@andrewhickey.500songs.com I have just posted a blog profile of Prince Buster and would be grateful if you could repost it if you think it's good: jammuseprof.blogspot.com/2026/01/prin...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Charlie Parker recorded a calypso popular in Jamaica called 'Sly Mongoose', so it's not fanciful to think the future members of the Skatalites could see how jazz and R&B connected to mento and calypso. Continuous crossovers. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrks...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Mardi Gras in New Orleans by Professor Longhair. Prince Buster was a big fan of the Fats Domino version (perhaps hearing the Cuban flavour he also heard in mento) but this is a fuller band arrangement. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wAM...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com "Best guitarists" is just pandering to the limited cultural range of the readership, which has never heard of Ernest Ranglin, for example, or couldn't name the guitarist on Graceland even if they owned the album. I hadn't heard Vini Reilly until I was 45 so mea culpa too.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com This is a hypnotically beautiful track called "Guitar For Mother": www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8kx...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The Protecting Veil. This was the piece that got me into orchestral music. Seems appropriate for these times: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dziy...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Alton Ellis on the origins of Rocksteady from 39:07 www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ60...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Interview with Gladstone Anderson here from 13:15 (he says he invented Rocksteady and Reggae, which is of course an exaggeration but he was a key player, as you state: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ60...)

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Good Day Sunshine - Roy Redmond. Entered the Record Mirror R&B Top 20 on 25.11.67. Arranged by Jerry Ragovoy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D93...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Jamaican Count Lasher (1957, Melodisc) had a way with intonation that can be interpreted as a precursor of Prince Buster: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uj0...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Reggae and Caribbean Music by Dave Thompson claims that mento was Jamaican calypso. This belief is disputed in this very thorough piece in The Gleaner. The clincher IMHO is that Trinidad had French/Spanish influences absent in Jamaica jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2013...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Eddy Grant produced three of the singles in the Record Retailer breakers on 18.11.67, for his own acts The Equals and Little Grants and Eddie, and for The Pyramids, who later became Symarip due to a label clash over Skinhead Moonstomp. Grant's label was President.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Roland Alphonso called his pre-Skatalites group The Upsetters on some 1961-63 records so Lee Perry may have got the idea from there rather than from Little Richard: www.45cat.com/artist/rolan...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Minnie Riperton also provides an awesome Middle 8 harmony vocal on "Creepin'" from Stevie Wonder's Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974), blending perfectly with Stevie's (from 1:50 and again at 3:20): www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gkq...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The Maytals are the closest to Southern soul in reggae; it's straight out of the church but does not seem in any way performative. Bob Marley gets there indirectly, via Curtis Mayfield and, as you note, Lee Perry.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Dog War by The Maytals and Prince Buster All-Stars, late 1963, has barking noises and yelps, almost like "garage" ska, as revolutionary in its raucousness as Lee Perry later www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg7T...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Discography of West Indian recordings in Britain, 1927 to 1950; a good basis for going into the origins of calypso impacting the development of British culture kipdf.com/west-indian-...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The name Beverley's All-Stars had been used since 1961. The story of Gladdy's All-Stars is summarized in Katz's bio of Lee Perry. Many members of Gladdy's All-Stars had been hired for Kong by Lynn Taitt but he went to Toronto in Aug 68 and they "became" Beverley All-Stars.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com A 1976 article I have (Montreal Gazette, 17.4.76, by Juan Rodriguez) says Count Boysie offered Cliff 12 shillings (not 1) and that Kong owned "an ice cream-general store."

@andrewhickey.500songs.com I discovered today that the single version of Soul Limbo has a hyphen in the title, so should always be referenced as Soul-Limbo.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The Fruit N Nut recording sounds like a British cover of Perry's track, not the original.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Toots Hibbert told an interviewer in 1987 that he took reggae from streggae. He repeated the story several times. See scan below:

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Dr. Hepcat, seen by some as a progenitor of Jamaican toasting and, thus, hip-hop www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIW-...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com This is an excellent mix of Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers - synced with a film of them performing it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PevF...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com I think Theo Beckford's piano on "Easy Snappin'" is more clearly identifiable as ska than the piano (or rhythm section) on "Manny Oh", which seems to be no advance on New Orleans R&B.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Excellent work on Lee Perry, Andrew. Covering that body of work in 77 minutes is extraordinarily difficult. One nitpick: "Edward Seaga, who helped to write the Jamaican constitution in 1961 and would later become the country’s President." Should be "Prime Minister".

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Grounation by Count Ossie & the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari was one of the essential albums of 1972 www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0PI...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com But the biggest gripe I have is that the Leaf style just isn't appropriate for serious music writing. It's like a fan letter by a narcissist in which he imagines that he and the star are best buddies walking the same path to redemption.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com David Leaf's book on Smile is best read with a sick-bucket by your side for every time he a) inserts himself heroically into the narrative; b) makes or quotes comparisons between Brian and composers who were really working in different art forms (not greater nor lesser).

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The original film version of the song that was sung by Sam Carty on Lee Perry's album Return Of The Super Ape www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Mz...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Give And Take by Jimmy Cliff reached No. 10 on the Record Mirror R&B singles chart on 22.4.67, see attached

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Good profile of Dandy Livingstone skabook.com/2016/01/08/a...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The UK label Ska Beat, founded by young jewish couple, Rita and Benny Isen, released several of Lee Perry's singles and gave Dandy Livingstone his first success: ska2soul.net/Ska%20Beat%2...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Is there a chance that the Lee Perry bonus will be almost as long as the Jimmy Cliff main? Cliff was the bigger international name and a great writer of melodies but Perry arguably had the greater influence on the sound of 70s reggae and dub in Jamaica itself.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com I was wondering if the songwriting tape of Sail On Sailor is the last audio we have of Brian being able to work at that speed of thought and inspiration, despite the greatness of 'Love You'. It could be a 60s work tape.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com As you state in your Beach Boys volume, the last minute or so of All This Is That is as beautiful as anything they ever did. This is the a capella: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahok...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com PhD thesis on Jackie Mittoo - goes into depth on such issues as the Skatalites split (personal differences plus hostile press) and Studio One's operations yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/server/api/c...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com WTF was Jimmy Carter thinking when he pardoned Huey P. Meaux?

@andrewhickey.500songs.com The bogus "two-sides" framing is actually an old centrist trick - back in the 70s the BBC would say "we got complaints from both sides so we must be objective", and it was always false reasoning. The right always fucking complains; caving to it does not equal objectivity.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Dubiously titled Alan Lomax LP, reissued in the UK in 1967: www.discogs.com/release/4179...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Probably one of the earliest songs protesting racism against Jamaican immigrants (1966): genius.com/Bob-andy-ive...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com This article from 2015 debates the merits of ADHD being seen as a cultural construct. I think there ought to be a middle position: ADHD is clearly real but we can debate semantics and borderline cases: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Do AuDHD drug treatments have a strong scientific basis or are they guesswork? Do they work?

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Correction to my previous post: Al Capone by Prince Buster entered the Jamaican Top 10 on 24.9.65 and Record Retailer Bubbling Under on 28.1.67, but it was his Ten Commandments that entered the US Cashbox Looking Ahead chart 14.1.67 (p.10) and Billboard Hot 100 on 4.2.67.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Jamaican Daily Gleaner charts for the 60s obtained by this website from Kingston archives in 2020: www.ukmix.org/forum/chart-...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Al Capone by Prince Buster entered the Jamaican Top 10 on 24.9.65, US Cashbox Looking Ahead chart 14.1.67 (p.10) and Record Retailer Bubbling Under 28.1.67. The latter dates opened the floodgates for Rudeboy ska outside Jamaica: Dandy Livingstone, Derrick Morgan.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Reading David Katz's biography of Lee Perry has convinced me that Perry was the most important individual in Jamaican music in 1968-70, although he couldn't have done any of that work without supremely gifted groups of musicians and an international distribution network.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Fonella Bass's 1965-1966 singles titles had a woman in distress theme: Rescue Me, Recovery, I Surrender, Safe And Sound. Not sure if that's symbolically significant. Would not be your typical white female pop titles of the time.

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Count Ossie of "Oh Carolina" fame also did a version of Miriam Makeba's Pata Pata that reached the Jamaican top 10 in September 1967. It's terrific: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ly0...

@andrewhickey.500songs.com Ella Fitzgerald doing Sunshine Of Your Love is really good, channeling her inner Janis www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC5h...