REGGAE TO POP
This month Simon Barnard shows how reggae feel has been brilliantly adopted and adapted by musicians from very different musical genres.
Over the last three articles we have looked at some of the key styles of reggae music and a variety of approaches to playing guitar in the genre. These different approaches, from skank rhythms to lead guitar lines, have influenced many other styles over the following decades. Later artists have adopted the feel and groove of reggae to pay homage to the originators of the genre. This month I’m looking at how certain artists have fused reggae with their own styles of music. The bands and artists I have chosen to explore are The Police, Stevie Wonder, and 311.
The Police have always worn their reggae influences proudly. With Sting and Stuart Copeland holding down the bass and drums respectively, guitarist Andy Summers often used a reggae style skank rhythm, fused with a plethora of effects and extended chords to bring his own brand of reggae influenced guitar to the mix. Before joining The Police, Summers played guitar for numerous bands and artists such as Soft Machine and Mike Oldfield. While punk music was popular around the time of their first album in 1978, The Police weren’t inspired by it musically (although they did borrow the attitude). Reggae was accepted in punk circles due to shared cultural values, so The Police fused reggae with punk and jazz. One of Andy Summers’ trademarks was his use of suspended chords, which you will see in the first third of this month’s study piece.
Stevie Wonder, a pentatonic riff writer, was also a fan of the reggae groove. His song Master Blaster was written as a homage to Bob Marley, with the lyrics “we’ll be jammin’ until the break of dawn” a tribute to the classic Bob Marley song, Jamming. This song featured a classic reggae drum groove, a skank guitar line and some single-note unison lines. Master Blaster, along with songs such as Boogie On Reggae Woman, show how Stevie took his Motown roots and fused them with other styles to create some unique sounds, which attracted fans from all walks of life.The middle third of our study piece takes a look at how this musical ‘Wonder’ created single-note unison lines.
The final band we decided to include is 311. Formed in 1988 and still going strong today, 311 fuses many styles of music, including a love for the uplifting sound of reggae. Vocalist Nick Hexum plays occasional guitar in the band and is the principal songwriter. However, here we focus on the playing of lead guitarist Tim Mahoney. Mahoney, like Summers, uses a variety of effects to provide complementary flavours to 311 compositions. Mahoney has said that he finds using different effects inspirational when creating guitar parts. It is his love of technology, coupled with the influence he takes from guitarists as diverse as Dimebag Darrell, Jerry Garcia and Bob Marley, which give him his unique approach to playing the guitar. The final section of the study piece shows how Tim Mahoney might use arpeggios and delay to create a memorable guitar part in a reggae context.
Although our study piece uses effects to emulate some of Andy Summers and Tim Mahoney’s sounds, all of the examples in the score can be played with a simple clean tone. For the first section on Andy Summers, I added some chorus and flanger, and for the final Tim Mahoney section, from bar 37 on, I used phaser plus a delay set to 470ms to provide an interesting rhythmical repeat.
Many other bands, including UB40, The Specials, Madness and more, have used the reggae feel in their music. If you write and record your own songs, why not try including some reggae feel, even in a subtle way.
NEXT MONTH Simon looks at reggae guitar soloing with the great Junior Marvin
EXAMPLE STUDY PIECE [Bars 1-18]
We start by looking at Andy Summers’ style. Andy often used an off-beat skank rhythm, playing triads on beats 2 and 4 of each bar, and here an off-beat Asus4 followed by a Gsus4 end each progression. The use of sus chords with chorus and delay is one of many trademarks of Andy’s sound.
STUDY PIECE ...CONTINUED [Bars 19-36]
For the Stevie Wonder section we utilise a single-note octave line
2 played in unison with the bass, as in many reggae songs. Most of this section is
2 played staccato, so keep the notes nice and short. This is followed by a typical
2 Stevie Wonder unison solo section, played on guitar, bass, clavinet and organ. It’s in D Minor Pentatonic and is the trickiest part of the piece. You may want to start off with a slower tempo and build up to full speed before trying to play along.
[Bars 37-54]
We close the piece with some arpeggios in the style of Tim Mahoney of the band 311. The first eight bars employ Dm7 and Cmaj7 arpeggios, while an added 9th interval for each chord occurs over the following eight bars. The addition of the 9th degree of certain chords is of course a ploy of The Police’s Andy Summers, and you can hear it on songs such as Every Breath You Take and Message In A Bottle.