REGGAE NEWS - SEPTEMBER 2008

100% Dynamite! is back! Sunday 12 October 2008, 3pm-11pm, Cafe 1001, Brick Lane, London.

Ten years since the club started in it's humble surroundings at the Blue Angel - with it's queues that went right round the building - and two years since the last parties at Elektrowerkz, 100% Dynamite starts it's all-new Sunday monthly sessions in Brick Lane, London. These parties last from 3pm-11pm and the venue is amazing! Cafe 1001 is a huge building on the busiest throughfare of Brick Lane, situated opposite Rough Trade. At the back of the cafe is a wicked room that will rock! There is also an open-plan room with sofas where you can also hang out, eat food and chill and children are welcome - so if you stopped going out because you had children here's your chance to party again!

Horace Andy, Alton Ellis, Andy Weatherall, Lone Ranger, Roots Manuva, Digital Mystikz, Blood and Fire, Warrior Queen.... just some of the many guests who have appeared at this club.

Reggae, Funk and Soul, Dancehall every month starting Sunday 12 October 2008 3pm-11pm admission is £3.

For more info go to info@soundsoftheuniverse.com or tel 020 7734 3341

Here is a list we gathered of forthcoming albums releases :

=September 2008 Releases=

Bob Marley & The Wailers - All Studio Albums with Japanese Vinyl Replica Sleeve
Bullwackie's All Stars - Black World - Wackies (LP & CD)
Dub Specialist - Dub - Heartbeat (LP & CD)
Half Pint - Greetings - 17 North Parade (CD)
Johnny Osbourne - Most Wanted - Greensleeves (CD)
Linval Thompson - 12" Rulers - Greensleeves (CD)
Serge Gainsbourg - Aux Armes Et Caetera - Mercury (LP)
Skatalites - Stretching Out - Roir (LP)
Symarip - Skinhead Moonstomp (Deluxe Edition) - Sanctuary (CD)
Tenor Saw Meets Nitty Gritty - 17 North Parade (CD)
UB40 - The Lost Tapes (Live At The Venue 1980) - EMI (CD)
Various - Old To the New (Special Deluxe Edition) - VP (CD)
Various - The Reggae Christmas Collection - Sanctuary (CD)
Various - Dub Sampler Vol 3 - Jamaican Recordings (LP & CD)

=October 2008 Releases=

Eddy Grant - Killer On the Ramage (Deluxe Edition) - Universal (CD)
Eddy Grant - Walking In Sunshine (Deluxe Edition) - Universal (CD)
Sly & Robbie - Inspiration Information - Strut (LP & CD)
Half Pint - Essential Roots Anthology - Essential (CD)
Various - George Phang Powerhouse Selector's Choice Vol 1,2,3,4 - 17 North Parade (CD)
Various - Randy's 50th Anniversary - 17 North Parade (CD)
Various - The Biggest Reggae One-Drop Anthems 2008 - Greensleevse (CD + DVD)
Various - Wackies Sampler Vol 3 - Wackies (CD)

Reggae producer Clifton ‘Larry’ Lawrence passed away over the August Bank Holiday weekend after finally losing a long battle against cancer.

Born in Jamaica around 1947, Larry began his career in the music business while still in his teens, cutting ‘Garden Of Eden’ for Leslie Kong’s Beverley’s Records in 1963. Two years later he moved to the UK where he found employment as a lorry driver while also launching his own sound system, eventually making his mark as a producer with a number of sides by London-based singer, Junior English that saw issue on Trojan’s Big Shot in the Spring of 1970.

Over the next year or so, he continued to produce local talent for Trojan (his output being issued on the company’s Big Shot, Jackpot and Duke imprints), while also licensing material to newly formed labels, Torpedo (owned by Equals’ front-man, Eddy Grant) and Junior Lincoln’s Bamboo operations, along with Emile Shalit’s long-established Melodisc Records.

Throughout this time, Larry also acted as an unofficial road manager for various Jamaican performers (including Lee Perry & the Upsetters), a role he continued to undertake for the remainder of the decade, ensuring the requirements of such visiting luminaries as Bob Marley & the Wailers were always met. This role led to a close association with Bruce White & Tony Cousins who operated Commercial Entertainments, a music artists agency that specialised in handling touring Jamaican acts, and after the pair launched Creole Records they secured his services as their in-house producer. Among his productions from this period were a number of superior recordings with Dave Barker and Bobby Davis of the Sensations, many of which later saw issue on the Trojan LP, ‘In The Ghetto’.

In 1973, Larry established retail outlets in North London’s Kensal Green and Kilburn High Road and launched his own Ethnic label, on which he primarily released his own productions as well as those by Lee Perry. Among the more successful of his works from this time were the Selectors’ ‘Rock Back’ and ‘Jenny Jenny’, Jimmy Strathden’s ‘So Long Baby’, his own ‘King Boxer’ (on which he accredited himself as King Duke) and two fine sides by former Mohawks’ front-man, Sidney Rogers: ‘Miracle Worker’ and ‘Another Lonely Night’.

A year after launching Ethnic, Larry started a second imprint, Fight, which after cutting distribution ties with Creole and EMI merged with the former to create Ethnic Fight, which continued to operate into the eighties. The new label continued to focus much of its output upon his own productions and Jamaican-produced works by the likes of Lloyd Campbell and Lee Perry, the latter supplying such notable singles as George Faith’s ‘To Be A Lover’, Leo Graham’s ‘Pampas Judas’ and the excellent ‘Mumbling And Grumbling’ by Junior Byles.

Larry moved his business to Coldharbour Lane in Brixton in 1976, South London remaining his base for the remainder of his life with the record shop later being converted into a popular West Indian restaurant. Although he went on to launch Larry’s Records, by the nineties he had grown disillusioned with the direction of Jamaican music and rather than highlight new material, much of the new label’s output highlighted his earlier output.

Larry Lawrence played an integral part in the growth and development of UK Reggae scene throughout the seventies and his parting, coming so soon after that of Roy Shirley, is yet another great significant blow to the country’s rich Jamaican music heritage.

by Laurence Cane-Honeysett

source : trojan-records.com

Klick here for more information about Larry Lawrence