Music lineup takes center stage at Reggae Fest
Strong program adds depth to fundraising festival.
With great weather, ubiquitous plumes of fragrant smoke and a laidback vibe built around guiding themes of peace, love and unity, Austin Reggae Festival has been one of our city’s favorite spring flings for more than 20 years.
The fest — which returns to the newly renovated Auditorium Shores — draws a diverse crowd for a feel-good party that also serves as the biggest annual fundraiser for Capital Area Food Bank of Central Texas. Traditionally the musical program has been solid but a secondary draw to the overall experience. This year is different. The lineup is loaded with influential pioneers who helped shape Jamaican music and bring the sounds from the tiny Caribbean island to the world.
The party kicks off Friday with a killer double bill featuring dancehall kingpin Yellowman and Lee “Scratch” Perry. In the early ‘70s, Perry produced some of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ most powerful songs, in- cluding “Soul Rebel,” “African Herbsman” and “Kaya.” As far as musical mad scientists go, 79-year-old Perry is one of the all-time greats. His Black Ark studio gave birth to dub music, the echoey, lo-fi instrumental versions of hits that serve as a point of origin for much of modern electronic dance music.
This will be his debut appearance at Austin Reggae Festival.
“I’ve been wanting to bring ‘Scratch’ because I thought he’d bring kind of a different angle, different element to the festival,” said Angela Tharp, who books the festival’s music and owns the downtown reggae club Flamingo Cantina.
While dub birthed EDM offshoots like dubstep, the club-oriented, booty-shaking jams of dancehall are at the roots of hip-hop music, and Yellowman, who also makes his debut appearance Friday at the fest, is one of the genre’s top chanters.
On Saturday the festival shifts to the new school, with NYC-based ska-rocksteady band the Slackers and Argentini- an reggae star Alika, who Tharp describes as “the hottest South American artist that has anything to do with reggae.” Alika is also the first Spanish-language artist to headline the festival.
Sunday’s program takes festgoers all the way back to the beginning with an appearance from the Skatalites, who are wrapping up their 50th anniversary tour. Back in the mid-’60s, the Skatalites developed ska, the music at the root of all reggae forms. “Without them, I don’t think we’d have reggae as we know it,” Tharp said. Also playing on Sunday is Black Slate, a British band that backed many of the touring artists who passed through the UK in the 1970s.
Jackie Rogers from Capital Area Food Bank of Central Texas is thrilled with this year’s lineup.
“We have a lot of great bands,” she said, citing Friday’s lineup as particularly strong. In some people’s minds, the relationship between the food bank and the festival became muddied when admission switched from donations of canned goods to cash ticket sales over 15 years ago, but it’s still the biggest fundraiser of the year for the nonprofit. CAFB helps staff and promote the event, and it receives roughly one-third of the proceeds from every ticket sold.
Last year the festival raised more than $170,000, which translated into more than 400,000 meals for CAFB clients. The food bank also takes donations of nonperishable food items on-site, and last year it collected more than 1,000 pounds of food.
“We’re really appreciative of everybody who comes out to it, and everybody should feel good about buying a ticket because it’s coming back to the food bank,” Rogers said.