Johnny Clarke - True Believer In Love b/w King Tubby and the Aggrovators - The Hardest Version

For this first offering in a long time we enter the small but plentiful Jamaican vault once again for this tune by legendary reggae and dub artist Mr. Johnny Clarke.

Born in the slums of Kingston, Johnny was discovered at age 16 and scored a chance to meet and later record with another Jamaican legend, producer Clancy Eccles. Eccles, famous for his backing band, the Dynamites, otherwise known as the Crystalites of Derrick Harriot fame, and his work with one of Jamaica's oldest living DJ's, King Stitt, recorded Johnny's first single but the partnership failed due to poor sales and lack of promotion. He then worked with several other producers before finally settling with Bunny Lee in 1974. Since then he has enjoyed great success which spawned this forgotten single. Bunny Lee's backing band The Aggrovators (misspelled Aggravotors on the Clocktower pressing of this disc) was responsible for the B-side of this in conjunction with dub pioneer King Tubby. King Tubby was another member of Jamaican music royalty. An electronic wizard, the king first made his way onto the scene with his high quality sound system notorious for its use of echo and reverb effects. In the 1970's he began making his own brand of unique 'versions', instrumental tracks made from the backing tracks of A-side releases. He pioneered the manipulation of individual instruments using mixing consoles while using electronic effects, some of which he modified himself, in other channels of the mixer. This permitted him to use the board as a musical instrument thereby 'playing the sliders' in real time to create a version, or dub, that was as different to the original song as night and day.

Though his career waned in the 80's, he is still active today and if there was a reggae hall of fame (which there very well ought to be) he'd be an opening day inductee.

Here is a link to a very informative and extensive interview with the man himself. Hopefully our reader is fluent in patois.

Johnny Clarke - True Believer In Love (Clocktower 705)
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