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-- by
Basil Walters, Observer staff
reporter
Reggae
music and the Jamaican culture
have been given another boost
with the recent recognition
of Reggae Scrapbook as the
Best Music Book of 2007,
having won the Silver Medal
at the Los Angeles annual
Book Expo of America (BEA)
.
The book, written by well
known musicologist and reggae
historian, Roger Steffens and
photojournalist, Peter Simon
known for his acclaimed Reggae
Bloodline, has been receiving
rave reviews for its colourful
archival value and worth with
tremendous memorabilia interspersed
with magnificent photographers
and historical data on the
music.
"It's a major and unexpected
coup for reggae," Steffens
said about his and Simon's
recent documentation of reggae
for which the legendary Toots
Hibbert wrote the foreword.
The project also features contributions
from Jamaican photographer,
Roy Sweetland.
According
to Steffens, author Stephen
Davis, who wrote the
introduction, told him that," of
all his (Davis') books, including
several best-sellers, he's
never had one reviewed in the
Sunday Times." In its
review, New York's Sunday Times
noted that the authors "...share
their addiction in Reggae Scrapbook,
a dazzling homage to the music
and its birthplace".
Reggae Scrapbook, is a collectors
item of everything reggae,
featuring numerous goodies
scattered throughout, from
CDs to DVDs, posters, show-cards
and endless photos of collages
of all the iconic figures in
reggae.
The
legendary Toots Hibbert in
the forward wrote in parts; "Reggae
has been around now for forty
years. I know dis fe'true,
because I wrote the first song
that let people know that we
called our music reggae. If
you ask me how I came to write
it, the answer is that I didn't
come to write that song, Do
the Reggay, it just came to
me. I didn't invent it, it
just happened, and then I wrote
the song from pure inspiration."
Stephen
Davis in his introduction
of Reggae Scrapbook, gave an
explicit acknowledgement of
how much the entire reggae
movement owes to Bob Marley. "Not
only did he participate in
every phase of late twentieth-century
Jamaican culture - ska, rock
steady, reggae, rockers, and
the reggae/rock hybrid he deployed
to tour the world - but he
also projected his millenarian
faith and unshakeable beliefs
so effectively, so swingingly,
that by the age of thirty-six,
when he died, he'd risen from
the slums of Kingston to become
a champion of human rights
and dignity for the entire
world." Davis notes.
SOURCE
Published: Friday | June 20, 2008 | Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/html/
20080619T210000-0500_136931_OBS_REGGAE_SCRAPBOOK
_THE_BEST_MUSIC_BOOK_OF_____.asp
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