British Punk's Love of Reggae

[@philipargo]

If you like late 70s/early 80s British punk, check out Subhumans. Heavy reggae influence.

[@mikethebloodthirsty]

Reggae is music of the street, so was punk...

[@LessAiredvanU]

You are missing another name; John Peel. He was playing reggae, and especially dub, on his late night radio show along with the first punk releases. Like at The Roxy, when there was not enough to fill the show he played the music that Chris Blackwell of Island Records had been championing since the beginning of the decade. This is how this listener got to hear Scratch Perry, Burning Spear, and most especially Augustus Pablo.

[@Roadieguru]

Thank you Don Letts! You are a ledgnd!

[@solncevskiya9850]

Enjoy the listen reggae since been a teen at 12,13 old. Now I'm late 30s and still heavy on Jamaican music! 🇯🇲 And also visiting local punk gigs. Good tribe!

[@flamencoprof]

Here in NZ around 1975, I had a flatmate who was an English skinhead. The other guys, more into Rock, Blues etc. used to mock his musical tastes. He gave me the LP Double Barrell by Dave and Ansell Collins. I'd like to say I have treasured it ever since, but truth be told in the Eighties I later bundled it with other seldom-played LPs and traded them all in at a second-hand record shop for some more desired ones. I regret that now.

[@michaelwilson2340]

Loved Don Lett's samples as a member of Big Audio Dynamite as well.

[@Bring_MeSunshine]

We were definitely into some reggae, prior to punk, but like the very early punk, there was little of it around on TV or radio. But there was some. The hipper record shops, like Virgin, of the era, in Birmingham (Birmingham had a big Black population and some notable home-grown reggae acts, like Steel Pulse ) had good selections of reggae, roots and dub on their shelves, but it was sometimes hit or miss to buy, as we weren't always familiar with artists. But they had a reasonable amount of Jamaican import, simply because of the numbers of Black people that lived in the area. Plus we had the input of late night radio DJ, John Peel (anyone with an interest in UK punk, needs to know John Peel), who regularly featured reggae artists as part of his show, prior to and then along side the emeging punk and post-punk eras

[@TheEstateOfHoHu]

"anyone with an interest in UK punk, needs to know John Peel" I would say, that anyone with an interest in popular music since the 6ts should know John Peel) British pop music would have taken a different path without him

[@nolagospeltracts8264]

70's dub reggae is awesome! The Slitts were great too.

[@percepticyte4022]

Very cool video thank you

[@nolagospeltracts8264]

Great video but I kept on having to stop it to read the quotes. Nevertheless I enjoyed it very much. I use to have a completion CD of the stuff Letts was playing in the clubs

[@Squirrelmind66]

Good video, but I think it needs a longer section on the origins of Reggae itself and what made it such a match for the punk spirit.

[@taknothing4896]

Punks here in the US also tended to be reggae fans, at least in the '70s and early '80s - later arrivals to the punk scene not so much. We didn't have a Don Letts, but to us it was all "rebel music" as Bob Marley said. We also didn't have '60s skins or much awareness of ska at first, tho ska-punk (pioneered in 1978 by a San Francisco band called The Offs) became a rather big thing by the '90s.