Welcome Bovine Ska and Rocksteady Listeners,

If you love the ska, and we think you do, then you will love the beginning of this week’s Generoso and Lily’s Bovine Ska and Rocksteady from March 22nd, 2016.  We started with two sets of rare ska beginning with the massively underrated vocalist and guitarist, Basil Gabbidon and his 1963 cut for Prince Buster’s Wildbells Label, Dig The Dig.  Our mento set this week featured an awesome tune from Joseph Gordon, aka Lord Tanamo entitled Wicked Woman that was released on the Caribou label.  We ended the first hour of the show with an early reggae set beginning with a version to version excursion from 1972 on the Sioux Label.  Joe Higgs’ Lay A Foundation was followed by Jackie Rowland’s version.

Lloyd the Matador Daley is one key figure in the Jamaican music industry that we love on the Bovine Ska. While best known for his Matador label and soundsystem, Lloyd Daley has much more known to his name.

As a young man, Daley graduated from Kingston Technical High School with a focus on electronics. As a result, he had the skill to transform his amplifier to one for a sound system. In 1958, the popular Matador sound system opened up on Victoria Avenue, and nearly simultaneously, Daley also opened up Lloyd’s Radio and Television Service to repair electronics in Kingston. Given this technical gift, Daley was able to create a purer, richer sound for the Matador system, giving him an advantage over others and allowing him to advertise his sound systems to other selectors and operators who would then purchase their equipment from Daley.

Due to difficulty in getting records, Daley decided to record his own tracks starting in 1958, beginning in the Rhythm & Blues. Given his sound engineering focus, Daley’s recordings would come to be known as some of the cleanest, undistorted recordings in R&B and ska.

As with many operators, Daley had plenty of record labels, including Mystic and secret Agent in addition to his signature Matador label, and the one we want to highlight tonight is Syndicate, an excellent reggae label laden with Daley’s deep knowledge and skill of sound production.  The Matador sound was so strong that on the celebration of Big Junior, who had just been a part of Dr. No, Duke Reid and Lloyd Daley were set to each play an hour set. However, Duke Reid decided he wanted more than an hour, and in order to correctly take his turn, Daley, laid down Lloyd Lambert’s “Heavy Sugar” and turned up the volume, eventually drowning out Duke Reid.

When police gave Daley a hard time about the noise produced by the sound system, he took it down and sold parts of it to fund a recording studio in the new electronic repair shop. In this studio and recording space, Jackie Mittoo’s “Dark of the Sun” and The Scorchers’ “Ugly Man” were recorded.

 

For news on the upcoming spotlights and fun discoveries tied to early Jamaican music, join the group for the Bovine Ska and Rocksteady on Facebook.

XOXO,
Lily and Generoso

Here is our March 22nd, 2016 Bovine Ska and Rocksteady: