Rockstone: Native's Adventures with Lee Perry at the Black Ark... September 1977
"Black Tracks" and "Late September in May"
On September 25, 2007, Pressure Sounds released this collection of tunes by Wayne Jobson, his brother Brian, and their band Native, unearthing a hidden treasure 30 years after it was recorded. The liner notes, insightfully written by Jobson, claim, "Native was the first rock reggae band out of Jamaica with our influences ranging from Sly and the Family Stone and War to Traffic and Pink Floyd." Though I'm not sure if they beat Jacob Miller & the Inner Circle at being the first to fuse reggae with rock, they definitely had a more original sound with at least some of those influences apparent. They were also one of the first multi-racial outfits from the island, the Jobson's themselves having a mixed heritage of English, African, Spanish, and Scottish, which also shows a bit in their songwriting. Check out the great guitar work in "Black Tracks", and the psychedelic rock influence that can be heard in the writing of "Late September in May." Jobson's voice is a little wobbly, but it fits the dark and murky feeling, plus there are some heavyweight instrumentals throughout.
After his first session with Scratch, Jobson took the tapes to London where they quickly created a buzz- John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols and a big reggae fan, apparently said it was "the best new stuff out of Jamaica." Scratch, however started to become more and more erratic and the Black Ark started to fall apart, so the tracks were finished at Dynamic Studios but never officially released until now. Jobson ended up becoming a successful DJ in LA, and also produced the award-winning (and pretty intense) documentary on Peter Tosh, Stepping Razor Red X.
This is really a lost gem that has Perry's signature all over it, but also stands out from other JA recordings of the time as something in it's own class.
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