Inner Circle - Reggae Thing (1976 US vinyl, 256Kb, feat Jacob Miller)

Capitol LP #ST 11574 1976

Record date : 1976

Album style : roots, group vocal

Playlist :
Love Is The Drug
80,000 Careless Ethiopians
Reggae Thing
Jah Music
Roman Soldiers Of Babylon
Groovin' In Love

Tired Fe Lick Weed In A Bush
Forward Jah Jah Children
Ghetto On Fire
This World

Recording Engineer : George Engfer & Tom Lubin & Phil Brown
Engineer : Errol Thompson & Glenn Kolotkin

Producer : Roger Lewis & Louis Bramy

Vocals : Jacob Miller
Backing Vocals : Desi Roots & Ernest Wilson & Mingo Lewis & Michael Chung & Roger Lewis & Geoffrey Chung
Backing Band : The Inner Circle
Drums : Horsemouth Wallace
Bass : Ian Lewis & Robbie Shakespeare
Guitar : Neal Schon & Michael Chung
Lead Guitar : Chinna
Rhythm Guitar : Roger Lewis
Piano : Augustus Pablo
Synthesiser : Mingo Lewis
Keyboards : Michael Chung
Electric Piano : Geoffrey Chung
Saxophone : Eddy Money
Clavinet : Mingo Lewis & Touter Harvey
Percussions : Mingo Lewis

Studios :
Recording : Errol Thompson's (Kingston, JA) & CBS (San Francisco, USA)
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Inner Circle - Reggae Thing

Produced by: Roger Lewis & Louis Bramy

Label: Capitol Records ST-11574

Released: 1976

Source: virtually unplayed US vinyl

Encoder: Lame 3.91 - matching the original Fraunhofer codec
in razor sharp accuracy, and is moreover FAST and FREE

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So here is Inner Circle's first attempt at an international
career, while Jacob Miller was still alive and singing lead.
The deal with Capitol didn't turn out too well; I don't
think this sold very many copies in the US or abroad. After
having purchased it directly upon release, I noticed it
disappear and then return to the stores within a few years,
this time branded with the ultimate sign of a company's
rejection of its product and the artist: the disfiguring
cut-out hole shot right through a corner of the sleeve!

The failure is understandable: not only was the record
awfully mastered, it also falls in-between chairs. A few
numbers were prompt re-recordings in Jamaica of Jacob Miller
solo hits of the previous and the same year, and those
tracks recorded in San Francisco were a clear sell-out in
the attempt to gain a wider audience. These "promo songs"
explaining the nature of Reggae ("Reggae Thing" and "Jah
Music"), the rock guitar licks and flirtations with soul
("Groovin' In Love") - all was competently performed but
very anonymous. The good tracks really are the re-makes.
They sound somwhat different from the originals and some
are in fact even heavier here!

The sound of this 1976 LP shows that the guys at Capitol
responsible for bringing the disparate material together
was not exactly into reggae. It is one muddy and unclear
mess with playback volumes badly adjusted. Or was it a
thought? - the roots tracks with politically incorrect
themes such as marijuana smoking all play at a lower levels
than the US recorded mainstream tracks!

In an attempted restoration I have sweetened all tracks
except the first with an extra 6 dB of treble high up, but
the roots re-makes, mixed by Errol T at the "E.T. Studio"
according to the cover (that must surely be the Joe Gibbs
studio!?!) sounded very bad and I have therefore boosted
also the upper midrange and lower treble to dig out more
detail.

This in turn necessitated a compensation in the bass region.
But please note that I have not messed up the original -
that crappy and undefined bass heard on e.g. tracks 3 and 8
is the original sound of the record. I do not think my
strenghtening number 2, 5, 7, 9 and 10 have made them sound
any worse! :-) Just so you know, I use extremely accurate
speakers when adjusting these things, "highly recommended"
by Hi-End magazine Stereophile and on their B-list for
several year. Frequency response is almost dead flat down
to 30 Hz extending far into the 20s.

With accurate speakers many records sound like utter idiocy -
for example the Junior Delgado "More Treasure Found" is
just about the worst I've ever heard! Like 10 dB too much
bass throughout the entire CD, absolutely unlistenable.
This was probably mixed on speakers with too weak bass
and so you end up with a thoroughly imcompetent release
of what in any case rather poor vinyl and probably pirated
too...

A last note on the current album: an annoying scratch all
along the "Tire Fe Lick Weed In A Bush" is a cause for
sorrow, but I have tried to digitally clean it out beforehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
commiting the reequalized album to mp3.

Now enjoy this record which failed dismally, which was a
good thing - otherwise we may never have had the Jacob
Miller albums "Killer Miller" and "Wanted" that followed.


I-Self


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