‘Crucial! Roots Classics’, the Grammy-winning album by Bunny Wailer, has been re-released by DubShot Records to mark its 30th anniversary. It is part of a distribution agreement between that New York-based company and the singer’s Solomonic Productions.
The digitally remastered 14-song set was released on May 5. It earned Wailer, who died in 2021, the second of his three Best Reggae Grammy awards in 1995.
Chris Schlarb, one of the principals at DubShot Records, explained how the label got involved with the project.
“We had done some distribution for Bunny Wailer prior to his passing. During that time, I developed a friendship with Jah B’s son, Asadenaki Wailer aka Naki. I invited him to collaborate as an artist on a production I was doing with a California-based singer named Vana Liya called ‘Future Sound of Reggae’,” said Schlarb. “We kept in touch, and he reached out to me when he was looking for a partner to distribute the Solomonic Productions catalog after Bunny’s transition.”
‘Crucial! Roots Classics’ contains ‘Crucial’, a song that summed up social turmoil in Jamaica leading up to a general election there in 1980.
‘Boderation’ and ‘Trouble on The Road’ are other songs on the album, which was initially distributed by Shanachie Records, another American company.
Bunny Wailer won his first Grammy Award in 1991 for ‘Time Will Tell’: A Tribute to Bob Marley’ which was also distributed by Shanachie Records. In 1997, he won for ‘Hall of Fame’: A Tribute to Bob Marley’s 50th Anniversary’, distributed by RAS Records.
