OK, this one's a bit of a nightmare. The African Roots album was released under several names over 40+ years. It was recorded in the mid-'70s as a Lloyd Brevett solo album. A lot of the original Skatalites went into the studio and knocked out the recordings, though, and it kind of became a Skatalites album. It was released under several titles: The Skatalites, The Legendary Skatalites, Rebirth Skatalites, and African Roots. To complicate things further, there was a dub version of the album released as Herb Dub - Collie Dub, but I'm leaving that one alone here.

The earliest versions, those with the first three titles mentioned above, were all released around 1976. There were subtle differences among these versions, which reflect a broad range of scarcity and dramatically affect the market prices. I am not an expert on these, and will forego trying to value them. Instead, I will focus on the versions that carried the African Roots title.

The first appearance of a record with that title was 1978. It contained the same eight tracks as its predecessors. Same with the 1985 U.S. issue. In 1992, a CD version was released in Japan. This one started adding some tracks: two dub versions plus four other tracks. This became the baseline for the subsequent releases: first, in Germany, on Grover, as a LP and then CD. Then, as a Moon Ska CD. Every version titled African Roots had different artwork.

Grover reissued it again in 2016 on green vinyl (with a bonus CD version). This one was limited to 250 numbered copies.

This page was last updated on March 31, 2020.

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