Tommy Returns With Merritone’s Keith Scott Sunday June 24

The always entertaining Tommy Far East returns to the southland in June with even more rare and tasty Ska & Rocksteady nuggets. Coming along for this trip is Keith Scott of Merritone/ Federal Records fame with support by The Rocksteady Lounge posse of Terry Lee, Nina & Viktor.

Keith Scott worked at Kingston’s Federal Records from February 1961 until 1968 and from 1966-68 he was co-owner of Merritone Records.

Wailer.de considers Keith a good friend and had this to say: “While some producers who are now famous owned the studios and labels and made the general decision what to release Keith Scott oversaw the whole production process, supervised the sound engineers, and checked the pressed vinyls so that we can say that he was the key figure responsible for the fact that the earliest Jamaican Music do sound so good as it is. He was in the studio. He met all the early artists. He was there and gives us informations as a trustworthy eye-witness of all this. Thousands of records went at first through his hands before they came to us much later.”

There have been a bunch of wonderful Merritone reissues hitting the market recently. Let’s hope he brings some with him. I’m sure there will be surprises galore as “Rocksteady People” takes over Akbar on Sunday June 24th.