Perhaps responsible for introducing Britain to Jamaican music, and if not that then certainly softening the country up, the Tighten Up' series was first released in the late Sixties.
Compiling the tunes that had Jamaica's rock steady and the UK's soul dance floors skankin', Trojan promoted the music by offering the LPs at budget prices, making what had previously been an exotic music form readily available to the mass market.
At the time of the release of the first album reggae itself was a new form of music, just taking over from the down tempo rock steady that has earlier replaced ska. In fact the term had only first been recorded, if not coined, by The Maytals in 1968's 'Do The Reggae'.
This celebration of the seminal, if populist, series, trawls through six years and eight instalments of 'Tighten Up', finishing with tracks from the last edition in 1974. By this time, of course, Bob Marley was poised to become the most significant reggae musician of all time.
Marley and The Wailers' contribution to 'Tighten Up' is limited to 1970's 'Duppy Conqueror', but the track already clearly marks him out as a unique artist.
The double CD collection mostly stick to the chronology of the releases, beginning with the early rhythm and blues inspired tracks, such as the series title track, 'Tighten Up' by The Untouchables, as well as versions of standards, such as Leiber and Stoller's 'Kansas City' by Joya Landis and or Sam Cooke's 'Win Your Love For Me' by George A Penny.
But it's when the tracks from 1969-70, the period of the second 'Tighten Up' album, kick in that the now familiar bass heavy sounds kick-in, with tracks such as Clancy Eccles' 'Fatty Fatty', The Soulmates' 'Them A Laugh And A Kiki' and the Kingstonians 'Sufferer' leading the way.
Having made the bridge the sounds travel further through the rapidly expanding music form, kicking in with Niney's easy skanking 'Blood And Fire', The Slickers' soulful, gospel organ on 'Johnny Too Bad', Delroy Wilson's explosive and conscious 'Better Must Come', Clancy Eccles' early dub on 'Rod of Correction', U Roy's strikingly futuristic 'Wet Vision' and the worth it for curiosity alone rendition of 'Shaft' by The Chosen Few.
All of which makes this essential summer listening, even if it remains undeniably strange that a series that launched some of the slackest sounds in history should have been called Tighten Up'.
