GEMS UNCOVERED
THE 1970s produced some of reggae’s most creative artistes and producers. Two of those exponents were producer Vivian ‘Yabby You’ Jackson and singer Willi Williams.
In 1979, the duo collaborated on sessions at the Channel One and King Tubby’s recording studios in Kingston which produced a number of songs, most of which were never released. Those sessions have been compiled for the album, Unification: From Channel One to King Tubby’s, released last Tuesday by Shanachie Records.
Yabby You and Williams worked with some of the top musicians on the project, such as The Revolutionaries (the Channel One house band), the Soul Syndicate band, The Gladiators, keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, saxophonist Cedric Brooks and trumpeter Bobby Ellis.
Williams spoke to the Jamaica Observer from his home in Toronto, Canada, last week. He said the sessions took place one year after first meeting Yabby You at Federal studios (now Tuff Gong) in Kingston.
“Working with any musician or producer, there is always something special about the individual. With Yabby You, it was the vibes that he had towards life and his music,” Williams recalled.
Williams wrote 11 of the 12 songs on ‘Unification’. They were recorded the same year he broke through with the apocalyptic Armagideon Time for Studio One.
Yabby You was known in music circles as ‘Jesus Dread’ because, unlike many Rastafarians, he believed Jesus Christ, not Haile Selassie I, is God. He came to prominence as a singer in the early 1970s, working with engineer extraordinaire Osbourne ‘King Tubby’s’ Ruddock on a series of militant sides including Conquering Lion, Love of Jah and Warn the Nation.
As a producer, Yabby You worked with a number of roots artistes including singers Wayne Wade and Michael Prophet and deejay U Brown. He died in 2010.
The St Ann-born Williams began recording in the late-1960s. He migrated to Canada in 1974 but returned frequently to Jamaica to record.
Most of his songs were heard in dances but when he went to Studio One in the late 1970s, he had his first chart hit in Armagideon Time, which has been covered or sampled by several acts including punk icons The Clash.
