on the entire disc. Wonderful in every way....

a great album of reggae music. beautiful voice. to listen to with a big spliff: that's incredible! this is a masterpiece! n' i'd like to thank jacob(R.I.P) for his good vibes...

This is one of the best roots reggae albums I own and most certainly one the best reggae albums out there. I enjoy both the original and instrumental versions of these songs, and all of them make me bob my head and get in de groove. This is one of the albums I own that absolutely flies by. Its a thrill to hear a young Jacob Miller and Augstus Pablo's hypnotic psychadelic reggae grooves. A must have for anyone into roots music or good reggae in general.

Quite simply one of those mash it up/chant them down albums. Posthumous respect to the trio behind the album; Miller, King Tubby and of course the great Horace Swaby a.k.a Augustus Pablo (digressing a little bit here as usual) whose legendary musical skills make you wonder why there was never a full length (Post-Wailers) Bob Marley-Pablo collaboration. Jacob Miller, with this effort justifies both his elevation to reggae stardom at a tender age of about 20 years and being lead singer of the (later even more successful, Grammy winning) group Inner Circle.

This album, as with most other Roots reggae productions of the circa preaches amongst other things, 2 main themes; Love & (rasta) Culturalism and just as people before & after me have said, you just might find one of the greatest reggae love songs ever released in the guise of "Baby i love you so" which was redone by Dawn (No! no!! no!!!) Penn. There isn't the resource for me to dissect the album song-wise, really, where does one start? Is it "Each one teach one" or will it be "Girl name Pat (Dub version)" The entire album is rich lyrically and genuinely consistent in it's content, however, for the not so ardent reggae fans it might feel a bit monotonous &/or short, in that after every song there's a dub (instrumental) version of that same song next but hey remember! it's the mid 70's reggae scene where Dub music is a staple on everyone's musical plate and we're talking about Miller, Pablo & Tubby holding it together & locking it down.

A while back, whilst product hunting on the web i somehow, someway found myself in a reggae discussion forum where some conspiracy theorist(s) actually alleged that Miller's car crash death in 1980 was no accident at all as 'certain people' weren't particularly fond of the notion that Jacob Miller had claimed Bob Marley's title & throne whilst Marley was on exile in Miami. 'Utter rubbish talk' was my contribution to the claim, considering the obvious acknowledgement, love & mutual admiration between the 2 players, also to think that both had only just arrived together 2 days before, after a promo tour of Brasil with Mr Chris (Island records) Blackwell. If the Reggae scene denied that it felt the cold void created by Jacob's death, it very definitely felt something much more the very next year when Bob Marley passed on as well.

Good album, filled with mellow vocals & excellent dubs. Highly recommended for classical reggae fans. *****

I bought this CD for one song "Each One Teach One". I think this is the best version of this song.
The rest of the songs are typical 70's fill-in the CD, with reverb and the like.
Knowing all of this I would still by the CD for one song.