Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
David Rodigan - CONTRIBUTED
WESTERN BUREAU:
AFTER A superb round from British disc jock David Rodigan and a good set for Stone Love, Richie B made the announcement that famed disc jock Barry G would not be showing for 'London Calling'.
"We have to report that Barry G has not reported for work tonight," Richie B said. "We do not know if it is circumstances beyond his control. So the tune for tune and dub for dub that you might have expected might not happen," he said.
While the clash between the friendly rivals of over 20 years standing did not materialise, Rodigan pulled some exquisite tunes in his first segment, deciding in the second to play some of the dubs that he would have gone for if the contest had been on.
Stepping up to Stone Love's turntables (and the sound was in excellent form), set up on a roped-off podium outside Cuddyz in New Kingston, and facing an audience that was mainly restricted to the sidewalk and the grass behind, Rodigan went back to his first days in Jamaica.
He spoke about seeing the sun set behind the Blue Mountains on this trip and reminisced that the first time he was in Jamaica "I was in Edgewater. I went out for some bun and cheese and when I came back the radio was on. This was the song that was playing." "We get the ball rolling, 1979, western Kingston, Barrington Levy," he said and there was a big response as Mr. Levy sang Rodigan no inna no fuss and fight.
It was the beginning of a series of selections, interspersed with the cry 'these are the songs that made reggae great', that moved the members of the audience. Rodigan followed with Anthony Red Rose's Tempo in memory of King Tubby, who he called "Jamaica's greatest engineer". Night Nurse was played exclusive style, full of drum and bass with stops and starts, before Rodigan dropped another bombshell. "His first show in London was 1989. It was a roadblock. When he came back to Brixton six months later, it was a roadblock for a five-mile radius. Congratulations to Sean Paul for the Grammy, but the first deejay to get the Grammy was this man, Rexton Fernado Gordon!" Rodigan said and Shabba's thunderous voice intone "buss up all a de dub dem" in a dub plate version of Oil Up All A De Gun Dem.
"This is where my love of Jamaican music started," Rodigan said, going back to 1964 with Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop, flowing into Justin Hinds and the Dominoes' Carry Go Bring Come. Desmond Dekker's Shanty Town carried the music a bit forward to 1967 and then Prince Buster rocked the crowd in the heart of urban Kingston with the wish to Ride me Donkey. Alton Ellis' I'm Just A Guy was also from 1967.
"In Jamaica, the sound that begins this record is a sound you hear every night, but it is a sound you would never hear in London," Rodigan said and the surf and birds started off Marley's Natural Mystic.
"One from Bob, one from Peter," he said, drawing Legalise It, which caused one dreadlocks woman in white to run out in the road, hand in the air, in delight. Bunny Wailer's Cool Runnings completed the trio.
The original, definitive blueprint version," Rodigan said, to introduce a drum and bass rendition of Dennis Brown's Here I Come. Another cut from the Crown Prince, Your Love's Got A Hold On Me hit very hard, and Rodigan played Foundation on dub from 1981.
A remix of War, with Capleton's Jah Jah City was pulled up a couple times, then there was the superb pair of Ini Kamoze's Worl A Reggae Music, followed by Jnr. Gong's Jamrock on dub. Sizzla and Maxi Priest on the Drop Leaf rhythm on dub, TOK's Footprints on dub and Beres Hammond's Rock Away on dub preceded a corker of a finale with Johnny Osbourne's dub plates playing In The Ghetto Tonight.
