Best Reagae CD ?

My tastes for reggae generally steer towards older vintage recordings from the late '60's to early 70's with a strong leaning towards the classic dub plates from such masters as King Tubby, Lee Perry, Prince Jammy, etc. One of the things I find most intriguing about reggae is that it's admittedly limited musical structure inherently lends to it's strengths as it is a music revolving around texture, space, and a general feel...a 'vibe' as it were. Any type of 'tune' or song structure is merely a platform for the music to lean on and stretch out to. That said, I would recommend almost anything that Blood & Fire (a recent UK label feverishly devoted to lovingly compiled and remastered vintage reggae recordings) has put out as well as Pressure Sounds, another fine UK label overseen by Adrian Sherwood. Sherwood himself has produced (on his On-U-Sound) label some of the finest modern reggae recordings and done quite a bit to expand the genre with bands like African Head Charge & New Age Steppers who really use the genre of reggae itself as a platform for experimental sound structures...dub for the modern age. Some personal favorites:

Yabby You: 'Jesus Dread'
Burning Spear: 'Social Living' and 'Marcus Garvey'
v/a: 'Roots Techniques' and 'Techniques in Dub'
(comps of recordings by producer Winston Riley)
Jackie Mittoo: 'The Keyboard King of Studio One'
Augustus Pablo: 'East of the River Nile' and 'King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown'
King Tubby & Soul Syndicate: 'Freedom Sounds in
Dub'
The Congos: "Heart of the Congos"
Israel Vibration: "The Same Song"

There's much more stuff out there of course, and a lot I've yet to discover, but there's a few ideas. Don't forget to check out Mr. Marley of course as well as Lee Perry & his productions for the Upsetters and others...the Arkology box set is hard to go wrong with on that end and there are a lot of great compilations out there too.
If you dig into the more recent catalog of On-U-Sound recordings, a good place to start would be with Creation Rebel and Singers & Players with a sidestep into the Dub Syndicate if you want to dig further. Enjoy the sounds...

I just happened to notice your note on the post just above that you like the older Jamaican music and thought I might note that you might look for recordings being put out by the Studio One label. These are collections of vintage recordings from Studio One, one of the most influential Jamaican studios of the '60's, run by a man named Clement S. Dodd. I've seen quite a few interesting collections of this stuff out there by folks like Horace Andy, Ernest Ranglin, early Burning Spear, Delroy Wilson, etc. and even own a couple that are quite nice. The Trojan label seems to do a good job at keeping that era of Jamaican music alive as well and has numerous box sets that would probably serve as good additions to any collection.

Corina
A lot of new listeners get thrown into reggae during it's various timelines. Some only know(Like)Marley, some the various Jamaican/U.S collborations. The old stuff sounds old and are definately forgettable except for a few: Pressure Drop(Toots and the Maytals), 007(Desmond Dekker) etc. Tere was a band from England called the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra(RPO) that did a Marley album... Fantastic! All classical muscians. Sadly, it's no longer in print but i have it on DAT and could send you a tape. A friend of mine in Phoenix has the CD but won't give it to me(He's probably the only one in the U.S. that has this). We were both stationed in Japan in the early 90's. Japan is a hotbed for reggae. Outside of Jamaica and England it's the next biggest market. I have some Japanese reggae that is not available here too! Here are some tips: Any artist with a military rank in his name does Dancehall ie: General Degree, Admiral Bailey, Lieutenant Stichie. Anyone using "Banton" with their name does a dancehall style called "Slackness" where they talk alot about how bad they are and guns ie: Mega Banton, Buju Banton(The original Banton) etc. If you want, send me some blank tapes and i'll steer you down one of the MANY paths to enlightenment. You can click onto www.ras.com to give you some direction. If you find something you like email me and i'll tell you if they're any good. Incidently, my username was taken from a reggae club in Tokyo that charged $50 to get in WITH a date. No date, No entry.

While Bob Marley will always be my faverite, I suggest copilations as you can sample different artists work without buying a lot of cds (or lps) that only contain one song you like. The Real Authentic Sample (RAScd3301, Heartbeat Reggae Now! (cd HB AN 13), and First Family of Reggea (Shanachie 9100) are three old favs of mine.Its interesting to obrerve all the pop and rock that has Reggae influences, from Culture Club, the Police, 10cc, Steely Dan, Rush, Eagles, Rickie Lee Jones .... It never occured to lots of my friends that Eric Claptons "I Shot the Sheriff" was a Bob Marley song, much less Reggea (of sorts).
I saw Ini Kamoze (sp?) before his "Hotstepper" fame and Statement" was great, but out of print now. Check out the old stuff, its fun. PS what is "Christafari"? Rastafari is a far cry from Christian Beliefs.
Gotta go, havnt listened to Reggae in a while, lets see, Heatbeat first ....

Intesting timing on this thread... the last thing I played late last night -- well, early this morning -- was "Exodus". I hadn't listened for a while and forgot just how good this piece of work is. As good as anything in any genre. Also, check out Yellow Man's "Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt". And, the soundtrack to "The Harder They Come". And, the film, too. Unfortunately, almost all of my really good stuff is on LP and I am sadly between tt's for the time being.