Roots Archives Forum

I was listening to some Delfonics on the YXoutube and I saw a remix made by Tom Moulton. (There are many more of his remixes from early seventies out there). I checked him out on Wiki and saw, that he is considered the originator of remix. On the other side Lee Perry is also considered that. Does anyone know: Where they familiar with each other or influenced maybe?

I'm pretty certain that Tom Moulton was familiar with Lee Perry at least since he engineered some reggae releases that were Perry affiliated (check him out he even has an entry on R-A). He worked quite a bit for United Artists and did work on some of their reggae stuff. Wouldn't surprise me if Perry knew about him.

Perhaps a bit unrelated but for some reason I'm thinking that Sly & Robbie probably not only knew of him but where major fans. They feel like they always had a closer look to the club scene in the US than other JA producers of their time. But not only for that reason. Moulton produced Grace Jones three first albums and after that in came Sly & Robbie taking over the duty (producing her best two albums in my opinion!).

According to the liner notes from Soul Jazz collection on him they write that his first remix was BT Express »Do It Til You’re Satisfied«. Remix means in this context that he took the original version and made it an extended mix. If you think about dub and deejay versions in reggae they are essentially remixes of the original vocals versions. Those styles had been around for years by the time Tom Moulton was credited for his first remix.

He's a really interesting guy.

Lee Perry is credited a the originator of the remix? Wasn't King Tubby?

Didn't someone in the USA make something like that before JA? They had the toys to do that earlier

What is the definition of a remix? If a dub version is considered a remix then I would think that people like Perry, Andy Capp, Carlton Lee or Sid Bucknor were before King Tubby with remixes. Since there are dub versions by them from as early as '70.

kalcidis wrote:What is the definition of a remix? If a dub version is considered a remix then I would think that people like Perry, Andy Capp, Carlton Lee or Sid Bucknor were before King Tubby with remixes. Since there are dub versions by them from as early as '70.

Yes, I was mistaken, King Tubby

I heard it was a guy called Ruddy something (Ruddy Thomas? I dunno where that name comes from, but its in my head) who originally left off the vocal track to make the first version, which was actually just an instrumental, and then Tubby started mixing it up a bit more and dropping tracks in and out and then later adding reverb and delay. To create what we would think of as Version, as opposed to straight riddim/instrumental.

So Tubby invented real version as far as Im aware, but some other recording engineer sowed the seeds by doing the mythical "accidentally left the vocals off" thing.

Thats my understanding anyway...

I think that people were doing version/dub with sound effects (e.g. flushing toilets, farm animals, gunfire, crying babies, misc bangs and crashes) overdubbed onto the basic riddims before reverb/delay was widely used...

With reference to my previous post, Rudolph 'Ruddy' Redwood is the name I was looking for, not Ruddy Thomas.

Info from liner notes to Dub Gone 2 Crazy (http://www.bloodandfire.co.uk/cds/sleeves/bafcd013.pdf) but Ive heard similar stories elsewhere.