Alton Ellis – Showcase

Peckings Records out of London just dropped an Alton Ellis showcase LP on their Dutchess imprint, out on vinyl and download both. The sleeve leans more toward a 12″ single cover, pieced together from old photos out of the Peckings archive, which is a bit of a letdown honestly. There’s no info printed anywhere on the record itself, no personnel, no dates. But reggae heads don’t need the hand-holding here. It’s Alton Ellis, discomix showcase style, and that tells you most of what you need going in.

Alton Nehemiah Ellis was born in Trenchtown on September 1, 1938, and he earned the title Godfather of Rocksteady the hard way. He started out in 1959 with Eddy Parkins, and the pair handed Coxsone Dodd a massive hit in Muriel. Once Eddy left for the States, Alton kept going with The Flames, his brother Leslie and Winston Jarrett filling out the harmonies behind him.

When ska started cooling off in the mid-sixties, Alton was right in the middle of the shift. He’d already won a talent contest at Vere Johns’ Opportunity Hour before the recording career even kicked off. His 1967 cut Rock Steady for Duke Reid is the one that actually gave the genre its name. He was working both sides of the street in those years, cutting essentials for Dodd and Reid alike: I’m Just A Guy, Girl I’ve Got a Date, Cry Tough, and the untouchable I’m Still In Love With You.

He moved to London in 1973 and kept himself busy running his All Tone shop and label, still recording and touring well into later years. In 2004 he received Jamaica’s Order of Distinction. And he kept performing right up until he passed in 2008.

The six tracks here were all originally cut under Duke Reid, songs that’ll ring a bell with basically every reggae fan out there. What Peckings used are the recuts, the versions that came out late in the 1970s courtesy of Sonia Pottinger, who got her hands on the original Duke Reid master tapes after Duke died on New Year’s Day, 1975.

You Make Me So Happy opens the LP. It’s Alton’s take on You’ve Made Me So Very Happy, the Brenda Holloway classic, and later carried worldwide by Blood, Sweat & Tears. He actually cut this one for both Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid, rival producers, back in the late sixties. This mix carries Ranking Trevor’s chat running through it, which gives it a bit of extra weight.

Can’t Stop Now is defined by the horn work, trombone solos mixed back in after the fact. Then Ooh Wee Baby comes in, also known under titles like Oowee Baby, Oo-Wee Baby, or Oowee Baby (Baby I Love You), originally out in 1967, and here the Hammond organ takes over as the lead voice in the mix.

Flip to side two and Breaking Up kicks things off. That 1968 song first came out as Break Up, and later reissues sometimes call it Break Up To Make Up. What’s striking is how this ultra-sweet lovers tune gets paired against the sharp, roots-flavoured toast of Papa Richie, real name Richard McKenzie, on Phantom in the Jungle.

Next up is If I Could Rule The World, also released as If I Ruled The World or If I Could Rule The World (I’d Give It To You). The bassline here is heavy and hypnotic, a proper dub, occasionally cut through by a thin horn flash or a stray echoing vocal. Closing it out is Chatty Chatty, an extended, alternate soundsystem mix of his well-known Chatty Chatty People, where he’s warning everybody about the gossips in the neighbourhood.

These recuts were played by The Revolutionaries, Channel One’s legendary house band, driven by Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass. Soul Syndicate was in on it too, the band led by guitarist Earl “Chinna” Smith and bassist George “Fully” Fullwood, and they handled the rework of If I Could Rule The World. The Revolutionaries, meanwhile, played on Breaking Up and You Make Me So Happy.

Behind the mixing board sat Errol Brown, the man responsible for these recuts. He’d isolate the vocal, bring musicians back in where it made sense, and decide what to leave intact and what to push into the background, horns, keys, percussion, whatever needed softening. The story goes that Bob Marley was so impressed with what Brown did on these recuts that he brought him in as head engineer at his own Tuff Gong studio.