Reggae Music Jah Love

Equipment

Here we will list some of our specific pieces of equipment:

* Arpeco Letterpress

* Webtron Flexo Press

* Comco Flexo Press

We update this page frequently with new equipment or additions to existing machinery.

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Welcome to KJDS 55.7 Web Page Radio,

This is the Reggae World, Music and Info please read the dialog on

What and where Reggae is "The Roots"....

Then stroll down for great Reggae Music.

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The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp. for rege", as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row".^[1] Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals, but there are many different theories as to how the term originated. The music itself was faster than rocksteady, but tighter and more complex than ska, with obvious debts to both styles, while going beyond them both.^[2] Speaking to the term's origins, reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated:

We didn't like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of 'Fat Man'. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like 'reggae, reggae' and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic] and soon all the musicians were saying 'reggae, reggae, reggae'.^[2]

Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (loose woman) into reggae.^[2] However, Toots Hibbert said:

There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound its name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it's in the Guinness World of Records.^[3]

Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music".^[4] The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning "to the king".

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Please Stroll Down For Great Reggae Music

On KJDS 55.7 Web Page Radio

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More Reggae Info Below

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Although strongly influenced by traditional African music, as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, reggae owes its direct origins to the ska and rocksteady of 1960s Jamaica. The Rastafari movement was a significant influence on reggae, with Rasta drummers like Count Ossie contributing to seminal recordings.^[5] One of the predecessors of reggae drumming is the Nyabinghi rhythm, a style of ritual drumming performed as a communal meditative practice in the Rastafari movement.

Ska arose in Jamaican studios in the late 1950s developing from American R&B and mento.^[2] Ska is characterized by a quarter note walking bass line, guitar and piano offbeats, and a drum pattern with cross-stick snare and bass drum on the backbeat and open hi-hat on the offbeats (with nothing on beats one and three). It is also notable for its jazz-influenced horn riffs. Jamaica gained its independence in 1962, and ska became the music of choice for Jamaican youths seeking music that was their own. Ska also became popular among mods in Britain.

By 1968, many Jamaican musicians had begun playing the tempo of ska slower, while using more syncopated bass patterns and smaller bands. This new, slower sound was called rocksteady, a name solidified after the release of a single by Alton Ellis. There are many theories as to why Jamaican musicians slowed the ska tempo to create rocksteady; one is that the singer Hopeton Lewis was unable to sing his hit song "Take It Easy" at a ska tempo.^[2] To some, rocksteady is indistinguishable from early reggae, although the tempo of reggae often slower, and its lyrics tend to focus more on socio-political topics such as black consciousness, Rastafari and the effects of poverty. The "double skank" guitar strokes on the offbeat were also part of the new reggae style.

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