BUNNY LEE | Reggae Tastemaker

WHO WANTS SOME, A COMPILATION OF THE EARLY WORK OF THE ACE JAMAICAN RECORD PRODUCER, BUNNY ’STRIKER’ LEE.

The album, ‘Who Wants Some’, highlights the shift from Ska / Rocksteady to Reggae at the end of the 60s and how that new emerging sound was embraced by the U.K. which led to Bunny catering more and more to British audiences.

Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee aka ‘The Gorgon’ is heralded as one of the great Jamaican music producers and a true titan of his industry, earning the title ‘The Hitmaker From Jamaica’. He is credited with helping define the early Reggae sound through his innovations, most notably the introduction of the organ ‘shuffle’. This fresh sound from the island enthralled young working-class British audiences in the late 60s to such an extent that a new sub-culture was born.

‘Suedes’, ’Smooths’ and ‘Sorts’ were just some of the names used to describe this new sub-culture, often derogatorily referred to as ‘Skinheads’ by the British press.

This new group continued on from where the ‘Mods’, had left off as they were heavily into the latest sounds from Jamaica and always immaculately dressed. This potent, distilled, authentic Jamaican music provided them with a release from the grey drudgery of everyday life in the U.K. but perhaps most importantly, it was music that would set dancefloors alight.

The album

Who Wants Some chronicles the rise of this early Reggae sound and how it came to dominate the underground nightclubs of London’s West End in the late 1960s and even how it began to break into the mainstream pop charts. As an astute businessman, Lee began to cater for this new British audience and along with a number of the island’s top producers proceeded to flood the streets with a wealth of scorching Reggae instrumentals, sugar-sweet vocal shots and raucous DJ cuts.

THAT IS THE REGGAE! THE ORGAN A GO ‘REGGAE, REGGAE, REGGAE’. THAT IS THE REAL REGGAE!

Often these red-hot 7” vinyl singles came with outrageous titles to entice the listeners, tunes such as “One Thousand Tons Of Megaton” & “Zapatoo The Tiger” by the legendary saxophonist Roland Alphonso, are prime examples.

Expertly compiled by Greensleeves Records’ Chris O’Brien and with extensive sleeve notes from Musical historian Noel Hawks, which features quotes from Sir David Rodigan, Bob Andy and of course, Striker himself, Who Wants Some, documents a pivotal, but often misconstrued, British movement and the music that ignited the fire for countless working-class people of the era.

Who Wants Some is the first release on VP Records’ latest venture Gorgon Records which is dedicated to preserving the legacy of Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee’s unparalleled career. 2023 will see some fantastic reissues from Striker’s vaults plus some reimagined classics, crucial cuts & rarities.

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