Sonny Binns

Sonny Binns – Gold Dust – Ethnic Fight

Jackie Mittoo's approach to the organ was very jazzy - and his success tended to dominate how the organ was played – but others styles employed by the likes of Winston Wright were also very popular and of course very distinctive.

Others like Ansel Collins and Robbie Lyn and Wire Lindo must also be mentioned. And yet one keyboard who doesn't get much attention is Sonny Binns. His style was dreamy – bringing to mind pictures of clouds and such.

Larry Lawrence at Ethnic and then the Ethnic Fight label had a production idea that was very simple. Whenever one of the big artists was in town – Jimmy Cliff, The Maytals, or The Wailers – he would take the band into the studio and create rhythm tracks.

The Rockers nature of most of these tracks suggests that it was probably done around the time – when the Skin Flesh and Bones band were in town for some Dennis Brown's shows around 74/75.

At least a couple of the tracks come from the All Star Band – and are fine examples of late sixties early seventies reggae. The rest of them are Strictly Rockers!!!

Sonny plays well over the uptempo pounding tracks – providing an alternative sound to what could be heard coming from Channel One. Rockers in UK style inna fine style – Go Deh!