Dub Like Dirt

Dub Like Dirt picks up where Blood & Fire's popular Dub Gone Crazy and Dub Gone 2 Crazy volumes left off, following the same successful formula of those two releases. Once again, the great voices of producer Bunny Lee's stable are dubbed up by the engineers from King Tubby's Waterhouse studio. Mixers Prince Jammy, Prince Philip Smart, and Tubby himself get their hands on classics from Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Horace Andy, and a handful of others. Laying the rhythm foundations are Lee's Aggrovators, a revolving session team that held in its ranks drummers Sly Dunbar and Carlton "Santa" Davis, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith, and keyboardist Jackie Mittoo. Perhaps, not surprisingly, while Dub Gone Crazy is arguably the finest set in this series, the quality of the dubs hardly wanes two releases later. Dub Like Dirt is at least as fine, if not better, than its immediate predecessor. The collection kicks off with a quartet of versions mixed by Tubby's own hand and closes with an unbroken string of seven versions by Prince Jammy. Tubby is in full control on "Tubby Get Smart" and "Bag a Wire Dub" in particular, working two of Lee's strongest rhythms (Leroy Smart's "Mr. Smart" and Johnny Clarke's "Them Never Love Poor Marcus").