Perfect Sound Forever

Keith Hudson

the Rasta Communicator
by Eric Doumerc
(December 2008)

Keith Hudson was born in Kingston in 1946, and, after studying dentistry, went into record production in the late 1960s, enjoying success with Ken Boothe's "Old Fashioned Way" and Delroy Wilson's "Run Run". However it was with deejays that Hudson really made his mark as a producer and he was instrumental in launching the career of one of the most innovative 1970's deejays: Big Youth. Indeed, Hudson produced Big Youth's "S90 Skank," a record that introduced the deejay's new Rastafarian-influenced style to a wider audience while giving some salutary advice on how to ride an S90 Honda bike ("If you ride like lightning, you'll crash like thunder!"). The record was memorable for the sound of a motorbike being revved up in the studio, quite an innovation at the time.

In 1975, Keith Hudson released a very good dub album entitled Pick a Dub which included a brooding version of the Abyssinians' "Satta Amasa Gana" ("Satia"), and then Flesh of my Skin, Blood of my Blood (1974) before moving to New York, and signing a contract with Virgin Records. His next LP, entitled Too Expensive, was released in 1977 and was a brave attempt at broadening his audience and at pushing musical boundaries. The record was characterised by the influence of rock and funk elements, with tracks like "Civilisation" and "Too Expensive" far removed from the reggae mainstream. Although the album featured reggae tracks including "Introduce Me" and "Thank You Baby," as well as a soul ballad ("We Can Work It Out," which isn't the Beatles song), Hudson tried too hard to please everyone and to incorporate too many different styles onto one album. However Too Expensive still stands as a courageous attempt at redefining the boundaries of reggae, and certainly looked forward to what producers such as Dennis Bovell and Adrian Sherwood were to do in the 1980s. Even so, the record failed commercially.

Hudson founded a new label, Joint, on which he released a dub album (Brand) in 1977, followed by its vocal companion, Rasta Communication, in 1978. A year later, Hudson released From One Extreme to Another, a roots record; and then Nah Skin Up Dub, a dub set. His final release was Steaming Jungle in 1982, and he died of lung cancer in 1984, having gained cult status among reggae cognoscenti but still largely ignored by the wider record-buying public.

Even if he had released no other record, Hudson's reputation would have been established by his 1978 Rasta Communication. Released on the Greensleeves label, that record tried to pick up where Too Expensive had left off, but without making the same mistakes. On Rasta Communication, Hudson reached the goal he had set himself with Too Expensive: touching a new audience while remaining faithful to his roots.

Most of the tracks are characterised by a spare, bare-bones, minimalist backing with drum and bass well to the front. The basic reggae pattern is complemented by Hawaian guitar - quite unusual for a reggae record - melodic keyboards, or percussion. The minimalism of the backing is matched by the simplicity of Hudson's vocals. He kept what he had to say to a minimum, and this terseness added to the enigmatic feel of the album.

On "Bloody Eyes" and "Rasta Country," Hudson adopts a vocal style which could be described as semi-conversational: it is not straight singing, but neither is it deejaying. Hudson seems to be talking across the backing tracks, and he is not patterning his vocals on a bass and drum format. The effect is unique and gives the listener the impression that he or she is being addressed personally. Maybe Hudson had been influenced by all the deejays he had worked with in the 1970s (U-Roy, Dennis Alcapone, Big Youth) or maybe he just thought that this style would best suit his vocal range.

The themes addressed on Rasta Communication were fairly typical, but what made the record so special was Hudson's idiosyncratic take on traditional themes; for instance, "Jonah" calls on the Biblical character to come out of the belly of the whale now that his enemies have gone and have stopped "telling lies". Jonah, the archetypal pariah accused of bringing bad luck but also the ultimate survivor, could stand for the status of the Rastaman in Hudson's worldview. “I'm No Fool" takes the proverb "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" and then turns it on its head, stating that in the ghetto, there are no fools and that you have be smart to survive in such an environment. "Musicology" is a hypnotic and stunning track about the power of reggae music ("Keeps you rocking, keeps you in form") and its relentless drive enacts the theme of the song.

Rasta Communication was reissued on CD by Greensleeves in 2002 with "Nah Skin Up Dub" as a bonus cut. But even without that dub track, the album was one of the most innovative and spell-binding and under-rated reggae LP's ever released.


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