Archive for the ‘Zap-Pow’ Category

Zap-Pow

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

Listen: This Is Reggae Music / Zap-Pow
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Recorded and originally released in ’73, don’t be surprised if you think ‘This Is Reggae Music’ is blatantly influenced by HELL UP IN HARLEM Blaxploitation soundtrack production. There was a lot of it about. Harry Johnson and Chris Blackwell must have been knee deep in the stuff at the time.

By then, as a result of ‘Shaft’, the worldwide hit single for Isaac Hayes from the film of the same name, the style pretty much became a mainstay at RnB, or Black radio as it was referred to, finding it’s way into everything including reggae apparently.

Lead singer Dwight Pinkney sure does have a voice that later should have been confused for Steve Perry’s from Journey. In fact, that band could have easily pulled off a version of ‘This Is Reggae Music’ had they known and felt a fondness for the genre, which I’m betting the bank they did not.

The other guys in Zap-Pow played on many of Lee Perry’s Black Ark sessions.