Between 1975 and 1979, producer Joe Gibbs released a series of dub LPs in four chapters, African Dub All-Mighty. The LPs document the evolution of the new musical subgenre and sit at the center of a formidable catalog of classic reggae that includes Dennis Brown, Culture, Prince Far I, June Lodge, and Marcia Aitken, among others. VP Records recently re-pressed the chapters of African Dub, with their recognizable and striking original cover art continuing to draw new listeners after more than four decades. Gibbs, whose work spanned the rocksteady era to the onset of the digital age, was born on October 14th, 1942.
Among the threads that bind these dub albums together are their reliance on the Jamaican catalog of rocksteady and early reggae from Studio One and Treasure Isle, which can be heard throughout the series. This canon became the foundation of both dub and the simultaneous emergence of what would be known as dancehall.
Errol Thompson was the recording engineer and man at the mixing desk, and his work on these albums also defines them. Gibbs and Errol Thompson worked closely together for three decades and were known collectively as the Mighty Two.