Walking the dogs....

(29/04/06 - Dub's Up!)

… not a canine link more a reference to the fact that today’s track will exercise your woofers!

This post is going to be bit short on the words as, with one thing and another (mainly holiday mode), I haven’t spent much time on the computer over the last few days. With some lovely sunshine over the Easter weekend and a hint of warmth it looks like spring is finally here in the UK (having said that it’s raining again!). It’s been a long drag of a winter this year. The weathermen predicted a cold one and so it turned out. They don’t seem to want to talk about the summer though, so let’s try and make it two weather predictions in a row coming true – it will be a long hot summer – there, that’s my prophecy.


I did say at the outset of this blog that although you would find mainly soul and funk here it wouldn’t be exclusively so. Anyway, the sunshine prompted me to spin some reggae over recent days so I thought I would drop one of the tracks on you by way of a change.

Turn this one up loud and you will certainly feel it. This is heavvvy on the bass. “Prophecy” has been in my collection since its release in 1977. Until a quick bit of googling just now though I knew nothing about the record. I wasn’t surprised to find that it is now revered as something of a classic on the reggae scene. The track was recorded in Jamaica – legendary producers Jack Ruby and Lloyd Coxsone are credited. Tribes Man was a small London label and this 12” (with Jimmy Lindsay on the other side doing a version of The Commodores “Easy”) is difficult to find now. Although I am not sure exactly why, it was banned from airplay on release in it’s native Jamaica (one can guess it was taking a potshot at the incumbent government of the time in Jamaica). So it gained “pre-release” status in the UK on a UK label. The track was subsequently also released on Black Swan and Island.

Fabine is in fact an incorrect credit. She was more usually credited as Fabian and is in fact Faybiene Miranda a poet, writer and singer now based in the USA. This was her first single release. Faybiene now lives in Brooklyn NY with her husband Cliff ‘Moonie’ Pusey. ‘Moonie’ joined the long running reggae band Steel Pulse in 1989 as lead guitarist (Steel Pulse were formed in 1973 in Birmingham, UK and were of course were responsible for another classic reggae track “Ku Klux Klan”).

In true reggae 12” fashion for the time the track clocks in at a mighty 9+ minutes, the 2nd half being a dub version. I’ve just put up the vocal.

You can find the track on a number of compilations including the first of Joey & Norman Jay’s Good Times series which contains a good representation of the soul, funk, jazz and reggae blasted out by their sound system at London’s annual Notting Hill Carnival.

Fabine (sic) – Prophecy 1977 (gone)
Prophecy Dub (gone)