Roots Archives Forum

I was just into my little local record shop that my friend has. He always shows me whatever Reggae is new, which usually isn't much. Today he handed me a cassette of ***Ethiopian King***:

[cover=988]

I thought this was an unusual album to find on cassette. There is no label name on it but there is an abstract logo and a catalogue number: IMD-6842. Both on the spine of the cover and on the cassette itself it has "*Reggae* Third World Music" as the title (which of course is wording from the front of the LP). I guess this is some kind of pirate thing someone bought on holiday (especially since whoever made it didn't know what the proper title should be), but still not the kind of title you would expect.

I don't have a working tape deck at the moment, but I am hoping this might be playable and have acceptable sound, since any Freedom Sounds LP's I have found are not very good pressings.

Has anyone seen this (or something similar), or know anything about what it might be? I never really look at cassettes so maybe this sort of thing is very common and just something I am unaware of.

(Edit: Actually I was thinking about Phillip Frazer *Come Ethiopians* when I said what I have found were "not very good pressings", I don't know about this LP.)

Should the Finns and Germans dig thru the trash bin of history to find a King/Queen?

ETHIOPIAN KING was a Roots compilation LP (and probably on cassette) on the Love Child label from 1980 with Phillip Fraser, Prince Alla, Earl Zero and Rod Taylor. You can find the complete tracklisting on discogs.

you can actually find track list etc right here:)

http://www.roots-archives.com/release/1140

cheers
j j

I am familiar with the LP issues, and I actually had the tracks from before, but on this LP:
http://www.roots-archives.com/release/837#rel727

I was not asking about the tracklisting, I was just curious if anyone had seen this cassette, or had any idea about it's origin. It has no information on it that relates to Freedom Sounds or Love Child, just that catalogue number, and it seems who ever made it got the title wrong, unless this is actually supposed to be called *Reggae - Third World Music* and not *Ethiopian King*.

Like I said, I don't normally check for Reggae (or anything really) on cassette, so maybe there are lots of stuff like this. The LP is rather rare, so I thought it was a nice find. Maybe this came out wrong, never mind...

Both great track lists there.
No I haven't seen any cassettes like this on my travels , although admittedly I wasn't really looking.
Did Jamaica manufacture proper cassette tapes for release there in the 70'/80's ?

I do have a whole series of Eric Donaldson cassettes on the 'Tusk' label which is a label I hadn't heard of before.

cheers
j j