(3 / 5)
The Doctor Bird label continues to dig out some fabulously forgotten and sometimes obscure reggae tracks and release them on CD.
The latest offering is the excellent 1971 album “School Days” from Jamaican artist and DJ Scotty – reissued in its original artwork, with its track-listing bolstered by the remainder of Scotty’s singles for Harriott, plus the B-sides of each of his 7” singles, all of which make their CD debut.
“School-Days” is for fans of vintage reggae, cool rock steady and classic Jamaican toasting sounds. There’s eight new tracks to CD here among the 21 cuts on the single disc – all eight are credited to The Cystalites.
After making his name in the late 1960s as a singer and producer, fronting popular Jamaican vocal trio, the Federals, David ‘Scotty’ Scott enjoyed further success leading the Chosen Few singing quartet, before demonstrating his talents as a DJ, with a series of hugely popular 7” singles for leading Kingston music maker, Derrick Harriott.
Early hits included “Sesame Street”, “Riddle I This”, “Children Children” and the smash Jamaican hit , “Draw Your Brakes”, which was further showcased in Perry Henzell’s highly acclaimed cult classic movie, “The Harder They Come”, starring Jimmy Cliff.
In response to the widespread popularity of the singer-come-DJ’s work, Harriott issued the best-selling long player, “School-Days”, which showcased Scotty’s aforementioned hits alongside previous unissued tracks, with the collection released internationally in 1971 by Trojan Records.
By Christopher Weston
(1 / 5) ‘Dull Zone’
(2 / 5) ‘OK Zone’ (3 / 5) ‘Decent Zone’
(4 / 5) ‘Super Zone’
(5 / 5) ‘Awesome Zone’
