Roots Archives Forum

I hope you guys can help me out. Which pressing of Studio One Burning Spear has the optimal true pressings without the later add ons and distortion. If I had to get my hands on it, which one would be the right one?
Right now I have a Jamaican Reissue and the ticks and pops drive me crazy.

This Heartbeat compilation has the best sound quality of his Studio One recordings:
http://www.discogs.com/Burning-Spear-Cr ... ase/436899
No overdubs, some tracks in stereo.

If you want the original LPs, go for the early pressings:
http://www.downbeat-special.co.uk/burningspear.html
http://www.downbeat-special.co.uk/rockingtime.html

These two both came out around the same time, they have very similar tracklistings (and are good sounding with no overdubs):

"Creation Rebel" (Heartbeat):
http://www.roots-archives.com/release/3645

"Sounds From The Burning Spear" (Soul Jazz):
http://www.roots-archives.com/release/3646

Out of the tracks on the two Studio One LP's they are both missing "Fire Down Below", "Don't Mess With Jill", "Them A Come", "Girls Like You", "Old Time Saying", "Walla Walla" and "Mamie" ("Fire Down Below" can be found on several other Heartbeat CD's though). The Soul Jazz is also missing "Pick Up The Pieces", "He Prayed" and "Weeping And Wailing" while the Heartbeat on the other hand is missing "Journey". As noted, there are some "previously unreleased" stereo mixes of some tracks.

There are also Studio One CD's of "...Presents..." and "Rocking Time", but I don't know how they sound or if they have remixes and/or overdubs. Does anyone know if these CD's have original mono mixes and/or overdubs (it doesn't say on the downbeat-special site)?

99thfloor wrote:Does anyone know if the Studio One CD's of "...Presents..." and "Rocking Time" have original mono mixes and/or have overdubs (it doesn't say on the downbeat-special site)?

Actually, there are descriptions of the CDs at Downbeat Special. Use my links and scroll down...
No tracks in stereo, OK sound quality on Rocking Time, terrible on Presents.

blackarkrock wrote:Does anyone know if the Studio One CD's of "...Presents..." and "Rocking Time" have original mono mixes and/or have overdubs (it doesn't say on the downbeat-special site)?

Actually, there are descriptions of the CDs at Downbeat Special. Use my links and scroll down...
No tracks in stereo, OK sound quality on Rocking Time, terrible on Presents.

I did use the links, but the site only mentions that two or three of the tracks on each CD are remixed/extended/overdubbed and nothing about mono/stereo. Thanks for the description and clarification though, might be worth it to pick up at least "Rocking Time" then if it shows up for a decent price (and the stereo remixes are of tracks from that one anyway). These CD's have been a bit hard to find though (basically since Ernie B's stopped carrying Burning Spear).

Thanks Guys.

re Rocking Time on CD:
I´m pretty sure all tracks are original mono mixes and length, apart from:
Rocking Time - extended, added sax (5.12)
Weeping And Wailing - extended (3.58)
Mamie - extended, missing a keyboard, added sax (4.13)
That is, no obtrusive overdubs or remixes.

The 1976 US LP on Studio One/Buddah is in split stereo, as on Creation Rebel - although the stereo is "narrower" on Creation Rebel.
The only stereo track on Creation Rebel not from this 1976 LP is Zion Higher (which actually doesn´t seem to be in stereo...).

...and Studio One Presents Burning Spear (aka simply Burning Spear) on CD:
Sound quality is not good, very trebly/harsh.
All tracks appear to be original mono mixes (and length), with these exceptions, which are all extended mixes with dubby/echo-y end parts:
Ethiopians Live It Out (3.14)
Pick Up The Pieces (4.41)
(He Prayed is actually) Door Peeper (4.31)

The original short Ethiopians Live It Out is on the Sounds From The Burning Spear CD, while an extended (but not dubby) Ethiopians is on Creation Rebel.

blackarkrock wrote:The 1976 US LP on Studio One/Buddah is in split stereo, as on Creation Rebel - although the stereo is "narrower" on Creation Rebel.

Thanks for the info. on the Buddah LP, didn't know about that one. So the stereo mixes on the Heartbeat "Creation Rebel" are basically the same as on that LP? I see now it says "previously unreleased on CD" and not just "previously unreleased" as I remembered it, so makes sense.

Something I also misremembered is that the Soul Jazz "Sounds From The Burning Spear" is not identical in it's mixes on the common tracks, it has all those tracks in mono that are stereo on the Heartbeat. I also said that "He Prayed" is missing from the Soul Jazz which is only partially true, it is present in the form of "Joe Frazier". Also "Rocking Time" on the Soul Jazz is the version that features Coxone that is a bonus at the end of the Heartbeat.

All in all, taking mixes and sound into account, I think I prefer the Soul Jazz (the Heartbeat has quite a bit of noise and distortion in comparison). But both are good options, and the advice is to get which ever is easiest to find, since all Heartbeat CD's are out of print nowadays and getting scarce and unfortunately it seems that the Soul Jazz CD is out of print now as well... I wonder if it is Winston Rodney himself that is responsible for that in the latter case...?

As Soul Jazz tend to use vinyl as a source there's always the chance they ended up with mono versions as it was an easier way to get decent sound rather than starting with mono sources, not saying that's the case, just that it's possible.

I haven't seen anything online with Winston Rodney attacking Studio One period releases, I assumed the Soul Jazz had gone out of print because of the court case after C. S. Dodd's death, didn't all the Soul Jazz Studio One titles go out of print then and a few have been repressed since it was all sorted.