Track Listing

1. Keep On Dubbing
2. Stop them Jah
3. Young Generation Dub
4. Each One Dub
5. 555 Dub St.
6. Brace's Tower Dub
7. King Tubby Meets rockers Uptown
8. Brace's Tower Dub No. 2
9. Corner Crew Dub
10. Skanking Dub
11. Frozen Dub
12. Satta Dub
13. Black Gunn
14. 1 Ruthland Close
15. 1-2-3 Version
16. Silent Satta

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34790 in Music
• Released on: 2004-01-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.com
During the early '70s, a maverick Jamaican producer known as King Tubby (aka Osbourne Ruddock -- he was born in Kingston in 1941) embarked upon a series of pivotal recordings, ultimately creating a reggae offshoot called dub. First, he pared his forces down to a drum kit and bass and slowed the tempo until a bottom-heavy, primal heartbeat emerged. Over this framework, spare vocal and instrumental riffs emerged from layers of echoing reverb and artful distortion, erecting atmospheric soundscapes bound for infinity. This classic album is a primer for how Tubby could harness raw rhythmic power through his subtle, imaginative grasp of texture and dynamics. A potent rhythm team, including Robbie Shakespeare (one half of the famed Sly & Robbie combo) on bass, Earl "Chinna" Smith on guitar, and a rough-and-ready brass section, surrounds the organ-piano and clavinet (mouth-blown keyboard clarinet) of Augustus Pablo with hip, stylish Kingstonian street-bred attitude. --Christina Roden

Customer Reviews

Essential
I don't know what this reviewer is talking about "...also known as Glen Adams Upsetters keyboard player...". King Tubby is Osbourne Ruddock ONE of the originators of the style weh call 'rub-a-dub' alongside Lee "Scratch" Perry and another lesser known producer whose name evades me. For real the reviewer don't know what the bumclat she is talking about! very pretentious to think she can talk some bull-isht and get away with it! Augustus Pablo plays the melodica primarily, which is a children's instrument, a small keyboard which has a baffle and a mouthpiece to generate the tones. Clavinet is a floorstanding keyboard instrument which generates sounds similar to an electric guitar, and on some Jazz fusion records occupies the space of an electric guitar i.e. Herbie Hancock "Headhunters".
Christina Roden, you suck. Amazon.com please remove this dubious and inacurate review please!

To further clarify, the riddims herein are written and arranged by Pablo, voiced by various vocalists, notably Jacob Miller whose "Baby I love you so" is the foundation of the title track, and "Keep on Knockin" here in dub as "Keep On Dubbing". So these are dub versions of those tunes with many featuring Pablo blowing on top, therefor putting them in a 'Horn version' or specifically 'Melodica version' context. Semantics.

Anyway, King Tubby meets rockers is absolutely essential and needs no introduction, as it is maybe the most well known 'Dub' albums of all time. This newly issued CD looks great with the added tracks and hopefully correct tracking as previous reissues of this album had incorrect sequencing. You should buy this. Tubbs is eternally the master at the controls, Pablo is the heaviest producer next to Vivain Jackson, and his meditations onn the Melodica are trancendant.

This Is Where It All Started!!!
Those who like hip hop, techno, or any other musical development of the last quarter century would do well to acquaint themselves with this masterpiece. This is where remixing began and no one has done it better than King Tubby in the ensuing years. Able to reduce a song down to its core elements and still make it utterly mesmerizing, Tubby paved the way for virtually all modern music. This is an album to play at maximum volume, while the bass and the groove wash over you with that perfect riddim. You can't call yourself a connoisseur of music without getting inside this rhythmic beast.

Amazon.com info by Christina Roden is misinformed
I am just adding to the voices disgusted by Christina Roden's writing on King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown, which Amazon.com used for their official review. Her so-called review is an insult to the music and its makers, besides not making sense.

For the record, Augustus Pablo plays mainly the melodica, which is an instrument played by blowing through while manipulating a small keyboard that is part of the instrument. Pablo also played various keyboards, including the clavinet. And no one "slowed" the music down to make dub. Dub is simply re-mixed reggae with the vocals all or mostly removed.

I could go on correcting Roden's misinformation, but you get the idea. Ignore Roden and read the other volunteer reviewers for additional proper info.