Classic Reggae Sound Archives

1968 to the early 70's was the golden age of reggae. As ska slowed down to produce rock steady in the sweltering summer of 1966, youngsters started leaving the Jamaican countryside and moved into the Kingston ghettos. There was a sense of hope and optimism in the newly independent country, but this optimism didn't spread to the poverty stricken youths, many of whom became delinquents, known as rude boys, and were looked upon by many as being cool and stylish.

In 1968 the music changed again. A speeding up of the tempo and the inclusion of more complex bass and drum lines and a more aggressive rhythm guitar, and thus reggae was born.

Over in the UK ska and rocksteady had not only been popular with the West Indian immigrants who had left their homeland in the post-war period, but also with the Mods who wore sharp modern Italian clothes, drove around on scooters, caused trouble and bought Blue Beat records. Reggae arrived on the scene just as those at the hard end of the Mod culture turned into Skinheads. So the UK now had two markets for reggae. The immigrant West Indian community, and the skinheads. So as well as music imported from Jamaica, the UK also produced it's own artists, producers and record companies.

This site was started in the summer of 2007 in response to a simple statement on the Pama Record Forum. After a discussion about some particular songs someone said it would be nice if there was a discography with sound samples so everyone could hear the songs that were being talked about. I said I would do it if people would help out with the samples, and the response was incredible. By the end of 2007 the Pama section of this site had samples of 95% of all known Pama issues (including those that never got further than test pressings) with more still coming in. The site was expanded to include other labels at the start of 2008.

This site aims to provide discographies of some of the many labels that flourished around that time, and also to give sound samples so you can hear what the youth were listening too back then. Some of the music is ground breaking, innovative, genius. Some is just.... well let's just say not so wonderful.

The discographies are as accurate as I can get them. The companies that produced these records were normally low budget, small scale enterprises and keeping track of what they were producing was not one of their strong points. Missing numbers, duplicate numbers, different takes or overdubbed versions of the same song on the same record number. All of this makes it challenging to get an accurate and complete discography, plus the fact that quite often what it says on the label is not what the record plays. Sometimes this was accidental, but often it was deliberate. Producers coming over from Jamaica would often sell the same tune to two or three different companies changing the title and artist credits so they wouldn't realise until after the record had been released and the producer was back home in Kingston with more money in his pocket than he should have.

Information about each record is as accurate as I can ascertain. The main entry is taken from the label with the obvious typo's cleaned up. e.g.. Reggie Hit The Town by The Eathopians (sic. CRAB4A) is listed as Reggae Hit The Town by the Ethiopians. Errors on labels such as Bullet 478B which states Drums Of Passion by Morgan's All Stars is listed as such with the correct information, i.e. Judgment Rock by Charlie Ace (or is it Sir Harry?), detailed below the entry together with production credits.  Most of the information for the Pama releases has come from the book "Tighten Up! The History of Reggae in the UK" - an absolute must for anyone interested in Pama records and UK reggae in general.  Other discographies have been generated from "Tapir's Reggae Discographies" , "Roots Knotty Roots" and from people who actually own the records. Other information here has been gleaned from numerous sources and exceptionally knowledgeable people - Thank you all.

Think you can help?

Can you help fill in the blanks?   If you have anything that can fill in the gaps I would be eternally grateful. Please contact me at PamaVinyl@rock.com if you can help. Even if it's just one side. If you need some help with recording, sending files please go to the 'Helping Out' page

If you find any errors please let me know.

Mega thanks to everyone who has supplied me with recordings and for making this website possible.

Have questions about Pama related stuff? or just interested? then the place to go is http://z7.invisionfree.com/PAMA_FORUM

THIS IS NOT A DOWNLOAD SITE

The sound samples on this site are provided for reference only. All samples are cropped by at least 30 seconds and are of low quality (64Kbps/32KHz). This is far from commercial quality, but is more than sufficient for the purpose for which they are intended.

While every effort has been made to make this site accurate in both the actual sound samples and the descriptions, I can't be held responsible for any errors.

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This site is being constructed and maintained by Geoff Elkington with the help of a lot of kind, generous and knowledgeable people who are putting me right, answering my questions, and giving me recordings of their prized (and in some instances very rare) vinyl. Many thanks to all of them.  This site is operated on a completely non-commercial basis. Nothing is for sale here and I am not receiving any payment from anyone. I am doing this because I love the music.