Byron Lee & The Dragonaires – Rock Steady

1967, Soul

This website may not reveal so clearly that I am very keen on rocksteady, and in the middle of my second big ‘rocksteady phase’ I bring to you a spectacular cover-heavy album from Byron Lee & The Dragonaires, a widely acclaimed (by thousands, even!) live band that predates reggae by about a decade.

But before we get ahead of ourselves we must appreciate marketing approach from the Dragonaires album covers. Just a whole bunkle of text – one whole bunkle – with a tiny five-by-one image of a crowd at the bottom, and no less than four yellow starburst shapes. Extra attention is paid to making sure that ‘PEOPLE GET READY’ is in uppercase, but ‘this is’ is in lowercase, because it’s less important, and don’t forget that ISLANDS, and also don’t forget how Jamaica’s Greatest!, and especially not EXCITEMENT! On the back cover they make a point of explaining how to do the rocksteady dance, though the very next year they one-upped themselves by including illustrated rock-steady dance steps on the back cover of the LP “Rock Steady Explosion”.

Way up in the top left corner we are treated to another detail about the album contents – 10 of Jamaica [sic] most explosive rock steady tunes. Which is very keen because there are indeed only ten rocksteady tunes here, and then two Trini calypso ones (Obeah Wedding and Papa Jack), included explicitly because they are fan favourites. Still rocksteady is the name of the game here, and the set opens massive style, truly massive & big, with Rock Steady, which speaks volumes for the genre despite being a bit left field. This is probably the hardest, loudest, and most dramatic rocksteady tune of the whole era, with snappy clean guitar doing little ‘scotch snap’ arpeggios, drums crashing and bashing nonstop, backing singers dragging themselves back to the root note every couple bars, some serious overdrive vamps, and most bombastic of all, Jo Jo Bennett belting out some very slow and VERY loud toasting. Toasting a.k.a. deejaying was not exactly new at this time but the recordings were scarce and it would still be four years before U-Roy dropped Version Galore, the first LP fronted by a deejay. Jo Jo’s main gig was as the flugel player for the Dragonaires but he does early early deejaying in fine style – check his “Groovy Joe” LP for more if you like the taste.

Besides Rock Steady, everything is covers, and there are zero duds, and loads of tasteful & creative adjustments to the original tunes. They touch up the harmony on Musical Pressure, Jo Jo comes back for a little backseat deejaying in Bend Down Low, and then Ken Lazarus asks him very nicely to blow his horn on Soul Ska (a cover of Treat Me Bad by the Maytals), and then thanks him for his contribution after the fact. Girl I’ve Got A Date is my personal highlight of the set; it blows the Alton Ellis original out of the water with Ken Lazarus (90% sure it’s him) BELTING (see a pattern here?) the high notes in both falsetto and not-falsetto and also moving between them with transitions like butter. Where Alton Ellis drops a tasteful eee-eee at the end of the chorus, Ken goes EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE all the way up the arpeggio into the stratosphere and tosses the motif away to the keyboard player who starts fortissimo plonking a couple notes on every beat. DID YOU FORGET THE TEMPO OF THE TUNE? DID YOU FORGET THE HARMONY? The piano is sure as hell going to make sure you don’t forget. You BETTER not forget the way this piano’s attitude comes in. And then Ken comes back to restart the tune because that’s all there really is to Girl I’ve Got A Date, you will notice there is a good reason the original clocks in at under two and a half minutes.

The heart and soul of rocksteady as a genre is when the drums go KSS KAK on every upbeat and I have not heard a record where that is played harder than this one. This set is nonstop bombastic volume, highly indulgent, and full of well-placed musicianship. It’s oily oily and sweet. If you don’t know what rocksteady sounds like, this is as good a place as any to start, and if you do know what rocksteady sounds like, this is a fine addition to any collection.

My picks: Rock Steady, Girl I’ve Got A Date, Bend Down Low, Obeah Wedding, Get Out Of My Life
Bim count: 0

(The order of tunes in the YT embed below is not correct! Goes 6 to 1 then 7 then 12 then 11 to 9. Whoops!!)