Good Jamaica music: the '76 British Reggae documentary
"This is a long way from roots Jamaica. Some call it 'commercial', others 'British reggae'." So says the narrator, Carl Gayle, of British Reggae , a 40-minute London Weekend Television documentary directed by Jeremy Marre which first aired on 18 September 1976. It's a comment about a soulful singer and her band at Paddington's Q Club . She's shown doing a pretty strong lover's rock tune. It's not really my thing, but like almost everything else in this documentary there's a compelling vividness to the live footage, not least with its repeated shots of audience members dancing, grooving and smiling along. Yeah man, dig it. Overall this is a great documentary. Slightly messy, yes, and with various interviewees who ramble on about the "feel" of Jamaican music and the various social pressures on "the West Indian man" in cold, unwelcomingly racist Britain, British Reggae nevertheless features some very evocative 50-year-o...
