The American debut of The English Beat – aka the UK group The Beat, who'd been making some big waves with import 45s on the 2Tone label, the burst forth on our US market with a slight shift in name, due to another group hogging their original moniker on our side of the Atlantic! That bit of backstory hardly need matter, though – as the group wear their English loud and proud here, setting off a huge ska revival as they blend Jamaican roots with London attitude in the post-punk years – stacking up a set of classics that continue to groove many turntables all these many years later. Titles include "Mirror In The Bathroom", "Hands Off She's Mine", "Twist & Crawl", "Big Shot", "Best Friend", and "Jackpot". (Rock, Reggae) LP, Vinyl record album

The American debut of The English Beat – aka the UK group The Beat, who'd been making some big waves with import 45s on the 2Tone label, the burst forth on our US market with a slight shift in name, due to another group hogging their original moniker on our side of the Atlantic! That bit of backstory hardly need matter, though – as the group wear their English loud and proud here, setting off a huge ska revival as they blend Jamaican roots with London attitude in the post-punk years – stacking up a set of classics that continue to groove many turntables all these many years later. Titles include "Mirror In The Bathroom", "Hands Off She's Mine", "Twist & Crawl", "Big Shot", "Best Friend", and "Jackpot". (Rock, Reggae) LP, Vinyl record album

Madness back when they were strongly in a ska vein! Titles include "One Step beyond", "Tarzan's Nuts", "Madness", "Chimunks Are Go", "Razor Blade Alley", and "Land Of Hope & Glory". (Rock, Reggae) LP, Vinyl record album

A wonderful roots record from Pablo Moses, who came on the scene a little too late for his own good, as he came up during an era when the focus was beginning to shift away from roots and more towards the dancehall. This sophomore LP finds his bright vocal style still sounding solid over excellent modern roots tracks produced with a nice full sound by Geoffrey Chung. Includes "A Song", "Dubbing Is A Must", "Revolutionary Step", "Music Is My Desire", "Each Is A Servant", "One People", "Let's Face It", and "Protect I/A Song (reprise)". CD

Wonderful work from the great John Holt – a Jamaican singer who managed to find a real way to weave connections between reggae and the sweeter side of soul music in the 70s – often at a level that had John taking on songs from the American scene and making them sound even better with a reggae groove! Yet the work of Holt also goes way past that formula used on some of his hits – as you'll hear on this massive collection that offers up some of the greatest cuts he recorded for Trojan Records, plus some nice surprises along the way. Most of the tracks have a loping midtempo groove that's perfect for Holt's vocal approach – and the 2CD set features 50 tracks in all, with titles that include "Stealing Stealing", "I Wanna Dance", "Help Me Make It Through The Night", "Sister Big Stuff", "Stick By Me", "Ali Baba", "You Baby", "The Tide Is High", "Let's Build Our Dreams", "Sweetie Come Brush Me", "Wild Fire", "I'll Be Lonely", "My Heart Is Gone", "Strange Things", "My desire", "I'll Take A Melody", and "Time & The River". CD

Wonderful work from the great John Holt – a Jamaican singer who managed to find a real way to weave connections between reggae and the sweeter side of soul music in the 70s – often at a level that had John taking on songs from the American scene and making them sound even better with a reggae groove! Yet the work of Holt also goes way past that formula used on some of his hits – as you'll hear on this massive collection that offers up some of the greatest cuts he recorded for Trojan Records, plus some nice surprises along the way. Most of the tracks have a loping midtempo groove that's perfect for Holt's vocal approach – and the 2LP set features 28 tracks in all, with titles that include "Stealing Stealing", "I Wanna Dance", "Help Me Make It Through The Night", "Sister Big Stuff", "Stick By Me", "Ali Baba", "You Baby", "The Tide Is High", "Let's Build Our Dreams", "Sweetie Come Brush Me", "Wild Fire", "I'll Be Lonely", "My Heart Is Gone", "Strange Things", "My desire", "I'll Take A Melody", and "Time & The River". LP, Vinyl record album