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Greg Lee, co-lead singer of stalwart L.A. ska group Hepcat, died March 19. He was 54. Lee suffered a brain aneurysm followed by cardiac arrest on March 17 at his home in Paramount; he died in a hospital. Hepcat was slated to perform at the highly anticipated SoCal festival No Values at the Pomona Fairplex on June 8. "He has touched the lives and hearts of so many people all around the world through music and travel. His songs with Hepcat helped so many of us in both joyous and even depressing times. He has inspired so many to create,...

Shots In The Dark - Shots From The Ghetto Album: 2002Shots In The Dark - Spaghetti Skank! Album: 2008Shots In The Dark - Chicken Blues Album: 2022Shots in the Dark born in Rome in 1999 with the aim of rediscovering the sound of foundation ska, rocksteady and early reggae influenced by soul and R&B music The Following in a link to Discogs where you can get a little more information on their albums. As you can see they haven't been very prolific, but their music is very good, in my humble opinion: Discogs: Shots In The Dark Album data

"One of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced"Taking to social media, the ska icons shared that the influential singer had passed away from a “brief illness” aged 63, as well as honouring him as “a beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced”. Posting on Twitter, they shared: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing, following a brief illness, of Terry, our beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced....

SKA, one of the musical genres Jamaica has gifted the world, will be celebrated today, July 1, International Reggae Day. Conceptualiser of the virtual celebration of Jamaican music Andrea Davis told the Jamaica Observer that the decision to celebrate ska this year was taken in a bid to pay homage to the genre which is celebrating 60 years, just like Jamaican Independence and spawned so much of the success that the country’s music has had on the world scene. “There is a big ska market all over the globe. It is very much a vibrant genre, even if it is...

Today is International Reggae Day. An annual global celebration of Jamaican music and culture, it is this year being celebrated under the theme ‘60 years of ska music’. Here are 15 songs the organisers want you to add to your playlist. 1. My Boy Lollipop — Millie Small 2. Eastern Standard Time — Don Drummond 3. Guns of Navarone — The Skatalites Headlines Delivered to Your Inbox Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters. 4. Forward March — Derrick Morgan 5. I’ll Never Grow Old — The Maytals 6. Ska War — The Maytals 7. Easy Snapping —...

Why The Specials’ ska hit Ghost Town still haunts dance floors (Only link can be posted)

It hardly matters – who really cares about these things? – and yet it does. This year the Go-Go’s will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and earning a place at the museum in Cleveland, Ohio, for all its naffness, is still a mark of influence and recognition. “I always said: ‘**** them, I don’t care,’” says Belinda Carlisle, the band’s lead singer. “But when it actually happens, it’s: ‘Oh, this is not so bad.’” The Go-Go’s have had a reappraisal in the past year, thanks mainly to a documentary by the film-maker Alison Ellwood. It...

The evidence that we are in the midst of a ska revival is plentiful. ­Indie-punk phenomenon Jeff Rosenstock managed a critical hit with “Ska Dream,” a reimagining of his 2020 album “No Dream.” The genre thrives online, where the Ska Tune Network has more than 200,000 subscribers and ska cover versions rake in the views, including a version of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” by Los Angeles band the Interrupters that has 5 million and counting. This year sees the release of two major books, one a 400-page oral history of American ska and the other a spirited defense of the...

<p>Reggae music became popular in the late 1960s, when young people were excited about it and gravitated to the new sound. The artists were mainly grass-roots people who used their voices to articulate a message and communicate to the masses. Old-time reggae lyrics described life events in the Caribbean culture to which most people could relate.</p>

U.K. band Madness have had several lives in their more than 40 years together, from ska superstars on their 1979 debut, One Step Beyond, to top 10 success with 1982's smash "Our House," to breaking up in 1986, reuniting in 1992 and continuing on the last two decades as a successful touring band. All of those eras are covered on the new U.S. only compilation, Our House: The Very Best Of Madness. The 12-song collection goes from the band's first hit, "The Prince" to 2019's "Bullingdon Boys," which the band's Graham "Suggs" McPherson calls a sort of protest song. I...

Are you ready for one of “the great scientific adventures of the coming decades”? Construction of the largest and most complex radio telescope network in the world officially began today in what is being described as a “historic moment for radio astronomy.” Designed to help astronomers answer some of astronomy’s most fundamental questions, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) was today given the go-ahead at its first council meeting at its headquarters at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire in the UK. Jodrell Bank is home to the Lovell Telescope, the world’s third-largest steerable radio telescope. SKA is going to cost $2.2 billion—and...

Jamaican singer Millie Small has died at the age of 73 after suffering a stroke. The star was most famous for her hit single My Boy Lollipop, which reached number two in both the US and the UK in 1964. It remains one of the biggest-selling ska songs of all time, with more than seven million sales. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell announced her death and remembered her as "a sweet person... really special". It was Blackwell who brought Small to London in 1963 and produced her version of My Boy Lollipop, showcasing her childlike, high-pitched vocals. "I would say...

Who said “no man is an island?” Certainly not Ian Fleming, the writer who wrote “my name is Bond – James Bond.” He first introduced that identifier in 1962 in a film titled “Dr. No” just two months after Jamaica shed its dependency on its imperial governors. As a matter of fact, the British novelist and Jamaican resident repeated the line in all his novels and films to successfully clue audiences throughout the world of a spy numbered 007 able to outsmart the most heinous criminals from Asia and Eastern Europe. That Jamaicans celebrated two coming out events that year...

Three years ago, fans and members of a Las Vegas ska band posted comments on social media ridiculing a Long Beach man for his beliefs and homosexuality. Now, the band says they regret their past actions and are holding a show benefiting gay pride groups, but their victim isn't letting them go quietly. Andy George, the owner of Toxic Toast Records in Long Beach, posted on Be Like Max's Facebook page in July 2014, asking the band to stop referring to women as bitches and sluts in lyrics, as he heard at one of the band's shows. According to screenshots...

'Bunny' Will Be Missed - Veteran Artiste Passes After Long Battle With Cancer Published:Thursday | May 11, 2017 | 5:00 AMShereita Grizzle Previous Next File Scully (left) performing with Bunny at the Heart of Ska show, held at the Jamaica Festival Village, Ranny Williams Centre, Hope Road, on Saturday, August 2, 2014. 1 2 Arthur 'Bunny' Robinson, of the musical duo, Bunny and Scully has died. Bunny passed away at the University Hospital of the West Indies (Mona) yesterday morning. This comes approximately two months after his musical partner Scully, died at home on Maxfield Avenue in February. In a...

Mento takes centre stage in this year’s Groundation series organised by the Jamaica Music Museum. For curator and director of the museum, Herbie Miller, the decision to focus on mento — one of the earliest of Jamaica’s indigenous music forms — is deliberate, given the importance of the music to the evolution of reggae. “Mento has for a large extent been overlooked, but for the actions of a small group. Not enough people value mento for the role it has played and value it for being fundamental to pop music forms from ska to dancehall. Despite the lack of a...

Prince Buster, a performer and producer who transformed Jamaican music in the 1960s as a trailblazer of the ska beat, died on Thursday in Miami. He was 78. His wife, Mola Ali, confirmed his death to The Associated Press, saying he had been hospitalized with heart problems. Under his own name and as the producer for many singers, Prince Buster released hundreds of songs in Jamaica. Sessions he produced as the 1960s began are widely credited as the first ska singles. They introduced a distinctively Jamaican emphasis on the upbeat, underlined on guitar and saxophone, that would persist as Jamaican...

Rico Rodriguez was a ska and reggae musician who played with the band on songs including the 1979 hit A Message to You Rudy. The Specials announced his death in a tweet on Friday. It said: "Our dear friend Rico passed away today. We offer out deepest condolences to his family. His legacy will go on forever. RIP dear Rico" SNIP He worked with many different musicians and producers during a lengthy career, including Prince Buster, Karl Pitterson and Jools Holland in his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. SNIP

If there's one musical style that epitomizes summer, it might be the loping island style of ska. It caught fire in early '60s Jamaica, a precursor to reggae. Player utilities PopoutShare 00:0000:00 download This story is based on a radio interview. Listen to the full interview. But ska has gone through a few iterations. Ska is really a fusion of American R&B with Jamaican jazz, says Brad Klein, a Minneapolis-based filmmaker who traced the history of ska in a documentary, "Legends of Ska. Without Ska, there is no reggae." "Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Jimmy Cliff ... all started in...

DJ DEREK, the 73-year-old DJ who appeared at Glastonbury and was one of the first to play reggae in Britain has been missing for three weeks, according to his family. Derek Morris, aka DJ Derek, has played hundreds of sets over the years and worked with high profile artists including Dizzee Rascal and Massive Attack. He recently played at Newton Abbot's Jolly Farmer. Members of the 73-year-old's family say they are extremely worried about him and have informed police. Derek's niece Jennifer says her family has not seen or heard from her uncle in three weeks. Posting on Derek's Facebook...