Here I present to you one of the great voices of reggae, and a dear friend to this blog. Garth Dennis’ “Slow Coach”/”Slow Coach Rock,” on which Dennis is backed by The Wailers Band, was first released on the Andy’s label, probably in 1974. If you’ve never heard this tune, you’re in for a real treat. If you’re familiar with it, sit back and enjoy it one more time. It is spectacular.
Long live Brother Garthie!
“Slow Coach”
“Slow Coach Rock”
I have been very impressed with the quality of reggae represses over the past 2 years. Real quality roots reggae, pressed to decent vinyl, and sold at a very reasonable price. This is one of the outstanding represses that Brooklyn’s Deeper Knowledge is responsible for.
Prince Junior’s self-produced “Girl For All Seasons” is originally released circa 1980 on 12″ and LP. Deeper Knowledge pressed it for the very first time to 7″ vinyl. Great heavy roots lovers, as played back in the day by and specially requested on dubplate by Jah Shaka. This one a mad Shaka steppas anthem….
Readers of this blog know that I am a Hugh Mundell devotee and I collect anything and everything that has his name attached to it. As a reggae collector, sometimes you just come across pure gold, and when you do, there is nothing like it in the world. I picked this rare gem up for $5.00. Those familiar with Mundell’s masterpiece debut album ‘Africa Must Be Free By 1983′ will recognize this tune as “My Mind,” the second track on the a-side. I’m assuming that this is either an earlier version (but I doubt it because the mix sounds identical) of “My Mind,” or a simple misprint. Either way, there aren’t many of these around.
The scan of the 7″ vinyl disc below and in the video is the actual copy from my collection. As you can see, it is pressed to the Pablo International label. The only other one I’ve seen has a label printed in red/pink. Who knows, there could be a bunch of these floating around. It could be an original, or maybe a repress from the eighties. Like I said, I could find nothing on this one.
“I was living in the country at the time and there was that policeman who was kind of harassing me. One day, I started to have an argument with a bus driver and the policeman arrived, caught me by the dreads and threw me out of the bus. He treated me in a very vicious way just because he had a gun. A few days later I went to the studio to record the tune “Blood Red Fe Babylon” and I even quote his name in the lyrics : “Blood run out of Beenie’s head.” The policeman loved the tune. Many times I saw him playing it from the jukebox!”
