Sometimes an record can be like an old friend. You become attached to it, lugging it from one apartment to another, never far from the top of the recent plays. Alton Ellis' "Sings Rock and Soul" is, for me, one such record. I don't remember when I bought it, but I do remember having it in 1982. Like a snapshot, I remember my friend Mark (AKA Dr. Marvelous, his self-given beach nickname) visiting me when I lived in San Francisco, reading the title "Alton Ellis Sings Rock and Sooouull!", with an emphasis on "soul" that I've murmured to myself just about every time I've played it ever since.
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Just a couple years ago, another friend, Ruth (who was also living in San Francisco back when I was), was visiting from her new home in Australia. I hadn't seen her in years and, because our decades-long friendship was dominated by a common love of music, I asked her what she wanted to hear. To my surprise, of all the music that we had shared over the years, she asked to hear, you guessed it, "Alton Ellis Sings Rock and Sooouull!"
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Alton Ellis passed away recently, and as this particular record has been with me for a long time and been the soundtrack for many memorable moments, I could not let the sad event pass without recommending that you begin your relationship with Alton Ellis and his music. The record referenced above, though not rock nor straight soul, represents the transition of ska into reggae, and is considered by many the start of rock steady. The song "Get Ready" (often referred to as "Rocksteady") gave the genre its name.
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Ellis' voice is soulfully smooth and comes through remarkably clear, considering that the overall recordings are primitively produced, charateristic of the era. To put it succinctly, Ellis had some of the best pipes in reggae, and even a crappy mix couldn't fuck 'em up.
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Alton Ellis on MySpace (samples of his music, no downloads)
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