United Reggae Ernest Ranglin Interview Part I

E. Ranglin From United Reggae Article

Ernest Ranglin is by far one of the most under-appreciated architects of Ska & Reggae. It goes without saying that his career has moved with every major change of the sound and he’s always been at the forefront of those changes leading the charge into new territories to carry on the island sound. United Reggae sat down with the master recently and has posted part one of a series of an interview with him. It starts with this

There is no one, single most important person in Jamaican music. But if such a contest were to be tallied, guitarist, arranger, A&R man and all round eminence Ernest Ranglin would be very high on the list. Spanning jazz, mento, ska, rocksteady and reggae the Manchester parish born maestro seems to have been present at nearly every crucial moment in the music’s history. From playing on the first mento discs to cutting the maiden album on Island Records, from birthing the ska with Coxsone to working behind the scenes at Rocksteady HQ with Duke Reid, from overseeing arguably the first reggae session in 1967 to working on Police and Thieves in 1976, Ernest has done it all. Not least the steady stream of highly acclaimed solo albums including 1972′s Cedric Brooks collaboration ‘Ranglin Roots’ and the jazzified reggae standards of 1996′s crossover ‘Below The Bassline’ – alongside his spar Monty Alexander who he met in the late 1950s playing with Clue JU and The Blues Blasters.

Read the full article at www.unitedreggae.com