'Super Dub Disco Style' features the dub mixing skills of two of the most multi-talented engineers to come out of Jamaica. Pat Kelly is mainly known for the haunting singing voice that powered dozens of hit songs, and nearly had him signed to The Beatles' Apple label. And Stanley 'Barnabas' Bryan is also a deejay, percussionist and drummer, who played on big tunes for Sugar Minott, Junior Reid and Tenor Saw. Both fell under the spell of King Tubby's seismic experiments with dub music in the early 1970's, Pat Kelly as an engineer at Tubby's own studio in Waterhouse, and Barnabas at the larger Channel One Studio, run by Jo Jo and Ernest Hoo Kim.
Whereas most Channel One dub mixes sound very different from those mixed at King Tubby's, it is much harder to distinguish some dubs mixed by Barnabas, as he also introduced a filtering effect in imitation of the famous hi-pass filter, or 'squawky', at King Tubby's. It seems likely that 'Money In Your Pocket Dub', 'Super Rockers Dub', 'Portobello Special Dub' and 'The Aggrovators Special Dub' were all mixed by Barnabas at Channel One, applying an EQ sweep across the echo return.
The remaining tracks were mixed by Pat Kelly, and are mostly versions from the Ken Boothe album 'I'm Just A Man' which had been voiced in one night at King Tubby's. Pat Kelly remembers the original filter at King Tubby's as being like a secret weapon, which no one else could understand.
Pat Kelly: We had this one hi pass filter, which you could patch into whatever track you want. It effected like if you use an EQ, like a graphic, but it was this knob that you could rotate, so you get a different effect than if you was to push them up individually. When you rotate it, it's all simultaneously, and you get a different effect, you're skipping from one frequency within a few seconds. You generally use it on the track with the rhythm, the guitar, the piano, etcetera, because it's more effective at that frequency. Also often on the drum track to pick out the hi-hat - it's extra effective on those frequencies.
I probably mix about thirty LPs for Bunny Lee in my time. And in those times half the music you hear by other producers, it was really Bunny Lee give them the riddim track, and they just say they was the producer. And Bunny Lee never said anything - he never used to sell the track, just give it, and he still doing that to this day. Everybody's trying to be like Bunny, but there's only one Bunny Lee!'
Musicians include:
Sly & Robbie, Aston 'Family Man' Barrett, Earl 'Chinna' Smith, Ansell Collins, Jackie Mittoo, Gladstone Anderson, Bobby Ellis & Tommy McCook.
