King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown is a dub studio album by Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, released in 1976. It features Carlton Barrett on drums, Robbie Shakespeare and Aston Barrett on bass guitar, and Earl "Chinna" Smith on guitar. Pablo produced the album and played melodica, piano, organ and clavinet. All sessions with the musicians were recorded at Randy's studio in Kingston, Jamaica, and then Pablo took the tapes to King Tubby for mixing. The album has been released on several different labels, often with slightly different artworks and track lists. The title song is a dub version of the Jacob Miller song "Baby I Love You So", also produced by Pablo. It was released as a 45 rpm single in 1974 on the Mango label (MS-2001), with "Baby I Love You So" as the B-side. A distinctly different mix of the song with vocals and dub can be found on the Jacob Miller and Augustus Pablo album, Who Say Jah No Dread, released in 1992.

Critical reception

King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown was ranked 5th best reggae album and 470th overall in the 1994 book All Time Top 1000 Albums, for which Colin Larkin collected votes from professional musicians and critics, as well as from the record buying public. The album was listed in the 1999 book The Rough Guide: Reggae: 100 Essential CDs. In 2007, The Guardian included it in their list of "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die". In 2022, Treble magazine named King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown one of the ten essential remix albums. It was chosen as the second best reggae album of all time by Mojo magazine in their 2024 list of "The 50 Best Reggae Albums Ever". The title track was ranked number 266 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Track listing

Track listing taken from Clocktower Records LP CT0085 All tracks composed by Augustus Pablo Side one Side two 2003 Deluxe edition bonus tracks

<li> "Black Gunn" </li> <li> "1 Ruthland Close" </li> <li> "1-2-3 Version" </li> <li> "Silent Satta" </li> </ol>

Personnel