I'll tell what I like to do. I like to stay up late in the evening and play 45 singles.
I am a man of simple pleasures and this is mine.
Over the years I've picked up singles here and there. Record stores, yard sales, mail order, ebay. I don't think I have quite a thousand of them but close to it. About half of my singles are reggae singles. Reggae singles are special. Reggae music began really as a singles market. Beginning in the late 1960's the Jamaican record labels put out a constant stream of reggae singles to sell to the local public and to feed the sound systems throughout Jamaica. There were a lot of great reggae artist whose total recording output was released only as singles. These early Jamaican singles capture Jamaican culture in its innocence and beauty before reggae went international.
Late in the evening when the world is quiet I like to sit next to my stereo and go through my singles. Most of them were purchased second hand so some of the records have pops and scratches. But that's fine. Those pops and scratches take me there. I listen to the music. And I smoke herb. And I dream.
I'm thinking to start posting a few singles.
So let's get started.
1) The Starlites - Some A Weh A Bawl (G.G.Records 1975)
2) Toil and Tears - Respect Jah Jah Children (Federal Records 1975)
3) Roots of the Field - Selassi I (Records Inc.)
4) Easton Clarke - Bike No License (Micron)
the starlites
toil and tears
roots of the field
easton clarke
Me bike no license
Having a bag of weed
Coming from Harbor view
Oh lord, arrive in a curfew.
My first lud is two years
Me other is a suckling
What can I do?
Oh lord, arrive in a curfew.
I'm lock down in jail
I'm looking through the rails
My rent's soon due
Oh lord, arrive in a curfew
Wat a money letter
I sent it by the officer
Please don't cry Lou
Oh lord, arrived in a curfew.
Oh lord natty rived in a curfew.
Easton Clarke
"How long will the wicked reign?"
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