A. Johnny Osbourne – In The Area
B. Wayne Smith – Saying Goodbye
Greensleeves – Gred 168

More info @ Discogs

Our first platter is a Greensleeves 12″ single featuring Johnny ‘Bumpy’ Osbourne and Wayne Smith. Two singers, one slab of wax. Both tracks produced by Prince Jammy, extended mixes courtesy of the Hi-Times Band, voiced and mixed at Jammy’s Waterhouse base. This was still the Prince Jammy era, mind you. The King title came later, earned off the back of Sleng Teng. By 1984, though, the man was already deep in his stride as a producer, building a roster that included Black Uhuru, Half Pint, Sugar Minott, Hugh Mundell, and many more. His Super Power sound system was a serious force in the sound clash world too, not just a side note to the studio work.

The A-side belongs to Johnny Osbourne. In The Area, sometimes listed as What A La La, rides Jammy’s update of Winston Riley’s Stalag riddim. If you know the riddim, you already know it carries serious weight, and Bumpy rides it with the confidence of a man who’s been doing this since the 1960s. And truly, Johnny is a real legend with a career that goes all the way back to the 1960s. He is often called the Dancehall Godfather because of his massive influence. His album Truths and Rights cemented his name in the Studio One story. In Nah Disco Style, produced by Linval Thompson, captured the heavy, percussion-driven mood of early dancehall. Johnny has worked with the best in the business, from Bobby Digital to Jah Thomas, and he never missed a beat when music went digital. People still line up to get dubplates from him. And recently as 2023 he dropped Right Right Time on France’s Baco Records. The man nah stop.

Flip it over and you get Wayne Smith on Jammy’s cut of the Darker Shade of Black riddim, a Studio One piece from 1967 built around the melody of the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood. Wayne’s track alone carries at least three titles depending on the pressing: Saying Goodbye, Ain’t No Meaning, and Good Love. That kind of title confusion tells you the track was doing serious rounds before Greensleeves stepped in and gave it a fixed home.

Wayne Smith grew up in Waterhouse, and Prince Jammy was literally his next-door neighbour. That closeness shaped everything about his early career. He was eighteen or nineteen when this record was cut, already building off his 1982 debut Youthman Skanking on the UK Black Joy label. Less than a year after this Greensleeves release, Wayne and Noel Davey walked into Jammy’s studio with a rhythm they’d discovered on a Casio MT-40 keyboard. Jammy slowed it down, dropped in handclaps and piano, and pressed it as Under Mi Sleng Teng. The rest is history. Wayne Smith passed away on February 17, 2014. Gone too soon.

A. Bunny Lie Lie – Love Me Girl
B. Bunny Lie Lie – Leggo the Rub A Dub
Time Records – TR0010

More info @ Discogs

Our second platter belongs to Bunny Lie Lie with a double A-side 12″ single. Two vocal cuts, each followed by its dub. Clean, generous format. The producer here is Jah Screw, also known as Paul Love, a Jamaican-born selector who came up on the sound system circuit before moving into production. He came through alongside Ranking Joe during his King Stur-Gav days, but the Time label was his own venture, Ranking Joe had no hand in setting it up. By 1984, Jah Screw was laying riddims in London, and his rework of the African Beat riddim became the backbone of Barrington Levy’s Under Mi Sensi. That track, and then Here I Come in 1985, put Jah Screw firmly at the centre of the UK reggae scene’s most exciting period.

Bunny’s A-side, Love Me Girl, cuts to the Never Let Go riddim, built on Slim Smith’s Studio One original. It’s one of the most commanding backdrops in Jamaican music history. The riddim became widely known as The Answer after Lone Ranger’s deejay cut of that name brought it back to mass attention, and the name has largely stuck ever since. The flip, Leggo The Rub A Dub, runs over the Run Run riddim, another Studio One foundation from an early Delroy Wilson roots cut.

Bunny Lie Lie reportedly started singing at twelve years old, after relocating from Kingston to Spanish Town. His first real splash came in 1978 with Miss Popular, recorded for Joe Gibbs. He built his profile on the sound system circuit through the late 1970s and early 1980s, including time on Brave Man sound, described in period sources as a champion outfit. By 1981 he’d moved to London, where he linked up with UK producers including Mad Professor and Jah Screw. His output slowed from the 1990s onward, but he’s never fully stepped away from the music.