"Every record has a story" - R. Zee Jackson

Every record in my collection has a story. Because of the fact that I hardly bought my stuff on the internet almost every record has a little story. I can still remember where I bought it or who provided me the inspiration to buy a certain album. As a collector I used to spent my days as a hard core record hunter. With my good friend I travelled regularly to Antwerpen, Gent, Brussel, Paris and London to hunt for records. Fairs, shops, wholesalers we went everywhere and at some point for me it was more the journey then the records. Here is just a story how a specific album ended up in my collection.

This story is one about "coincidence" or maybe about the fact that there is not such thing. In may 2008 I bought a stack of reggae records from a private collector up North in Groningen. While checking them out I bumped into an album I didn`t know. It was "Seat up" by R. Zee Jackson. The sleeve looked interesting and I never saw the label before. So I give it one spin and put it aside to listen to it more carefully before deciding to add it to my collection.

In july of that same year I spend time with my family in Jamaica. On Reggae Beach near Ocho Rios I met a very friendly grey bearded Rasta man. He introduced himself to me as Castro Pink. We chat about reggae and he told me about his production work and so on. At one point he gave me his business card. The card said: "Esso Jaxxon, stage name; R. Zee Jackson". I was very surprised and I told him about his album that I found the other day. He told me the story behind the album. How they were booked as a backing band for a Jamaican artist (can`t remember who it was, I thought Alton Ellis)  on his Canadian and American tour. But there was delay because of visa problems and they killed time by recording the tracks for the album. And that was how it came out in 1980. And that`s how this album ended up in my collection. Musically it`s a solid roots album, check it out.

Flying D