Studio One Jamaica reissues ‘Soul Vendors On Tour’ lp

Now, don’t let the title or the cover fool you. This isn’t a live album. It’s a studio set that Coxsone Dodd put together to ride the wave of Studio One’s big UK promotional tour that same year, a smart bit of timing that also happened to produce some serious music.

The backing is all Soul Vendors, the house band that stepped up once The Skatalites split, and the credits read like a who’s who of the era. Jackie Mittoo on organ and arrangements, Roland Alphonso blowing tenor sax, Johnny “Dizzy” Moore on trumpet, Lloyd Brevett holding down bass, Hector Williams on drums, and Errol Walters on guitar. That’s about as tight a rhythm section as Kingston had to offer at the time.

Vocally, it’s a real showcase of who was carrying the UK tour circuit. Owen Gray takes lead on a handful of cuts, The Lecturer, Ain’t Nobody Home, Give It To Me, The Raver‘, and his version of Give Me A Little Sign. Ken Boothe steps in for Everybody Knows, Pete Johnson handles Crying In The Rain, and The Tennors bring their harmonies to Pressure And Slide. Then there’s the instrumental side of things, where the band really gets to stretch out. Full Range, You Trouble Me, The Whip, and Just A Bit O’ Soul all lean on those horn arrangements and that locked-in rhythm that made the Soul Vendors sound so distinct from what came before.

Some of it was cut in England while the band was out on tour, and the rest back at Dodd’s studio in Kingston. Six decades on, it’s still getting fresh pressings, and it’s easy to hear why collectors keep coming back to it.