The eclectic label Soul Jazz Records (via its Soul Jazz Books arm) is releasing two books on 5 November, titled "Reggae 45 Soundsystem – The Label Art of Reggae Singles" and "Reggae Soundsystem – Original Reggae Album Cover Art".
These two volumes focus on the visual impact of the labels on 45s and the album sleeves of Jamaican reggae from the 1950s to the eighties.
These superb collections showcase hundreds of works through colour visuals compiled by Stuart Baker, founder of Soul Jazz Records, and Steve Barrow, a reggae historian and author of, among other things, "The Rough Guide to Reggae".
"Reggae 45 Soundsystem – The Label Art of Reggae Singles", a 480-page book, catalogues 1,200 record labels (from the 1950s to the 1970s), reproducing them at full size.
For its part, "Reggae Soundsystem – Original Reggae Album Cover Art", a 239-page deluxe opus, focuses on the creativity of the artwork made in Yard by compiling some 300 original album sleeves. A subtle way of tracing the visual history of Jamaican music "from mento to dancehall", as the subtitle on the book's cover puts it.
Last year, Stuart Baker's label had already released "The Cover Art Of Studio One Records", a 200-page anthology of unreleased or rare sleeves from albums (by Horace Andy, The Skatalites, Jackie Mitto, Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Toots and The Maytals, Dillinger, Sugar Minott and Lone Ranger, among others) recorded under the banner of the late Sir Coxsone Dodd's unmissable studio.