Brum's 'Le Reggae' re-released

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

A revised issue of Le Reggae, French reggae historian Bruno Blum's highly regarded book on the history of Jamaican music, was re-released in Europe last week.

According to a statement from the PRLog website, the new version of Le Reggae includes a foreword by renowned drum-and-bass production team, Sly and Robbie, as well as an updated chapter one which focuses on the relationship between the folk and mento forms and the Rastafarian movement.

There are also new photographs and illustrations in the 230-page book, and a discography buyers guide geared at collectors of hard-to-find reggae songs and albums.

Le Reggae was first published in 2000 and has reportedly sold more than 70,000 copies, mainly throughout Europe where the appetite for early Jamaican pop music is insatiable.

It is among a line of reggae-based projects by the prolific Paris-born Blum, a former punk-rock musician who, along with Americans Roger Steffens and Leroy Jodie Pierson and Englishman Steve Barrow, are considered the world's leading reggae archivists.

discovery of reggae

Blum said he discovered reggae in the early 1970s while living in Jamaican communities in London. Moving back to Paris in the 1980s, he began documenting the reggae scene in his hometown and other European cities.

Since then, Blum has contributed articles on reggae to major publications like Nova Magazine. He also wrote and co-directed Get Up, Stand Up, L'Histoire Du Reggae, a documentary for French television.

Many reggae critics point to Blum's contribution to the voluminous Complete Bob Marley and the Wailers 1967-1972 as his best work. The 10-CD series is a compilation of songs Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer recorded in the years leading to their signing with Island Records.

Since the 1970s, when the music emerged in the underground, France has always challenged Britain as reggae's most vibrant European location. Several magazines, such as Ragga and Natty Dread, cover the reggae scene.