Contents - Beth Lesser

ooTS man SkankinG
Finally, with the addition of keyboard player Steely Johnson from the
group Generation Gap and the Black Roots players, the official Roots Radics
line up was complete. The Radics were bubbling. As Dwight Pinckney said at
the time, “Whatever we play on record, it makes the record a seller you know.
That’s why we get so many sessions. Because the artists know… they have
a big advantage using The Radics.” Bingi Bunny agreed, “Right now, every
producer saves his session money until we come back [from touring] and can
play for him. There are other musicians, but producers need the Radics sound
for a hit record.”
The pull of the new band was so great that it managed to capture dedicated
rootsman Bunny Wailer, perhaps the last person one would have expected to
see hopping on the dancehall bandwagon.
Quite apart from being a devout Rasta, Bunny Wailer was a canny businessman
and he immediately saw that the rules of the game had changed. In
198l, Bunny Wailer crossed the line into dancehall territory with his breakthrough
LP, Rock and Groove. Instead of “Can’t kill the Rastaman”, he was
now watching the “rootsman skanking all night long” to the “top ranking”
sound with his new album, backed by the Roots Radics
Rope in … cause this ya session is vital
Cause it’s a cool runnings, and now dancehall a go nice
Cool runnings, this ya rhythm a go drip like sugar and spice
Cool runnings, rock with your deejay all night long
Cool runnings, while the disc jockey plays your favorite song
- Cool Runnings, Rock and Groove LP, Solomonic ‘81
“Getting current- that was his idea,” Guitarist Dwight Pinkney commented.
“At that time, recording with the Radics, he would have a 99% chance
of having a hit song. We just work in collaboration. Not that he came into
the studio and said, ‘Alright, Radics, give me a dancehall tune’. He had his
own ideas how he wanted things to sound, but he knew that, through us,
he would get exactly what he wanted – contemporary, at that time, with the
dancehall. That is how it work. He gave us his ideas and we just converted
it [into a dancehall format].” The album, although quite a departure for the
former ‘Blackheart Man’, was a huge success, and hearing an established artist
like Wailer anointing the Radics riddims was another significant milestone
towards the acceptance of the burgeoning dancehall sound.
78 | RUB A DUB STYLE – The Roots of Modern Dancehall