Thursday, September 24, 2009

MASSIVE GROOVE THING


For every studio with it's own distinct sound, there are marginally known session players who created the sound, and could arguably lay claim to it. Studio One, Coxsone Dodd's Kingston studio and label, was no exception. It was so instrumental in the development of reggae that it could (and should) easily be compared to Sun or Stax, in terms of importance to it's respective genre. And keyboard whizz Jackie Mittoo, still in his teens when he began working for Dodd in 1959, was right there when reggae was born. It was his bubbly organ that punctuated the tracks of just about every major reggae artist in the early sixties.
.
As important as his organ was to the development of Studio One's sound, his solo output leans toward a reggae-fied version of Booker T & the MG's. So much so that his cover of "Hang 'em High" sounds more like a cover of Booker T's version than the original. It's as though he never heard the Ennio Morricone original (which he had to have, because spaghetti westerns were huge in Jamaica.) Whatever version he is covering, the bass/organ thing in his is a massive groove thing.
.

No comments: