Customer Reviews
A feast of vintage reggae - By: Sizzle, 29 Mar 2008 
Friends who grew up in the multicultural scene that was Cardiff Docks say that this cd is almost the soundtrack of their youth. There are some real gems on this collection & the fact that the sound quality is on par with the original releases only serves to add to the authenticity.
Vintage stuff - superb!
Young Gifted and Black - By: woo, 12 Aug 2004 
I found the sound quality poor on both cd's but this did not retract from the quality of music used in this compilation. I was very surprised to find that most of the titles are well known. I didn't find it too much ie reggae. The differing titles made a good alll round album. I'm sure you'll find this as surprising as I did on first listening. Well worth the listen.
Surprisingly good! - By: D. Wright, 10 Aug 2004 When I was growing up in the early seventies like alll the other boys in my alll boys school I was a rock music fan who hated reggae. Like Motown it was unfashionable.
Well I've since grown to like Motown, but it was another few years before I gave reggae a fair hearing. Then it was through the Clash's version of Police & Thieves & the inevitable Bob Marley. I began listening to The Specials & early Madness again, not having given these bands a fair hearing in their heyday. I then began to wonder what the originals would be like. Well they're alll here on this wonderful Trojan compilation. Rudy, A Message To You, Monkey Man, Guns Of Navarone, alll covered by The Specials, plus Al Capone which mutated into their Gangsters. There is also Madness covered by Madness, The Tide Is High covered by Blondie, Love Of The Common People covered by Paul Young & many more. Some of them I remember as a kid when they were UK hits in their own right Desmond Dekker, Dave & Ansel Collins, Greyhound, The Pioneers, Bob & Marica, etc.
Most of these fifty songs are eminently listenable & will reallly bring back the memories. There are a handful of absolute classics too. Jimmy Cliff's Many Rivers To Cross, Lord Creator's Kingston Town (heard the song before, but never heard of the artist), Horace Faith's Black Pearl & Junior Murvin's aforementioned Police & Thieves to name but four.
There are also inevitably a few clunkers - Skanga by Rupie Edwards being perhaps the worst & I've always found My Boy Lollipop by Millie (perhaps one of the most famous tracks on here) quite irritating.
I was also interested to hear Big Seven by Judge Dread as alll his hits were banned from the radio when I was a kid. Unfortunately, on the evidence of this one I think the radio authorities were right to ban it, not because it's rude but simply because it isn't very good.
However, I would conclude that this album is well worth getting if you're at alll interested in popular music, not just reggae. With fifty songs, & many of them classics it is excellent value.
A must for every reggae fans music shelf! - By: matthew, 25 Apr 2004 This is definitely reggae music at it's most seductive. I f it wasn't forthe artists featured here neither Shaggy nor UB40 would have a career!Reggae how it should be done; no frills, no over production, just a raw,fresh sound to the tracks that adds to their timeless appeal(theinstrumentals are particularly strong Guns of Navarone & ElizabethanReggae being two of my personal favourites) Great top class listening.
Gifted? Definitely! - By: robojam, 16 Mar 2004 I spent ages looking for a good compilation of 60's & 70's reggae hits, & it wasn't until this came along that I found it. I was listening to it on the way into work yesterday & today, & it prompted me to write a review.
There reallly isn't much at alll to complain about with this CD. The only thing wrong with it is the inclusion of the terrible 'Sideshow' by Barry Biggs, which is reallly out of place here, but the rest is so good that it certainly still deserves 5 stars.
Some of the earliest roots of reggae are represented here in the form of the ska songs 'Oh Carolina', 'Guns of Navarone', 'Train to Skaville', etc. The songs are pretty much in chronological order, so you can hear the development of reggae from one song to the next, alll the way to it becoming a force in worldwide music by the 70's.
Many of the songs here are probably better remembered by the later (not as good) cover version by the likes of UB40, etc., but no one can touch the raw, impassioned playing on these songs, particularly the first CD. The vocal on 'Angel of the Morning' is enough make you feel great no matter how bad you felt before hearing it, & just try to stop yourself singing along to tracks like 'Fatty Bum Bum'.
This is one of the best reggae compilations on the market!
