Rocksteady - the Roots of Reggae

It's astounding the amount of music & films that you can miss for many different reasons. It really takes a constant vigilance to feel like I have a handle on whats going on, and that I'm not missing anything. Thankfully there are tools like Google Reader to help, and friends like Mr. Lee, with blogs, who post interesting things that I may have missed. Like the trailer of this film, for example.

Here's a good looking documentary that started making the rounds last year. It combines a reunion of sorts of the original generation of rocksteady singers & musicians from Jamaica with a history of the music that they made (mid to late 60's), and includes the likes of Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffith, Dawn Penn, Hopeton Lewis, Stranger Cole, Derrick Morgan, Ken Boothe, Leroy Sibbles and U-Roy. Among the musicians are Ernest Ranglin, Sly Dunbar, Jackie Jackson, Gladstone Anderson, Hux Brown, Bongo Herman and Scully Simms. Beautiful!

Visit the film's website here.