Augustus
Pablo is a legendary figure in reggae music, widely acknowledged, along with
King Tubby and Lee "Scratch" Perry as one of the prime architects of dub music, which has had
a profound influence on hip-hop and electronica. Pablo was also a first-rate
producer who launched the careers of such reggae legends as Jacob Miller and
Hugh Mundell. He was also a highly-skilled multi-instrumentalist who played not
only on his own recordings but as a session man on a number of great roots
reggae recordings of other artists. He was an enigmatic figure who rarely
performed in public, touring internationally only a handful of times in his
nearly 30 years as a reggae artist. His greatness is demonstrated by the fact
that two of his albums appear on most lists of the top reggae albums of all
time--King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, widely considered the greatest dub album
ever recorded and East Of The River Nile, one of the greatest instrumental
reggae albums ever recorded.
Recorded
in 1977 and initially released in Jamaica after the atmospheric, hypnotic title
track created a sensation as a single release, East Of The River Nile was
released internationally in the United States in 1981 by Shanachie
Entertainment, following Shanachie's release of Pablo's Rockers Meet King Tubby
Ina Firehouse as Pablo's first U.S. release in 1980. The release of these two
critically-acclaimed albums propelled Pablo into mainstream consciousness for
the first time. These releases began a nearly 20-year relationship between
Pablo and Shanachie as the main North American outlet for Pablo's music up
until his death in 1999. The enduring beauty of East Of The River Nile stems
from its entrancing marriage of rhythm and melody, led most often by Pablo's
uncanny soloing on melodica. The release by Shanachie Entertainment of East Of
The River Nile on vinyl LP is the first time it has been legally available in
vinyl form since 1989.
Augustus
Pablo was born Horace Swaby in St. Andrew near Kingston, Jamaica in 1953 and
was a teenage prodigy. At an early age Pablo was drawn to the sound system
dances and in his early teens frequently cut school to hang out in downtown
Kingston record shops and recording studios, absorbing everything he heard.
Proficient on keyboards, by chance he tried playing a melodica belonging to a
friend's girlfriend; entranced by it, he was told by the girl that he could
have it. In young Swaby's hands, the melodica—essentially a child's toy—became
an evocative solo instrument. One day he was standing outside Aquarius Studio with
the melodica and Aquarius proprietor/producer Herman Chin-Loy, who happened to
be searching for a unique sound for a recording, spotted him and asked him to
play on a track. The result was successful and soon Pablo was playing on
sessions regularly for Chin-Loy, who bestowed on Swaby the nom-de-plume
Augustus Pablo, which Chin-Loy had invented as a vehicle for his
instrumentalists. Pablo soon teamed up with school chum Clive Chin, whose
parents owned Randy's Records recording studio, and scored such classic hits as
"Java" and "Pablo In Dub." Early on, Pablo established his
own sound system, Rockers International, and his own labels and began producing both his own recordings and for
other artists. He forged a close relationship with King Tubby, the hugely
influential producer, engineer and sound system operator generally acknowledged
as the inventor of dub music. Pablo's 1975 dub recording "King Tubby Meets
Rockers Uptown" was a huge hit and the album of the same name because a
reggae classic.
Throughout the 70's Pablo recorded prolifically, re-cutting
classic Studio One rhythms in heavier style and creating his own original
rhythm tracks. His own recordings were either instrumentals, in which lead
instruments played melody throughout, or dubs, which moved snatches of melody
in and out of the mix. He also produced many great recordings by established
artists such as Leroy (Heptones) Sibbles, Dillinger, and Johnny Osbourne, as
well as new talent which he frequently discovered, including Hugh Mundell,
Jacob Miller, Tetrack, Delroy Williams, Norris Reid, Jr. Reid, Junior Delgado
and Earl Sixteen. The release of the single "East Of The River Nile"
and album of the same name in 1977 was another landmark. The single, which was
a radical re-working of a recording Pablo had originally done for Herman
Chin-Loy, was unlike any other reggae recording or, indeed, any other piece of
music anywhere. Its impact was
immediate. Pablo continued recording and producing both his own works and that
of other artists up until his untimely death at the age of 46 in 1999 from a
collapsed lung devolving from a nerve disorder - Myasthenia Gravis. His work was always informed by a strong
sense of spirituality and devotion to Rastafari. Pablo's legacy is
multi-faceted, encompassing a number of certified reggae classics, a body of
work of great originality and substance, and an exemplary devotion to artistic
and spiritual purity.
Release is set on vinyl on April 15, 2014.
~ Shanachie Entertainment
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