Horace Swaby (Augustus Pablo)
BORN: 1954, St. Andrews, Jamaica
DIED: May 18, 1999
The name never gained the international recognition of Bob Marley's, but Augustus Pablo is one of reggae's legitimate legends, a pioneer who flipped the genre completely upside down. Along with producer King Tubby, Pablo almost singlehandedly invented dub, herein reggae's fat bass and popping drums are twisted and contorted until they crack like bullwhips and umble like syncopated earthquakes. This is instrumental music: voices will emerge from the supple rhythms only to trickle into an echo-shrouded void, forsaking their contribution to the bedrock grooves. And Pablo's haunting splashes of melodica (which at times conjure images of Ennio Morricone's Sergio Leone soundtracks) gave his music a sound that is immediately identifiable and as singular as anything Marley managed.
Born Horace Swaby, as a youngster he hung around Kingston's jostling recording studios, watching the masters. There he met the original Augustus Pablo -- the Upsetters keyboardist Glen Adams -- who invented the name and played the melodica, the odd instrument that gave reggae its "Far East" sound.
Adams moved to the States in 1971 and left the concept to Swaby, who began recording in 1972. As Augustus Pablo, he released a string of brilliant singles over the next five or so years on his Rockers label. The best of those singles are collected on Original Rockers; his best early album is King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976). He continued working for decades, occasionally striking a balance between the technical wizardry of his Tubby years and the slick production style of modern reggae. Though Pablo's later work only occasionally matched the breathtaking innovation of his prime material. 1981's East of the River Nile equaled his early triumphs -- the results weren't always great but they were always interesting. He died of a nerve disorder on May 18, 1999 at the age of just 46.
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