OK, we KNOW Jamaican Recordings means business: Their releases so far have struck formidable targets one by one (Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo, King Tubby, The Revolutionaries) and released high quality discs which contained only unreleased versions of tracks.

The Aggrovators were a Jamaican session band fronted by Bunny Lee (not the same person as reggae artist Neville Livingstone aka Bunny Wailer). He used members of Burning Spear (Robbie Shakespeare, Aston 'Family Man' Barrett, Earl 'Chinna' Smith, & Valentine 'Tony' Chin) as well as others.

What sets this apart from other releases on Jamaican Recordings is that most of the tracks are vocal based. Only five of the fourteen tracks (# 9, 10, 11, 13, 14) are instrumental dubs. Johnny Clarke and Cornell Campbell sing in the Aggrovators.

The name of the band came from Bunny's use of the fact that English Skinheads were listening to ska from Jamaica. He named his reggae shop/label 'Agro Sounds', which led to calling his band The Aggrovators. I am really liking this CD - Tracks like "I'm Still In Love With you" (#2), "Ain't That Loving dub" (#3) and "Happy Go Lucky dub" (#7) contain all the magic I look for no matter what the genre.

From the liner notes I learned that much of The Aggrovators output consisted of updating American R & B tunes ('foreign tunes' as they were known in Jamaica), or Studio One Classics. The idea was that everyone loved the cuts and the musicians already knew these songs inside out.

Vocal faves: 2,3,7
Instrumental faves: 10,13,14