cover:  VG to VG+, some ringwear on front & back, little loose glue at top inner right seam. blue & red pen markings, stamped Sound Library on inner cover

disc: VG+ to Ex-, red pen name on label, light scuff mark on side A, no skipping, couple pops, small sticker residue on Side A below tracks
NOTE:  hissing not from vinyl quality but from Lee Perry's recording methods like blowing smoke directly on to recording reels, etc

Condition Reminder:  this record is almost 40 years old but looks pretty nice!

Of the three or four pressing of "Heart of the Congos" that can be described as original pressings, this has become the definitive one.
At 54 minutes for 10 tracks, it has by far the longest run time, featuring complete mixes of all ten tracks, and is the basis for all subsequent re-issues including the Blood & Fire re-masters.
The deepest and darkest Black Ark roots of all time.
The album that led to Lee Perry burning down his Black Ark studios!  Beautifully haunting roots music!

This mix includes the mooing cows on "Children Crying" - While it was thought to believe that Perry recorded the "mooing" noises from actual cows or used a children's toy, it was actually the baritone voice of Watty Burnett through a tin foil laced cardboard tube that produced the cow-like noises.

Perry was known for his eccentric and superstitious behavior during production sessions. He would often "bless" his recording equipment with mystical invocations, blow ganja smoke onto his tapes while recording, bury unprotected tapes in the soil outside of his studio, and surround himself with burning candles and incense, whose wax and dust remnants were allowed to infest his electronic recording equipment. He would also spray tapes with a variety of fluids, including urine, blood and whisky, ostensibly to enhance their spiritual properties.

Perry has described his relationship to the studio:

“

I see the studio must be like a living thing, a life itself. The machine must be live and intelligent. Then I put my mind into the machine and the machine perform reality. Invisible thought waves - you put them into the machine by sending them through the controls and the knobs or you jack it into the jack panel. The jack panel is the brain itself, so you got to patch up the brain and make the brain a living man, that the brain can take what you sending into it and live.

Cedric Myton began his music career as a member of Rocksteady era group The Tartans with Devon Russell and Lincoln Thompson in the mid-sixties but he was largely inactive throughout much of the seventies, only recording sporadically with The Royal Rasses.
Myton had met Lee Perry during this early period when Scratch was working at Studio One and then again in the mid-seventies when The Tartans cut the single "Woman Is A Contradicition" at The Black Ark with Perry on production.

Roydel Johnson also had history with Lee Perry, having grown up in the same small town, Kendal in Hanover, Roy remembers seeing Scratch and recalls his dancing skills of the time.
Roy moved to Kingston at the age of 16 and would hang around the music studios meeting the likes of Gladdy Anderson, Winston Wright and Ernest Ranglin who taught Roy to play guitar.
After a stint in the US Navy, stationed in the now infamous Guantanamo Bay, Roy returned to Kingston in the early seventies and again began hanging around studios in the hope that someone would record him.
Lee Perry gave him an early chance by inviting the singer to record the track "Standing On The Hill" but Scratch was unhappy with the final sound and recorded the track with Chenley Duffus instead.
Roy went off to improve his guitar skills in the hope that maybe he could make it as a musician rather that a singer. He briefly joined The Rightful Brothers band where he improved on his guitar playing and learned to become a skilled hand drummer.
The story then goes that some six years later, while Roy was sitting in the gardens of his home strumming his guitar, Lee Perry turned up to purchase a bread-fruit tree and overheard him singing.
The song went "Row fisherman row...keep on rowing your boat" and an impressed Scratch told Roy to come by his studio to maybe record the song.

Cedric Myton had by this point (mid-seventies) become a devout Rastafarian and was a member of a Nyabinghi religious order in Kingston. Roy Johnson also joined this order and the two of them would sell clothing items to dreads to make some cash.
When Lee Perry invited Roy to come by the Black Ark the pair arrived as a duo around the summer of 1977 and set to work on the song "Fisherman".
The first version however was considered poor by all involved and so Scratch arranged for the two of them to return the next day with a different set of musicians.

It was the sessions that followed that The Congos would record some of their greatest songs and Scratch would help shape one of the finest albums he ever created at the Black Ark.
Songs like "Open Up The Gate", "Sodom and Gomorrow"and "Solid Foundation" are all powerful Rasta statements. The Congos would tackle issues ranging from the forces of Babylon, Christianity and the political workings of both in their songwriting, incorperating Biblical references to emphasize the work.

The production from Scratch adds to the power of the songs, this was the Black Ark sound at it's peak in creativity and Scratch would work non-stop for days to get what he wanted from the music.
Lee Perry saw something in the Congos and in the songs they had written and he truely wanted to get the best out of the group and push the message given by the songs lyrics.

Watty Burnett, a regular figure at the studio, joined the group at this point as Perry thought his deep baritone vocal would help add a further dimension to the overall sound of The Congos.
Watty had recorded a number of singles with Perry but none of them were selling in numbers until his cover of a Brook Benton tune adapted to become "Rainy Night In Portland" sold well.
Watty had asked Scratch if he could remain a solo singer but Perry told him to stick with The Congos as he felt this could be the album that would break big like Perry's previous hit albums from Max Romeo (War Ina Babylon), The Heptones (Party Time), Junior Murvin (Police And Thieves) and George Faith (To Be A Lover) which had all been picked up by Chris Blackwell's Island Records and given widespread distribution.

To further shape the vocal sound of the album Perry brought in members of The Heptones and The Meditations to provide harmonies and also the late great Gregory Isaacs, who was also recording at the Black Ark during this period, who appeared on the song "La La Bam Bam Bam".
The Congos album was coming together and Scratch would spend more time on this production then any of his previous efforts.

As The Congos were spending more and more time around Lee Perry they began to influence him and other people at the studio with their deep Nyabinghi religious beliefs. Watty Burnett became a member of the order and Scratch himself had begun to knot up his hair, eat more healthy foods and excerise.
More and more dreadlocked members of the Nyabinghi also began to assemble around the Black Ark, conducting rituals, smoking large quantities of herb and having long discussions into the night.

Lee Perry issued the first few singles by The Congos, some of which on his new disco-cork print with extended dub versions and Island Records picked up on these. Chris Blackwell is said to have been particularly fond of the song "Congoman" and expressed an interest in a full album release by the group despite getting mixed reviews from the British press.
Island records released a number of singles for Perry during this period by other Black Ark artists of the time such as George Faith, Keith Rowe and Lord Creator.
Island even sent British rock artist, the late Robert Palmer, to the Black Ark to record some songs, although Palmer is said to have been troubled by the menecing presence of the seemingly anti-white Nyabinghi members who were hanging around the studio during his time there.
Indeed the influence of the Nyabinghi Order at the Black Ark was growing strong and Lee Perry was unable to do much about the many unwanted visitors to his home. It was starting to frustrate him and more importantly interupt his recording sessions.

In early 1978, many months after the first recording sessions with the Congos, "Heart Of The Congos" was finally released in very small quantities on Perry's Black Art label. The cover of these first editions had a picture of Cedric Myton and Roy Johnson (Watty Burnett was not present during the photo-shoot) and some had hand-painted yellow stripes down the borders covering the blue stripes printed on the covers.
other reviews:
upsetter.net/scratch/station/2006/2006_congos.htm

The Congos ?– Heart Of The Congos

Label: Black Art ?– KLP005 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Jamaica Released: 1978 Genre: Reggae Style: Roots Reggae

Tracklist

A1 Fisherman
A2 Congoman
A3 Open Up The Gate
A4 Children Crying
A5 La La Bam-Bam
B1 Can't Come In
B2 Sodom & Gomorrow
B3 The Wrong Thing
B4 Ark Of Covenant
B5 Solid Foundation

Notes

This is the second pressing/mix on Black Art, from 1978.  The original demo-like version with less reverb and no cow noise was rejected by Island in 1977.

Barcode and Other Identifiers

• Matrix / Runout: KLP005 A    CONGOS
• Matrix / Runout: KLP005 B    SCIENTIST
  

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