Yabby You - Dread Prophecy: The Strange And Wonderful Story Of Yabby You (Shanachie)

Grass got to know Yabby You during his first trip to Jamaica in 1982. That first encounter initially led to the release of 'One Love One Heart', a compilation of older songs, and in 1985 Yabby's 'Fleeing From The City' album was also released on the label. When Vivian Jackson passed away in 2010, Grass saw it as his duty to keep the musical heritage of Yabby You alive and now finally presents 'Dread Prophecy: The Strange And Wonderful Story Of Yabby You', a beautiful box set containing three discs full of well known, lesser known and even a number of previously unreleased tracks. With this box Grass states he wants to give a whole new generation of reggae lovers the opportunity to get to know Yabby's work and, at the same time, treating Yabby's hardcore fans to a number of previously unreleased gems. The 56 (!) tracks in this box are neatly organized: on the first disc, titled 'Classics', you will find Yabby's "hits" (as already featured on the 1997 'Jesus Dread' double compilation album released by Blood & Fire), the second disc, 'The many Moods Of Yabby You' focuses on Jackson's production work and his collaborations with artists like Michael Prophet, Trinity, Pat Kelly and The Melodians, and on the third and final disc, appropriately titled 'Rarities', a number of rare and unreleased tracks can be found (dubplates like 'Jah Vengeance' or 'Black Is Our Colour Dub', with crackling deafening the music, are unnecessary additions, but that's nitpicking). If all that still doesn't suffice the box finally also contains a 28 page booklet full of rare photos from the archives of Yabby's widow Jean, John Williams and Kate Simon and contributions by David Katz, Roger Steffens, Alex Peacemaker and Randall Grass himself. It's highly unlikely a better anthology of Yabby You's work will ever appear, so doubting is not an option!