The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as a recently estab. sp. for rege, as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either rags, ragged clothing or a quarrel, a row.Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit Do the Reggay by The Maytals, but there are many different theories as to how the term originated. The music itself was faster than rocksteady, but tighter and more complex than ska, with obvious debts to both styles, while going beyond them both. Speaking to the terms origins, reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated: We didnt like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of Fat Man. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like reggae, reggae and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic] and soon all the musicians were saying reggae, reggae, reggae. Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (loose woman) into reggae. However, Toots Hibbert said: Theres a word we used to use in Jamaica called streggae. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say Man, shes streggae it means she dont dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, OK man, lets do the reggay. It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing Do the reggay, do the reggay and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound its name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now its in the Guinness World of Records. Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for the kings music. The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning to the king.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 15:17:05 +0000