ENTITY · PERSON

Augustus Pablo

Well supported

Horace Swaby (1954-1999), who took a cheap melodica and made it the most recognisable lead instrument in Jamaican music. The minor-key sound he built was called Far East — spare, haunted and unlike anything else on the island — and "Java" and "East of the River Nile" defined it. His meeting with King Tubby produced King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, one of the records dub is usually explained by, and he ran the Rockers International label and shop on Orange Street.

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At a glance

Type: person →
Era: Rocksteady, reggae and dub →
Confidence: Well supported

Connections

Media & sources

Videos

Visiting the Rockers International Record Shop in Kingston, Jamaica

YOUTUBE · rights discovery only · archive source

Community-uploaded shop tour of Rockers International on Orange Street; discovery-only embed.

Transcript pending ingestion.

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Audio

King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown

SPOTIFY · rights discovery only · performs

Official spotify upload (channel: Augustus Pablo); embedded as a discovery-only reference pending editorial review.

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In stories

Story · ProbableThe Dub Revolution: How King Tubby and Lee Perry Turned the Mixing Desk Into an Instrument

In the studios of 1970s Kingston, engineers learned to dismantle a finished song and rebuild it as something stranger, launching the version, the remix and the idea of the producer as author.

Story · ProbableThe dub album as its own art form

By the mid-1970s, stripping a reggae master down to drum, bass and echo had stopped being a B-side trick and become an album statement in its own right.