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Various Artists - Trojan Rude Boy Box Set - Disc 1 (1976)

Track listing:
  1. Guns Fever Baba Brooks & His Band 2:54
  2. Dance Crasher Alton Ellis & The Flames 2:40
  3. Rude Boy Gone A Jail Desmond Baker & The Clarendonians 2:47
  4. The Preacher Alton Ellis & The Flames 2:14
  5. Gunmen Coming To Town The Heptones 2:32
  6. Hooligans Count Lasher With Lyn Taitt & The Baba Brooks Band 2:45
  7. Blessing Of Love Alton Ellis & The Flames 2:26
  8. Don't Be A Rude Boy The Rulers 2:22
  9. Soldiers Take Over The Rio Grandes 2:38
  10. Desmond Dekker & The Aces - 007 (Shanty Town) Trojan Rude Boy Box Set 2:30
  11. Denham Town Winston & George 2:13
  12. No Good Rudie Justin Hinds & The Dominoes 3:09
  13. Rudie Gets Plenty The Spanishtonians 2:41
  14. Guns Town Clancy Eccles 2:40
  15. Rudie Bam Bam The Clarendonians 2:24
  16. Drop The Ratchet Stranger Cole & The Conquerors 1:59
  17. Copasetic The Rulers 2:35

Notes

Jamaica's independence in 1964 started in motion a complex series of interrelated cultural changes, one of which, the migration of thousands of Jamaicans from the country to the city of Kingston, led to massive joblessness in the city. Nothing is more desperate than an angry young man with no job, no money, no future (and thus no attainable dreams), and tons of time on his hands, and by the long, turbulent summer of 1966, the rude boy (as such young men were named) phenomenon was at high tide. Drawing iconic style and identity from spaghetti Westerns and James Bond films, the rude boys were on an unavoidable collision course with the Kingston police, and a remarkable series of records documenting the exchange began appearing in 1966 just as ska was beginning to morph into early rocksteady. This delightful three-disc, 50-track box set collects a number of these rude boy anthems, including enduring classics like the Heptones' "Gunman Coming to Town" (with its odd William Tell intro), Desmond Dekker's "007 (Shanty Town)," Alton Ellis' "Cry Tough," the Slickers' "Johnny Too Bad," and Lee "Scratch" Perry's "Set Them Free." A good deal of the rebel righteousness and outsiders' view that came to be identified with reggae in Jamaica really starts with these tough little tunes, which represented a very public forum on the relative merits -- pro and con -- of the rude boy stance. A well-chosen set, full of wall-to-wall classics.