Carlton Patterson & King Tubby
KING TUBBY
Born Osbourne Ruddock, 28 January 1941, Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies.
Died 6 February 1989, Jamaica, West Indies.
King Tubby grew up around High Holborn Street in Central Kingston before moving to the capital's Waterhouse district in 1955. He started repairing radios and by the late 50s had begun to experiment with sound system amplifiers. By 1964 he was operating his own Tubby's Home Town Hi-Fi, where he later incorporated a custom reverb and echo facility into his system. At the same time he was working as disc-cutter for Duke Reid and it was here that he discovered that he could make special versions of well-known rocksteady tunes.
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KING TUBBY
Born Osbourne Ruddock, 28 January 1941, Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies.
Died 6 February 1989, Jamaica, West Indies.
King Tubby grew up around High Holborn Street in Central Kingston before moving to the capital's Waterhouse district in 1955. He started repairing radios and by the late 50s had begun to experiment with sound system amplifiers. By 1964 he was operating his own Tubby's Home Town Hi-Fi, where he later incorporated a custom reverb and echo facility into his system. At the same time he was working as disc-cutter for Duke Reid and it was here that he discovered that he could make special versions of well-known rocksteady tunes.
By cutting out most of the vocal track, fading it in at suitable points, reducing the mix down to the bass only, and dropping other instrumental tracks in or out, Tubby invented dub. Initially the technique was used for "specials" or dub plates - custom acetates made exclusively for sound system use. The spaces left in the mix allowed sound system DJs to stretch out lyrically, predating the emergence of US rappers by some years. Record producers soon began to see the potential of these versions. Joe Gibbs' engineer, Errol Thompson, working at Randy's Studio 17, had started employing rhythm versions as b-sides by 1971.
To keep ahead of the competition, Tubby acquired an old four-track mixing console from Dynamic Studios. He then introduced further refinements - delay echo, slide faders, and phasing. By late 1971 he was working with producers such as Bunny Lee, Lee Perry, Glen Brown, Augustus Pablo and "Prince" Tony Robinson. The latter issued records that credited Tubby as mixer, including "Tubby's In Full Swing", the b-side to a DJ track by Winston Scotland. Throughout the 70s Tubby mixed dubs for all the aforementioned producers, in addition to Roy Cousins, Yabby You, Winston Riley, Carlton Patterson and Bertram Brown's Freedom Sounds. His most important work, in terms of sheer quantity, was with Bunny Lee. Lee used Tubby for dub and voicing on rhythms he had built elsewhere with the Aggrovators session band. All the singers who worked with Lee at this time - Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Jackie Edwards, Derrick Morgan, Delroy Wilson, Horace Andy, John Holt and Owen Grey - made records with Aggrovators rhythms, voiced and mixed at King Tubby's. Lee began to issue dub albums featuring Tubby's mixes, and other producers soon followed that lead. Tubby's name as mixer soon appeared on well over 100 albums. A generation of engineers trained under Tubby's supervision, including King Jammy and "Prince" Phillip Smart, both subsequently finding success on their own terms.
"Black & White in Dub includes some of Carlton Patterson's very best rhythms mixed to perfection by King Tubby, with the exception of 'Disco Style,' which was mixed by Jammy. All of the tracks were originally b-sides, and feature musicians such as Sly and Robbie, Ansell Collins, Errol 'Flabba' Holt, Noel 'Skully' Simms and Betram 'Ranchie' McClean, amongst others. This is also the first time that 15 of the 21 tracks have been reissued on CD. Of all the producers who utilized the studios of King Tubby during its 1970s heyday, Carlton Patterson is perhaps the least celebrated today and his work is barely represented in reissue catalogs. Yet Carlton was a very successful producer during his prime (1974-1982), scoring hits with Larry Marshall, Barrington Levy, Horace Andy and Sugar Minott. Even though he had just begun to score hits from his new digital studio at the time of his death, King Tubby's legend largely rests today on the mixes he crafted during the period from 1973 to 1982. That period has become for many the golden age of dub. It is perhaps no coincidence that Carlton's success came in that time. Carlton Patterson supplied the musical material on which Tubby honed his innovative techniques and produced his legendary dub mixes. It's no exaggeration to say that the sounds they made in partnership still resonate with full power 30 years later.
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