Roots Archives Forum

Greetings,

I'm doing my thesis in musicology about the way reggae-artists view their own music, its possibilites and goals, and I'm looking for tips on good books, magazines or websites that contains interviews with reggae-artists. Ideally they should be from the 70s. I'm hoping that this forum with all it's knowledge can help me in the right direction.

Thanks a lot,
Linus

It is really great that you choose to do your thesis on reggae music. I don't know much about books, but there was a thread about interviews with many foundation artists, my favorite is the one with Larry Marshall. Here is the link

http://www.roots-archives.com/forum/rea ... 285,page=1

In your purpose, I remember Chinna saying in an interview for the Red X documentary that "reggae music is the weapon of future."

Bless

In this web there are links to interviews in a lot of artists "profiles". Example:

http://www.roots-archives.com/artist/87


A lot of interviews come from here:

http://www.rebelbase.be/index.php?page=54

oops... I've missed that one, alonsoreggae. My mistake, its saves a lot of time to see all the interviews in one page.

A lot of good veteran interviews on the link below (go to "Articles" and then "veteran interviews" on the left.

http://www.reggae-vibes.com/

I don't think there is too much contemporaneous literature about Reggae from the '70s that was produced in Jamaica - UK would be a different story. You should go over to the Chatty Mouth board and ask Penny Reel - a pioneering journalist who has seen it all

http://djgreedyg.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=music8

The french magazine Natty Dread covers Reggae from its origins to modern day and regularly has interviews with 70s singers and players, it is in french though(It also has a very good free cd with every issue!)As far as books go I would recommend Solid Foundation & People Funny Boy by David Katz.

All those books are worth it but it you really wanna research about the "way reggae-artists view their own music, its possibilites and goals"......you have to meet them (not only read their interviews) and not with a tape recorder (as soon as they see you are recording...they start "performing"). You have to reason with them, eat, drink, smoke with them, travel with them...you have to know them.
The real persons behind the music aren't necessarily what those 90 mins interview tell us.
Just my opinion of course....

There must be some quotes from Scratch somewhere in David Katz' massive People Funny Boy talking about his views on his music and others (good luck finding it, though), and maybe some relevant quotes from Family Man and Bob in Vivian Goldman's excellent Book of Exodus...

Let us know if you post the thesis online whenever you're done, I'm sure we'd all love to read it!!

Thx, good luck

You might want to get in contact with Dan T. Neely, a musicologist who focuses on Mento. He can probably give you some great advice and introductions to people who could help you.

Check BASS CULTURE, the book,