Bunny Lee - AGRO SOUNDS- 101 ORANGE STREET

Kingston Sounds

£15.28

Genre: Dub Reggae
Format: LP
Catalogue No.: KSLP050
B/C: 5060135761523
Release Date: 16th July 2021

Countless incredible records were made in Kingston between 1968 and 1971 that have never been able to lose the stigma of being defined as ‘skinhead reggae’ but in Jamaica the term never meant anything. However, Bunny Lee’s Agro sounds meant a great deal both at home and away. They were tougher than tough, rougher than rough, kicked like a ‘bovver’ boot and were sharper than a razor cut trim. Raw, pure and undiluted they hit every time… some even troubled the UK National Charts.

Bunny Lee first learnt the ways and means of creating hit records during his early years as a dancer on ‘Teenage Dance Party’ plugging records for Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid and Leslie Kong. He moved into record production in 1967 tearing up the Jamaican charts with The Uniques and ‘Let Me Go Girl’. The hits never stopped and, alongside close associates and occasionally close rivals, men such as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Clancy Eccles, Striker began to create a brand-new style that pushed the music forward in startling new directions. The rhythms became faster, more aggressive and reggae was born.

Striker first visited England that year where, instead of cash advances from Island Records for releasing his records, he asked director, Dave Betteridge, for
instruments for his musicians back home. On his return to Kingston his musicians put them to good use and continued to build this dynamic new sound. On one of his subsequent visits to London Striker met up with Eddy Grant who introduced him to the term ‘agro’ and Striker decided to adopt the name for his musicians.

“My friend Larry Lawrence used to tease Eddy Grant from The Equals all the time and Eddy used to say ‘Bunny, your friend is causing me agro’. I said, ‘What is that Eddy?’ and he said ‘aggravation’ meaning that he is annoying him. ‘Talk to him, man’ because Larry always teased him. Up to now if I see Eddy Grant I call him Agro! ‘Wha’ ‘appen Agro?’ and he says, ‘Yeah Bunny man!’ He is a good friend. So, I said I liked the name and when I went back to Jamaica, I’m going to call my group of guys The Aggrovators. That annoyed the other musicians… the big musicians! We couldn’t afford the big guys like Jackie Jackson and Winston Wright… this was after Bobby Aitken stopped playing and said ‘Me a go get a steady job now’. Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee

To say the man and his music dominated at the time would be a complete understatement. ‘Striker’ was everywhere… travelling between Kingston, where he had opened his Agro Sounds record shop at 101 Orange Street, and London where he set up his Unity label with the Palmer brothers for the exclusive release of his productions and his Jackpot subsidiaries with both Trojan and Pama Records. Ubiquitous does not start to come into it.

Maxie Romeo’s ‘Wet Dream’ spent six months on the charts in 1969 without once being played on the radio. Bunny was always trying new things… or old things. American R&B star Donnie Elbert’s ‘Without You’, voiced in London over Striker’s Jamaican ‘Lonely Girl’ rock steady rhythm, was playlisted on national Radio One later that year. It did not make the UK charts, but it did go straight to Number One in Jamaica. Bunny’s brother-in-law Derrick Morgan’s stirring ‘Moon Hop’ then bothered the lower reaches of the UK National Charts, but the record would have been a real smash hit were it not for The Pyramids’ (as Symarip) cover version which they renamed ‘Skinhead Moon Stomp’… the list goes on.

We sincerely hope that this compilation helps to point you in the direction of some of the best music from this often-overlooked period from one of the greatest producers ever… ‘The Agro Man’ himself Bunny Lee.

Tracklisting
Track 1. Bangarang - Lester Sterling & Stranger Cole
Track 2. Seven Letters - Derrick Morgan
Track 3. Without You- Donnie Elbert
Track 4. Everybody Needs Love - Slim Smith
Track 5. Cool Operator - Delroy Wilson
Track 6. King Of The Road - U Roy & Lennox Brown
Track 7. Moon Hop - Derrick Morgan**
Track 8. Ten Thousand Tons Of Dollar Bills - Bunny Lee All Stars
Track 9. If It Don’t Work Out - Pat Kelly
Track 10. Hold You Jack - Derrick Morgan
Track 11. Who Cares - Delroy Wilson
Track 12. Wet Dream - Max Romeo
Track 13. Joe Razor - Roy Shirley
Track 14. D.J. Choice - Winston Williams