http://www.rollingstone.com/music/playlists/mick-jagger


1. "Get Up, Stand Up / No More Trouble / War" | Bob Marley, 1976

I met Bob at the studio when he was doing Catch a Fire. I think I was doing overdubs on Black and Blue in London. He has so many well-known songs that I decided to go with something not-quite. I love the popular songs, but I really love this take from the Live at the Roxy album, a medley. It's a bit left-field: a very long version of "Get Up, Stand Up," which is a great groove of a song that segues beautifully into "No More Trouble" and "War," and then back to "Get Up, Stand Up." The whole thing lasts 24 minutes, but if you decide to dance to it it, you'll still be going at the end.


2."Pick Myself Up" | Peter Tosh, 1978

"Legalize It" is really good, but I'm going to pick this, a slow one. It's so wistful and different, and the groove is really good.


3. "54-46 That's My Number " | Toots and the Maytals, 1968

I don't know exactly why, but I've always loved this song. It's danceable, for starters, and the vocal delivery is very cool. Toots was so raw. I like the way he just slams it at you, vocally. He's great on this one.


4. "You Don't Love Me" | Dawn Penn, 1967

I first heard Jamaican music in the Sixties, and it wasn't called reggae then, but "blue beat." There were lots of Jamaicans in London, of course, and you'd hear blue beat, which eventually morphed into ska, and you'd hear calypso and other Caribbean music. I remember going out to dance at clubs in Mayfair. You wouldn't call "You Don't Love Me" hard reggae, exactly, but it's got these incredible, lilting rhythms, and she sings it in such a soulful way. I love that tune. It's beautiful. It was a giant hit, and rightly so.


5. "Cream of the Crop" | Gregory Isaacs, 1983

This is a very sexy song, with a supremely relaxed groove.


6. "War Ina Babylon" | Max Romeo and the Upsetters, 1976

This established what you might call the tenet of reggae. Lee "Scratch" Perry produced it – it's essential reggae. And what a great bass line!


7. "Brethern and Sisters" | The Viceroys, 1983

This is a good example of one of those togetherness-and-love songs, and it has a sort of doo-woppy vocal to it, like you'd hear back in the early days of reggae.


8. "Writing on the Wall" | Ronnie Davis, 1983

This is another song with a super-relaxed groove, and yet the playing is extraordinarily tight. When you listen to it, you're drawn in almost hypnotically to the tune.


9. "Ring The Alarm" | Tenor Saw, 1985

I've long gravitated toward reggae with other than what one considers a standard beat. This is very unusual: The timing and the vocal are so strange.


10. "Marcus Garvey" | Burning Spear, 1975

It's about the continued connection of Jamaica and Africa, which is all part of reggae history: a connection that's at once mystical and very real. I was just talking about Marcus Garvey with someone the other day: the Back to Africa movement, all these people on ships from New York to Liberia. It was a very strange time.

Love to get Keith's reggae top 10 too!

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012-02-18 14:32 by with sssoul.

An interesting list. I've always liked Pick Myself Up. For the last 40 years, people have been saying reggae's gonna be "the next big thing." I like it, think it's great, but a lot of people use it as a badge of honor. To paraphrase a line from Ghostbusters, "Back off, man, I like reggae."

Quote
Come On

\\

Where's Miss Cleo?

Feels GOOD Music

Could quibble, in fact will quibble eventually, about certain artists not
being mentioned, but all in all a very heavy very Keith-like list...

1. "Get Up, Stand Up / No More Trouble / War" | Bob Marley, 1976

"War" both in this live version and in the studio version is one of those
tracks that just flattened me and changed my life. In keeping with
Mick's choice to go with tracks not on "Legend", check out also at least
"Concrete Jungle" "Jah Live" and "Punky Reggae Party"

2."Pick Myself Up" | Peter Tosh, 1978

I agree with Mick this one is just so lovely, and much more self-aware than a
lot of Peter's tracks, about his own weaknesses and limitations. btw, thanks, sssoul,
for linking to the first 3 cuts. FYI, all 10 can be found on youtube.

3. "54-46 That's My Number " | Toots and the Maytals, 1968

This is off the "Funky Kingston" album I think, which burns from beginning to
end. Toots is reggae's James Brown or Otis Redding, take your pick. His
relatively recent tracks with Keith Richards and Willie Nelson are also
must-hears.

4. "You Don't Love Me" | Dawn Penn, 1967

Mick is right, one of the best tracks by anybody ever, in any genre.

5. "Cream of the Crop" | Gregory Isaacs, 1983

Still not sure why Mick picked this track, Issacs has like 50 studio albums,
no exageration, all featuring what the NY Times called the "most exquisite
voice in reggae". If you really want to feel irie, listen to "feeling irie",
gregory issac's duet with Carlene Somebody.

6. "War Ina Babylon" | Max Romeo and the Upsetters, 1976

Mick:" This established what you might call the tenet of reggae." True. The
rasta metaphor for all the shit we have to deal with in this world "tribal
war inna babylon" is as potent as ever. One of the best tracks from Damian
Marley "Tribal War" (2010) continues the tradition.

7. "Brethern and Sisters" | The Viceroys, 1983

Also check out "heart made of stone" by the same singers featuring the
ubiqitous sly and robbie.

8. "Writing on the Wall" | Ronnie Davis, 1983

needless to say, one of my personal favorites, since that is what i am
always reading and transcribing on IORR

9. "Ring The Alarm" | Tenor Saw, 1985

Mick: "The timing and the vocal are so strange." First time I heard this was
ten minutes ago. I didn't find it strange at all, maybe because I am.

10. "Marcus Garvey" | Burning Spear, 1975

This song has the chorus tagline "No one remembers old marcus garvey."
I almost managed a punk band in Minneapolis in 78 but we split over my
insistance they they do a clash-like version of this song that would go:
"no one remembers old whats-his-face".

11. "Invasion" off this same Burning Spear album, my all-time favorite
reggae song. Sting's "bed's too big without you" off of one of sly and
robbie's "taxi" albums. "Youth of Ellington" by Black Uhuru.
The "Blackheart Man" album by Bunny Wailer. Dusty Springfield's
"Breakfast in Bed" by Lorna Bennett and Scotty. "Cocaine in my brain"
by Dillinger. Desmond Dekker's greatest hits. and jimmy cliff's too of
course. "in a dis here time" off the rolling stones' starbucks album.
"police and thieves" by junior murvin i think. also, there's a great song
that's done by bob marley's mother but i can't remember its name.
and I'm forgetting too at least a dozen others, sorry.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-29 18:21 by superrevvy.

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folke
Mick: "I first heard Jamaican music in the Sixties, and it wasn't called reggae then, but 'blue beat'."

I've told this story before but it bears repeating...

Toots was in London, and wanted a name for this great new beat everybody was
dancing to, for his new single. Then as now one of the cliches about this
new sound was that it was like rock and roll, only backwards. So Toots
reversed the name of his good friend "Mr. Rock n Roll" to come up with
"reggay". Toots thought "jagger" was spelled "yagger".

And that's how Toots' famous single came to be called "Do the Reggay", which
became the generally accepted name of the music. Eventually morphing into "reggae".

I don't know why this fact is not more famous.

You can see that the debated "selective memory loss" in MJ is probably not a put-on. The Wailers' "Catch A Fire" was '71, "Black & Blue" '76, so he's got something not quite right there. A sign of having lived a life with plenty going on, naturally he won't be too detail-oriented about the past then...

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superrevvy

Quote
folke
Mick: "I first heard Jamaican music in the Sixties, and it wasn't called reggae then, but 'blue beat'."

I've told this story before but it bears repeating...

Toots was in London, and wanted a name for this great new beat everybody was
dancing to, for his new single. Then as now one of the cliches about this
new sound was that it was like rock and roll, only backwards. So Toots
reversed the name of his good friend "Mr. Rock n Roll" to come up with
"reggay". Toots thought "jagger" was spelled "yagger".

And that's how Toots' famous single came to be called "Do the Reggay", which
became the generally accepted name of the music. Eventually morphing into "reggae".

I don't know why this fact is not more famous.

Etymology

The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp. for rege", as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row".[3] Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals, but there are many different theories as to how the term originated. The music itself was faster than rocksteady, but tighter and more complex than ska, with obvious debts to both styles, while going beyond them both.[4] Speaking to the terms origins, reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated:

We didn't like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of 'Fat Man'. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like 'reggae, reggae' and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic, recte word] and soon all the musicians were saying 'reggae, reggae, reggae'.[4]

Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (loose woman) into reggae.[4] However, Toots Hibbert said:

There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a gal is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound its name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it's in the Guinness World of Records.[5]

Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music".[6] The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning "to the king".

I don't know why this fact is not more famous.



ROCKMAN

If there really was a Jamaican word "streggae" prior to "do the reggay", that would
carry a decent amount of weight. But I've yet to see any citation of the
word "streggae" that pre-dates the word "reggay". So it could easily be
apocryphal, something Toots made up later.

Its easy to imagine Mick asking Toots to drop the Jagger angle, since that's
indeed what Toots did over the years. Just wish there was a citation for
the claim in bold below:

"Toots Hibbert (lead singer of the Maytals) has said that he needed a song title
and spelled Mick Jagger´s (who often visited West indians music clubs in London and
had become a friend of Toots) name backward (= reggaj), however Toots thought that
Mick spelled his name Yagger (= reggay). Later on, the spelling changed from reggay
to reggae. Marley's bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett has confirmed this story
in an interview."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-30 07:51 by superrevvy.

But at least now we have an answer to my original question: Why is the yagger-
reggay fact not more famous?

Because Mick and Toots conspired to cover it up with this goofy "streggae" story.
Mick wisely perceived that his association with the word could hurt its
acceptance. I wouldn't even be surprised if we learned later that Mick even
had an (unseen) hand in getting Chris Blackwell or somebody to alter the
spelling to "reggae".

Do The Reggay was cut by Toots & Maytals
with Leslie Kong producing and released in Jamaica
on Kong's Beverley's label 1968.... The recording took
place at Byron Lee's WIRL studio's which were later refurbished
and reopened as Dynamic Sound Studios where Goats Head recordings took place '72 ....

ROCKMAN

Has Toots ever been dealing with weed?




I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield...

...and now I've gone through ten online Jamaican patois/slang dictionaries.
And not one of them includes the word "streggae", even though it rhymes with
and is lol "accepted" as the origin of the name of their national music.

Further, the "str" vocal formation seems to be unknown in Jamaican patois,
except where standard english words like "street" or "straight" are
incorporated. "Str" is just not very lilting, is it? Very germanic.

But wait, revvy! Before you claim victory for the "yagger" theory, what about
those other well-known Trenchtown words "phreggae" (little dancing tree frogs),
"schreggae" (clothing so loose it tends to fall off) and "supercalifreggae"
(nonsense words spoken after smoking ganja)?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-30 09:37 by superrevvy.

Just to complete my utter etymological victory here, and rub it in some.
And further substantiate my oft-made point that just because somebody
says something in an interview does not make it true. My preponderance-
of-the-evidence point...

1) Not only does "streggae" not appear in any Jamaican dictionaries, more
importantly it doesn't appear in any ska, bluebeat or reggae songs from
that era. This despite the afore-referenced shortage of words for songwriters
to rhyme "reggae" with...

2) So severe was the rhyme shortage that in 1969 Dandy Livingstone had to
invent one. No, it wasn't "phreggae" or "shreggae" or even "supercalifreggae."
It was the smash hit "reggae in your jeggae". I think this is the moment when
"reggay" became "reggae" and it went from being a dance like the "twist" to
being a synonym for sex, thus cementing the word's hold on the public
imagination and completing its divorce from "yagger"

Lady - me nuh wan' no bangarang
Lady - me nuh wan' no contention
Me jus' wan' fi reggae, reggae ina your jeggae
Me jus' wan' fi reggae, reggae ina your jeggae

Reggae in de grass
Reggae in de grass
Reggae, reggae ina your jeggae
Reggae, reggae ina your jeggae
Reggae in the mornin'
Reggae in the evenin'
Reggae in the night time
Anytime you like just reggae, reggae....











Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-30 22:50 by superrevvy.

Interesting theory superrevvy, but I don't buy it.

You state that "Marley's bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett has confirmed this story in an interview"....

...and then you go on to say "that just because somebody says something in an interview does not make it true"

So you've basically discounted your own source of your theory.


Do we believe Toots and the streggae/reggae story? Or do we believe Aston "Family Man" Barrett?

Hmmmmm......

.
.
.
____________________________________________________________________________
Nothing to do, nowhere to go...you're talkin' to people that you don't know....

Quote
tomk
An interesting list. I've always liked Pick Myself Up. For the last 40 years, people have been saying reggae's gonna be "the next big thing." I like it, think it's great, but a lot of people use it as a badge of honor. To paraphrase a line from Ghostbusters, "Back off, man, I like reggae."

Yes, Peter Tosh had a way of pulling off these beautiful melodies too. A very pretty song. Another one by Peter Tosh I just love is "Glass House".

Quote
Hairball
Do we believe Toots and the streggae/reggae story? Or do we believe Aston "Family Man" Barrett?

Hmmmmm......

Okay, Hairball, I'll assume you're not just yanking my chain, and are simply requesting a
more elegant re-stating of the preponderance of layers of circumstantial
evidence that all points to Mister Jagger, complete with a cherry-on-top which
I just uploaded to YouTube...

1. The origin of the rock-and-roll-backwards Yagger-reggay story seems clearly
to be Toots Hibbert himself, perhaps even corroborated by Aston Barrett.

2. At some point, for some reason, Toots switches to the "streggae" story.

3. The "streggae" story is clearly bogus. There was never any such Jamaican word.

4. Why the bogus story? Why cover up the true origin? The truth is that the
truth was covered up very early on, at the suggestion of Mister Jagger.
It was only during the internet age, when the original story re-surfaced,
that Mick and Toots came up with the silly "streggae" elaboration.

5. Here is how the original very effective cover-up went down: After noticing
that the sweetly innocently coined name "reggay" had some legs, Mick is
smart enough to know that the acceptance of the word will be jeopardized if
the story spreads that it has anything to do with him. So he advises Toots not
to repeat the story anymore.

6. To seal the deal, Mick then collaborates with another of his Jamaican
buddies in London, Dandy Livingstone, to re-brand and sexualize the music
as "Reggae in your Jeggae". The song is a smash both in London and Kingston,
and the name "reggae" sticks until this very day.

7. Branding is important. "Bluebeat" and "Rock Steady" simply did not have
enough pizzazz. Sometimes a rose by any other name does NOT smell as sweet.
Imagine if the "Rolling Stones" had instead been named "Mickey and the Dreamers".

8. It is a indisputable fact that both "reggay" and "reggae" are coinages that
originated in London, not Jamaica, and that Mick Jagger was in the thick of
the West Indian scene there at that time.

9. Londoner Dandy Livingstone was not just an important early reggae artist,
he was also an important early reggae producer, responsible for such world-
changing tracks as "A Message to You, Rudy" and "Red Red Wine". He wasn't
a Rasta until much later. He was a hitmaker and he and Jagger were drawn
together for that reason.

10. So put all that in your wikipedia and smoke it!

11. Here's another of Dandy's early hits, from 1971, "Salt of the Earth",
the second earliest reggae cover of a Stones song (I think). Enjoy.







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-31 21:11 by superrevvy.

superrevvy, do you also believe it when Keith Richards said that he went to Switzerland to get his blood replaced?

This is the original one Mick refers to.





I found this version when I went looking for the song. I thought wow, this is way ahead of its time for 1967. Turns out it's a 2008 remix. I still dig it.

[www.youtube.com]

And this is the offbeat one Mick likes. I saw what he meant. It grows on you.

Quote
superrevvy

Quote
Hairball
Do we believe Toots and the streggae/reggae story? Or do we believe Aston "Family Man" Barrett?

Hmmmmm......

Okay, Hairball, I'll assume you're not just yanking my chain, and are simply requesting a
more elegant re-stating of the preponderance of layers of circumstantial
evidence that all points to Mister Jagger, complete with a cherry-on-top which
I just uploaded to YouTube...

Not yanking any chains superrevvy...I think your theory is quite creative, and even made me laugh!
But....how can you explain/dispute this?

[www.acesandeighths.com]

"The word reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals, but it was already being used in Kingston, Jamaica as the name of a slower dance and style of rocksteady. As Reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated: "We didn't like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of 'Fat Man'. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like ‘reggae, reggae' and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world and soon all the musicians were saying ‘reggae, reggae, reggae".

Clancy Eccles Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae ("loose woman" ) into reggae. However, Toots Hibbert said: "There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound it's name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it's in the Guinness World of Records".

Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music". The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regis meaning "to the king."'



And for your listening pleasure while you think about it....






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.
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____________________________________________________________________________
Nothing to do, nowhere to go...you're talkin' to people that you don't know....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-31 23:54 by Hairball.

Quote
Come On
Has Toots ever been dealing with weed?

Great photo. Where did you find that? JFK '78.