Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Category: Pop +/- strings reggae

Chris Blackwell
Zeroto180

Trojan Records History Highlights

It always helps to have streaming audio within arm’s reach to make music history more of a ‘multimedia’ experience. From reading Young Gifted and Black:  The Story of Trojan Records by Michael de Koningh and Laurence Cane-Honeysett, for example, I have picked up a number of helpful listening tips and

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"Rudi's In Love"
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Forgotten 1968 UK Rocksteady 45

Thanks again to record collector extraordinaire, Tom Avazian — underwriter of numerous Zero to 180 research initiatives (most recently, Scotland’s The Poets) — who provided a vinyl copy of 1988 UK anthology, 20 One Hit Wonders, an album that includes a strong track from a band of Birmingham musicians, The

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"Yancey Special"
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“Yancey Special”: Prog Reggae II

Keith Emerson captivated me as a grade schooler with the deep, heavy Moog sounds he conjured for Emerson, Lake & Palmer‘s “Lucky Man,” fittingly, the final track on a 4-LP box set from 1973 that got a lot of mileage in our household growing up, Superstars of the Seventies — one

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"I Shall Sing"
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Van Morrison’s “Binned” 1969 Pop Reggae

All these years I’ve naively assumed “I Shall Sing” to be a Judy Mowatt early reggae original (and 1974 Jamaican chart-topper, according to this Los Angeles Times piece from 1986).  And yet that same Times piece makes clear, Judy Mowatt was taking her musical inspiration from Miriam Makeba (not Art

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"Not Runnin' Away"
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Ian McLagan’s Reggae Bump

This past week I had the chance to reread Keith Richards’ 2010 memoir, Life, and somehow I only just now learned that keyboardist Ian McLagan was part of The New Barbarians, a rather unlikely musical aggregation that brought together Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Bobby Keys, and McLagan, with legendary instrumentalists,

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"Free the People"
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Barbara Keith’s Liberation Gospel

Ed Ward wrote a special section devoted to 45s (non-album releases) in the original Rolling Stone Record Review from 1971, with particular praise for Barbara Keith‘s A-side, “Free the People“: “You may remember Delaney & Bonnie‘s version of this song, and how good it was.  Well, Barbara’s the one who

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"Reggae Bagpipes"
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“Reggae Bagpipes”: Pop Reggae in the Extreme?

As I asserted in an earlier piece, string arrangements – when appropriate or called for – have the potential to enrich a song (reggae included)    Given Jackie Mittoo‘s fundamental role in the development of Jamaican music as both a founding member of The Skatalites and music director at Studio One

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"Gimme Reggae"
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“Gimme Reggae”: UK Pop Reggae 1969

How fascinating to learn that Blue Mink [previously celebrated yesterday, would you believe it?] was an early champion of the “new reggae” sound — albeit one increasingly augmented by strings (i.e., “Hollywood reggae“) — that was starting to show commercial potential in the UK as the 1960s gave way to

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"Jamaican Boy"
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“Jamaican Boy”: Jazz Fusion Reggae Instrumental

Three musicians – Stanley Clarke, Jeff Beck, and Steve Gadd – with keyboard embellishments from a fourth, Bayeté Todd Cochran: “Jamaican Boy“ Stanley Clarke (1979) * “Jamaican Boy” was a 45 release from 1979’s I Wanna Play for You studio/live hybrid LP and one of Record World‘s “Single Picks” for

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