Countryman Soundtrack
This is a soundtrack that never quite made it as big as the one for The Harder They Come had done a decade earlier.
It was 1982, Bob Marley had left this world and the punky reggae roots party was a few years into its decline. Digital reggae was on the up, for sure, but, that said, listening habits died hard and there was still a considerable appetite for roots, with roots-influenced groups like Aswad, Black Uhuru and at the commercial end of the market UB40 still shifting records. Roots reggae did not just disappear overnight, it retained much of its critical credibility and indeed it still does.
This was a double album and eight of its twenty-two tracks are Bob Marley & The Wailers ones - Natural Mystic, Rastaman Chant, Rat Race, the wonderful, evocative Jah Live, Small Axe, Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock), Time Will Tell and Pass It On. Some of them appear in slightly different versions to the ones we are familiar with from their original albums. It goes without saying that all of these are good tracks.
Also impressive are Steel Pulse's excellent Sound System, Aswad's dubby Mosman Skank and Dennis Brown's roots meets Lovers Rock groove of Sitting and Watching. Some great essential roots cuts are here too in Lee "Scratch" Perry's superb Dreadlocks In Moonlight, Human Cargo's cool, brassy dub Carry Us From Beyond and Jah Lion's deep dub DJ cut Wisdom as well as a nod to earlier rocksteady reggae in Toots & The Maytals' Bam Bam.
The Fabulous Five's dub-drenched grind Ooh Ahh! has a real early evening Notting Hill Carnival vibe about it. As the album progresses it becomes more "deep cut"-ish, having softened its listeners up at the beginning with Marley's more accessible material, it gets increasingly more serious and slightly menacing as we pass the half way point, similar to the point it got dark at Notting Hill.
Possessing a fine sound quality, it is all eminently listenable and still retains that late seventies/early eighties ambience. Despite what I said at the beginning, it was still highly relevant in 1982, as many mainstream listeners had not detected the shift in reggae's sound as yet. The film it soundtracks was not a success, barely registering, but this excellent soundtrack has always retained its kudos. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The Clash were big fans of it at the time, I believe, so there you go....
