Treasure Isle Eight Pieces of Ska Vinyl Goodness

Trojan Records has been hard at work at creating releases that speak to the hardcore vinyl Reggae collector with their limited edition heavy weight singles and box set collections like the Lucky Sevens set.

They recently made a deal with Duke Reid’s estate to release Treasure Isle material which has lead to this newest collection of singles. Treasure Isle Pieces Of Eight box set includes faithful reproductions of eight of the Duke’s most precious musical gems from the original mid-sixties Ska era. They say each of the singles are making their first official release outside Jamaica and that’s interesting enough but the tunes are amazing to say the least. The box comes complete with a sleeve notes insert written by Record Collector editor Ian McCann and a plastic record middle as well. What a package!

SINGLE #1:
Renegade – The Zodiacs with The Baba Brooks Band ?b/w Duck Soup – The Baba Brooks Band

SINGLE #2:
The Last Time – The Sensations with Tommy McCook & The Supersonics? b/w Portrait To Don – Tommy McCook & The Supersonics

SINGLE #3:
Samphey Man – The Rio Grandes? b/w Special Event – The Baba Brooks Band

SINGLE #4:
Don’t Trouble People – Alton Ellis & The Flames with The Baba Brooks Band? b/w Alcatraz – The Baba Brooks Band

SINGLE #5:
I Found My Love – The Sensations with The Baba Brooks Band? b/w Western Flyer – Baba Brooks Band

SINGLE #6:
So Long – Lester Sterling with The Baba Brooks Band ?b/w After A Storm – Justin Hinds & The Dominoes with The Baba Brooks Band

SINGLE #7:
What You Gonna Do – The Techniques with The Baba Brooks Band? b/w Tribute To Don – Roland Alphonso with The Baba Brooks Band

SINGLE #8:
Teach The Youth – Justin Hinds & The Dominoes? b/w Windfall – Tommy McCook & The Supersonics

Dancecrasher has samples on his site and they are superb! Check out that Lester Sterling track. He also had this to say “The quality of the tunes on this box is consistently very high, the four samples included will hopefully show that. To pick a favourite is far from easy but Lester Stirling’s So Long is a storming instrumental piece in the Far East style and is as good a ska tune as your likely to hear.”

It’s an expensive package – $100 bucks – to say the least but with these tunes not available on a clean or easy to get vinyl release otherwise it doesn’t sound so bad. Especially when we usually pay over $20 for the other singles they’ve been putting out.

What do you think about this new release??