Search - Byron Lee, Dragonaires :: Rock Steady Intensified

Jamaican music pioneer-bass man Byron Lee's career trajectory has to be the oddest on the island. This collection features Lee's big band flexing out over rock steady, a horn-filled, gently lilting '60s form that eventually became reggae. While everyone else went along as rock steady mutated into the more raucous ska and then reggae, Lee decided to play to a different drumbeat. Instead of moving forward, Lee traveled back to steel pan-based calypso, a form created in Trinidad and Tobago and once popular in Jamaica. Today Lee is best known for single-handedly reviving his home island's calypso-soca scene, mainly through founding Jamaica's own Carnival festival, which grew quickly into a huge, week-long event, packed with enough Dionysian fury to attract hordes of Trinidadians. But this Lee set is not his usual riotous bacchanal. Featuring rock steady's finest anthems, written by a galaxy of its star singers--including Derrick Harriott, Stranger Cole, and a very young Bob Marley--and covered by the Dragonaires' five vocalists, it presents Lee's outfit in a surprisingly decorous--and more appealing--mood. --Elena Oumano