Contents - Beth Lesser

The Roots Radics
“They used to be the hottest session musicians during the ‘80s. You
know, they had a real nice groove together and everybody was just
loving it.”
DRUMMER AND DEEJAY BARNABAS
“A fter I get those rhythm from Junjo now, him say me and him can do
some business together. That’s when the Roots Radics come in,” Jah Life
remembers. Once they had finished working with the rhythms Junjo already
had, the partners had to start building some new backing tracks at Channel
One Studio.
Throughout the later ‘70s, drummer Sly Dunbar and bass player Robbie
Shakespeare had held court as the studio’s house band, The Revolutionaries.
But Sly and Robbie weren’t available to do session work anymore. The two
had long held the dream of starting their own production company. So, they
embarked on a heroic schedule of touring, first with Peter Tosh, a tour that
covered Europe, North America and The Caribbean, and later with Jimmy
Cliff, The Mighty Diamonds and Black Uhuru. In addition, by 1980, they
were under contract to Chris Blackwell to work at Compass Point Studios in
the Bahamas to lay down tracks for various Island Records artists. Blackwell
envisioned creating for reggae, with his own label, the same type of “session
factory” as STAX and Motown had done earlier. Sly & Robbie would be the
foundation. The hard work paid off and they were able to start their very successful
Taxi label. As part of the arrangement, Blackwell agreed to handle
Sly and Robbie’s Taxi productions abroad. Island’s Mango subsidiary began
handling the overseas pressing and distribution of Taxi, helping making an
international star out of Ini Kamouse and furthering the already established
career of Black Uhuru.
As the duo was still working for the studio while producing material for
themselves, their relationship with Jojo Hookim began to become strained.
Although Sly and Robbie were often working with leftover session tracks and
using whatever free studio time they could earn through session work, Jojo
worried that they would be holding back their best material for themselves.
So, he was happy to welcome in a new group of session men. Credited on
record labels at the time as The Channel One All Stars, they included, at various
times, Flabba Holt on bass, Santa on drums, Bingi Bunny or Bo Peep on
rhythm guitar, Chinna Smith or Noel ‘Sowell’ Bailey on lead guitar, Gladdy
72 | RUB A DUB STYLE – The Roots of Modern Dancehall