About this item

Soul Jazz Records celebrate 25 years of working in partnership with Studio One with brand new editions of five of their bestselling classic Studio One collections, released as special edition card wallet CD (where applicable) and one-off pressing coloured double vinyl editions.

‘Studio One Roots’ set the standard for Soul Jazz Records’ long-standing series and features many of the classic artists from Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd’s mighty roster of reggae.

This album includes Freddie McGregor, Willie Williams, Cornell Campbell, Alton Ellis, Devon Russell alongside some of the defining in-house groups of Jamaican reggae history - The Sound Dimension, Brentford All-Stars, The Skatalites, New Establishment and more. The album is filled with a mixture of seminal cuts and super-rarities from the vast vaults of 13 Brentford Road.

Stand-out tracks include Alton Ellis’s ‘Blackish White’, a surreal and powerful Afro-centric dream, Count Ossie’s Rastafarian drummers’ genre-defying interpretation of Booker T and The MGs ‘Meditation’, Willie Williams awe-inspiring versioning of The Skatalites’ seminal Rastafari anthem ‘Addis Ababa’ and many, many more.

Original sleevenotes by Lloyd Bradley (author of ‘When Reggae Was King’), compiled by Mark Ainley (Honest Jons), high-quality Soul Jazz mastering, wicked images of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari on the cover, and a rare image of Clement Dodd and musicians inside the studio at Studio One on the full colour inner sleeves.

TRACK LISTING

The Cyclones with Count Ossie – Meditation
Cornell Campbell – Natty Don't Go
Freddie McGregor – Africa Here I Come
Bunnie & Skitter – Lumumbo
Willie Williams – Addis A Baba
L Crosdale – Set Me Free
Leroy Wallace – Far Beyond
Lennie Hibbert – More Creation
Alton Ellis – Blackish White
Winston Jarrett – Fear Not
Devon Russell – Drum Song
The Gaylads – Africa
Black Brothers – School Children
Linton Cooper – You'll Get Your Pay
Sound Dimension – Congo Rock
Zoot Simms – African Challenge