When Rock Met Reggae

Reggae may have started in Kingston, Jamaica, but according to Blush, it didnât truly spread around the world until waves of Jamaicans began emigrating to England in the late 1950s. Reggae, he maintains, âspoke in a language that upstart youth could identify with: fierce lyrics, anti-fashion, DIY attitude, and a radical fight for freedom.â Blush discusses the roots of reggae before turning to the many sounds of Bob Marley, Millie Small, Prince Buster, Lee âScratchâ Perry, Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals, and Desmond Dekker. He then tackles the various forms of reggae, including dub, rock-reggae, and punk-reggae, the latter perhaps best exemplified by the Clash (Joe Strummer and Mick Jones went to Jamaica to write the songs on their second album, Give Em Enough Rope). As musicians on both sides of the Atlantic experimented with reggae, including the Police, Blondie, and Elvis Costello, such 2 Tone label artists as the Specials, the Selecter, the English Beat, and UB40 blended punk, rock, reggae, and ska into a unique sound. Blushs illuminating chronicle ends with an annotated playlist featuring the backstories of classic recordings.
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