Island Reggae

It's impossible to estimate how much the movie The Harder They Come meant to reggae spreading beyond Jamaica. First off, it made an "instant" star out of Jimmy Cliff, who sang the title track and played the lead in the film. It also featured "007 (Shanty Town)" by Desmond Dekker, and the Slickers' oft-covered "Johnny Too Bad." Finally, Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross" brings in a gospel fyah that is unsurpassed in reggae history.

Producer Lee "Scratch" Perry — whose early work with Marley at his Black Ark Studios is considered seminal — contributes a typically swampy "Dreadlocks in Moonlight." The late, sweet-voiced Dennis Brown is represented by "The World is Troubled," a fitting epitaph. On happier notes, the Mighty Diamonds' "Pass the Kouchie" (reincarnated in 1982 as Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie") and Black Uhuru's "Party Next Door" (from Anthem, the first reggae GRAMMY® winner) celebrate the local agriculture.

The Upsetters, the house band for Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark Studios, step out on their own with "Croaking Lizard" (they had also backed Max Romeo on "War Ina Babylon"). Also taking a solo turn is the Skatalites' Roland Alphonso, whose "Pheonix City" serves as a reggae counterpart to the Champs' "Tequila." Aswad, the U.K.'s premier reggae band, are represented by a pair of archetypal tracks: "I a Rebel Soul" and "Roots Rocking."

If one person could be thanked for bringing reggae to the United States, it wouldn't be — surprise! — Bob Marley. It would be a British gentleman named Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, who launched his label in Jamaica at the age of 24 and went on to have his first international hit with a ska-influenced track, Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop," in 1964. While he wasn't the first to get to Bob Marley, it was on Island that Marley had his initial, great international hits, and a slew of other reggae acts signed to Island in hopes of enjoying similar success.