Whether or not the late Osbourne Ruddock (aka KING TUBBY) invented Dub or could be debated all day, but it’s undeniable that he led the genre into bold new areas few engineers have since dared to go.
The art of ‘versioning’ (speaker-stretching bass-heavy instrumental montages of current Reggae hits, often to be found on the flip of the same 7” or 12”) was revolutionised by Tubby during the 1970s and if you check the details of many of the crucial Jamaican dubwise releases from the time – Keith Hudson’s ‘Pick a Dub’, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s ‘Blackboard Jungle Dub’ and the self-explanatory ‘King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown’ featuring Augustus Pablo – you’ll discover they were all touched by the hand of Tubbs.
While Tubby’s work has since become synonymous with producer Edward ‘Bunny’ Lee, he worked with numerous up and coming Jamaican producers keen to make use of his cramped, but musically adventurous studio facilities during the Roots and Dancehall eras. One of these was Nkrumah ‘Jah’ Thomas, founder of the Midnight Rock label, who voiced many of his DJ cuts at Tubby’s studio as well as bringing in cuts by youthful artists like Sugar Minott and Johnny Osbourne to receive the inimitable Tubby treatment.
In the late ‘70s, Tubby would take several aspiring engineers/ mixers under his wing. These young shavers included Lloyd ‘Prince Jammy’ James, Overton ‘Scientist’ Brown’ and Phillip Smart, all of whom have since gone on to achieve a similarly exalted status in the development of Jamaican music. Prince Jammy and Scientist, especially, would achieve a mastery of the console worthy of the guru himself and it’s likely that Scientist was behind the 14 mind-bending dubs gracing this second chapter of the ‘Lost Midnight Dubs.’
Featuring the likes of drummer Lincoln ‘Style’ Scott and bassist Errol ‘Flabba’ Holt, the skilful Roots Radics Band were the bedrock of many Midnight Rock records and it’s their dextrous, Channel One-recorded sound that forms the basis of these dubwise exploits here. As the 70s blurred into the 80s, the Roots reggae sound was gradually superseded by the slower Dancehall style and the sparse, metronomic rhythms cooked up by the Roots Radics boys here are manna from dubwise heaven for the King Tubbys treatment.
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Often presented inna Dancehall style with DJ introductions, these tracks are uniformly excellent. Tracks like ‘Kingston Dub’ and ‘Hanover Dub’ are quintessential deep and cavernous Tubby mixes, but there are also lighter outings such as ‘St. Mary’s Dub’ and ‘St. Ann’s Dub’ where ratchet-y guitars and flecks of sax drift in and out of the plot. 80s production techniques like sequencers discreetly enter the picture on tracks like ‘St. Elizabeth Dub’, while ‘St. James Dub’ sounds like a rougher, more abrasive re-shaping of Tubby’s ‘Dub Fever’. The master himself must have been delighted with the vintage, set-closing ‘St. Catherine Dub’ where the drums ricochet off the walls and strafe around your mind.
This space-y, but militant sound sculpture never ceases to amaze me and its’ influence is all too visible in everything from Post-Punk staples from PIL’S ‘Metal Box’ through to the Drum’n’Bass sounds of the ‘90s and beyond. That Osbourne Ruddock (senselessly murdered outside his house in 1989) wasn’t around to embrace the digital age or be around for what should’ve been his 70th birthday this year is tragic, but his influence continues to breathe new life into music in the 21st Century.
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