This a latter-era collection of material recorded mainly at Studio One throughout the 90s... The tracks are a little lighter than you might expect from the band but don't be put off, there are some gems.My pick:
Johnny Too Bad - Mighty Diamonds, from Heads of Government
A book of photographs Muzik Kinda Sweet by Pogus Caesar celebrating Britain's iconic black musicians is to be published next month.
ReplyDeleteThe book features evocative, nostalgic and largely unpublished images of musical legends like Stevie Wonder, Grace Jones and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
Most of Caesar’s photography is based around his home city of Birmingham, documenting a spectrum of well-known personalities and recording significant events including the Handsworth riots, Birmingham tornado and the regeneration of the Bullring.
“These images record a unique period in what would come to be called black British life,” remarks author and historian Paul Gilroy.
“Pogus Caesar’s emphatically analog art is rough and full of insight. He conveys the transition between generations, mentalities and economies.”
Legendary reggae artists figures prominently, and appropriately, in the Caesar image canon - Burning Spear, The Wailers, Augustus Pablo, Rita Marley, Mighty Diamonds, Black Uhuru, Sly Dunbar, Steel Pulse etc. The photographer cites reggae itself is a significant influence, reflecting his own St Kitts background in the Eastern Caribbean.
The launch of Muzika Kinda Sweet follows an exhibition of the work at the Oom Gallery in Birmingham earlier this year.
MUZIK KINDA SWEET BY POGUS CAESAR 1st - 30th October 2011
ReplyDeleteThe British Music Experience at O2 presented by the Co-operative, in association with OOM Gallery will be showcasing an exclusive exhibition of 38 rare photographs celebrating legendary black musicians working in the UK.
Using a simple camera photographer Pogus Caesar followed the musicians and singers around the famous venues producing a collection that celebrates a style of black music that brings together the UK, the US and the Caribbean.
From Stevie Wonder in 1989, Grace Jones in 2009 and Big Youth in 2011, this unique exhibition documents how black music, in its Reggae, Soul, Jazz and R&B tributaries of sound, has changed and renewed itself over the decades.
Journeying from Jimmy Cliff to Jay-Z via Mica Paris and Mary Wilson of The Supremes to David Bowie's bass player Gail Ann Dorsey, these images conjure up an alphabet of the music of the Black Atlantic.
The photographs selected from OOM Gallery Archive are also as much about the clubs and venues, as it is about the singers, producers and musicians. The Wailers at The Tower Ballroom, Sly Dunbar at The Hummingbird Club, Courtney Pine at Ronnie Scott's, Cameo at the Odeon Cinema, Ben E. King at the Hippodrome and Soul II Soul's Jazzie B at BBC Pebble Mill, many venues now lost to regeneration or renewal, and only recalled through memory and imagery.
http://www.britishmusicexperience.com/muzik-kinda-