Stanley Motta

Stanley Motta

Various Artists - Mento Madness - Zinc Fence - CD

Stanley Motta's mento productions was not the foundation that reggae

music was built upon. Reggae links go back to New Orleans and the

American South in one direction and eastwards towards Africa in

another direction. Lyrically there are links between reggae music and

Mento. Dancehall owes a lot to what was first expressed in a mento

style. 'Hill And Gully Ride' for instance is one example, with 'This

Long Time Gal A Never See You' being another example. Both tunes can

be found here. This eighteen track CD with its twenty page booklet

from Steve Barrow and Paul Coote pulls together all that you really

need to know about a Jamaican musical era - that is not well

documented.