When Rock Met Reggae: How the Cultural Crossover of Bob Marley, the Clash, the Specials and More Changed the Face of Rock Music

Veteran rock writer Blush (When Rock Met Disco) demonstrates the connection between ’70s British punk and Jamaican reggae. The author explains modern Jamaican music and its significant proponents: the upbeat, calypso-/mento-influenced ska promoted by the sound systems of Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid; the more restrained, smoother rock steady of Jimmy Cliff; the pounding-bass, scratchy-guitar, Rastafarian-based reggae of Bob Marley and Toots and the Maytals; and the remixed, distorted, echo-laden dub pioneered by King Tubby. Blush highlights the importance of record labels such as Chris Blackwell’s Island Records in disseminating Jamaican music to British rock acts, including Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and especially punkers such as the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten and the Clash’s Joe Strummer, who embraced reggae as another form of rebel music. He also describes the emergence of ska in Great Britain with the Specials, the Selector, and the English Beat. He concludes with the backstories of pivotal reggae/rock songs and a list of reggae films, such as The Harder They Come (1972), which popularized the genre.