Aurulux Recordings
2004
Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle
About This Album
In the jumbled world of reggae history, Lee "Scratch" Perry's 1973 effort Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle has earned the false reputation of being the first dub album to see release. It's not. Herman Chin-Loy and Clement "Coxsone" Dodd both had full-length dub albums on the shelves before Perry, but Upsetters 14 is the first album that fully dived into the possibilities of dub, creating the blueprint for a genre that could survive on its own, attract its own audience, and have its own set of masters. Of course Augustus Pablo, Scientist, Mad Professor, Mikey Dread, and Adrian Sherwood all owe something to the forefathers of reggae, but their true mentor is Perry and his early work. Adding to the mystique is the extremely limited first run of Upsetters 14 with only 300 pressed, 200 for Jamaica and 100 off to the U.K. Over the years, respect for the album would fall well behind Perry's other total masterpiece, Super Ape, thanks to the Blackboard Jungle Dub album, which featured the same recordings found here, but in a much inferior mix. This undesirable version kept reappearing, to the point where even the mighty Trojan included it in their Dub-Triptych set, but leave it to David Katz -- author of the ultimate Perry biography People Funny Boy -- to right the wrongs and unearth the impossible.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,5,8 and 14)

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