Singer/producer Vivian 'Yabby You'
Jackson, who was consistently making heavy-duty roots records,
had been encouraged by Tubby from the beginning of his career
in music.
Indeed it was Tubby who gave the singer/producer his nom de
disque of Yabby You, after the chorus on one of his earli-est
tunes. Jackson also had Tubby mix the ver-sion sides of his
self-produced singles, as well as the "Prophecy Of Dub" album,
originally released in the UK early in 1976, in a pressing of
500 copies and with a blank sleeve.
Yabby You's majestic rhythms were ideal for Tubby's mixing style;
over the deep basslines of such as 'Family Man' Barrett and
Robbie Shakespeare, Tubby created mixes saturated in delay and
reverb effects, which gave the impression of sounds - snatches
of vocal, guitar chords, organ stabs, etc - coming across vast
distances.
In addition, Tubby was responsible for the half-dozen dubs on
the vocal/version set variously titled "Chant Down Babylon Kingdom",
"Walls Of Jerusalem" and "King Tubby Meets Vivian Jackson".
The producer used Tubby's studio until 1981, when a crippling
arthritic condition forced him to stop recording. In the 1990s,
his health improved, be began recording again (be collaborated
with UK-based dub master Mad Professor
for a couple of sets) as well as re-pressing his vintage material.
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Tubby mixed the earliest releases on the Hot
Stuff and Rockers labels run by instrumentalist/producer Augustus
Pablo, who cut many specials for Tubby's sound system, including
"Spangler's Clap", a tribute to the well-known bad-man posse
that followed the sound before the police destroyed it in early
1975. That year in the UK, Island released "King Tubbys Meets
Rockers Uptown", the B-side of Jacob Miller's Pablo-produced
"Baby I Love You So". It was a record that introduced many outside
of the reggae world to dub, as Island actually issued the dub
as the A-side; however, it wasn't until 1976 that the best of
the Pablo/Tubby collaborations were compiled on the album that
many see as a high point of the entire dub genre: King Tubbys
Meets Rockers Uptown.
The tough rhythms spurred King Tubby on to some of his most
imaginative work, with Pablo's plaintive melodica phrases echoed
to infinity in the spacey mixes. Other Pablo dub albums almost
equalled this, particularly the dub set to Hugh Mundell's "Africa
Must Be Free By 1983", with the majority of the rhythms built
at Lee Perry's Black Ark studio and mixed by Prince Jammy at
Tubby's. Like Yabby You, Pablo's most artistically successful
period coincided with the reign of Tubby's studio as the leader
in dub technique - basically, up to the early 1980s. |
