STORY · REGGAE
Session bands built the reggae sound
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From The Skatalites to Roots Radics, Jamaican music history depends on flexible bands, rhythm sections, horn lines and arrangers as much as named singers.
The same musicians often moved between labels, studios, producers and band names. Editors should treat house-band credits as a research problem: a single track may require checking label copy, reissue notes, musician interviews, Discogs, MusicBrainz and specialist histories.
Jamaican records are, to an unusual degree, the product of a small rotating cast of session players rather than the credited artist alone. The Skatalites filled that role at Studio One through the early-to-mid 1960s; by 1978, bassist Errol "Flabba" Holt and guitarist Eric "Bingy Bunny" Lamont - both previously in the Morwells and backing Prince Far I as the Arabs - formed the Roots Radics with drummer Lincoln "Style" Scott, and the Radics went on to dominate reggae's studio sound through the first half of the 1980s, playing behind Gregory Isaacs, Bunny Wailer, Eek-A-Mouse, Barrington Levy and many others under producer Henry "Junjo" Lawes. Because the same few musicians appear, often uncredited, across dozens of different artists' records from the same period, a "who played on this" question in Jamaican music history is frequently a genuine research problem, not a quick look-up.
Source trail: Wikipedia (The Skatalites; Roots Radics); Bandcamp Daily's feature on the Roots Radics; Discogs/MusicBrainz. Individual player-to-track credits beyond the well-documented Roots Radics/Junjo Lawes/Scientist axis should be verified per release rather than assumed from general band membership.
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