Heart Of The Congos

Product Information

Roy moved to Kingston at the age of 16 and would hang around the music studios meeting the likes of Gladdy Anderson, Winston Wright and Ernest Ranglin who taught Roy to play guitar. Watty had recorded a number of singles with Perry but none of them were selling in numbers until his cover of a Brook Benton tune adapted to become "Rainy Night In Portland" sold well. Jewel case and Slipcase version that was released after the production of the original Digipak-style release was stopped.

Becouse of the other releses like war ina babylon max romeo , heptones - partytime , george faith - to be a lover original super eight on his own label, also junior murvin - police and thives , super ape and jah lions colombia colly al this albums first relesed own upsetter label first pressing. After a stint in the US Navy, stationed in the now infamous Guantanamo Bay, Roy returned to Kingston in the early seventies and again began hanging around studios in the hope that someone would record him.Many reasons have been suggested including that Island records were more concerned in promoting Bob Marley and would shelve albums by other reggae artists, this claim is made by The Congos as well as Max Romeo and others who's follow up albums were poorly promoted by the label.

The Congos would go on to record for other producers and of course Perry would go on to burn down his studio to 'cleanse it from evil spirits'. This is bad advise and the second post outright faulty. Yes, older VP masterings are awful (speed issues and wonky sound) and should be avoided, they are I think still being used on some single disc pressings.

The time they spent together gave us this remarkable album, a piece of reggae history and one of the greatest albums of all time. This first edition contained 10 of what Perry believed were the best of the songs recorded by The Congos and the mix was noticeably different from the version most of us know as the definitive second edition. Watty Burnett, a regular figure at the studio, joined the group at this point as Perry thought his deep barritone vocal would help add a further dimension to the overall sound of The Congos.

To some of those that attribute hipster appeal to this title and also claim there was no interest in this LP until the mid 90's, is very confused. Go-Beat reissued this in 1980, and a few other times, among others including the famous Blood and Fire issue. The Congos album was coming together and Scratch would spend more time on this production then any of his previous efforts.The "second mix" (which is the mix you'll find on all pressings except the very first super rare pressing and the [equally rare] RSD reissue) is not one specific version of the album, there is a whole multitude of variations (for example differently edited) using that mix. Here is a bit of a release history: Eternal Thunder | Magazine | Out Of Africa Comes The Congoman To be fair, I'm no reggae aficionado. As far as I know, there aren't a lot of acts in this genre putting out anything as soulful and original as Heart of the Congos. Of course, I could be wrong. I encourage those in the know to send me a heads up. For those who scoff at the genre, for whatever reason, I implore you to give this album a shot. I think you might like it.