Desmond Dekker -- "The Israelites"
The first Jamaican recording to top the singles chart in the U.K., "The Israelites," released in 1968, had a huge impact on the music of the decade that followed. The Clash regularly performed this song during their sound checks, and the entire punk culture in the U.K. was shot through with a Jamaican influence. You hear this influence everywhere, from The Slits to Elvis Costello. Marginalized musical subcultures always prove to be a fecund source of inspiration for musical innovators, and with the "discovery" of reggae and ska, the Brits had a font of inspiration that functioned in the same way that Delta blues did to American musicians. Though some will always argue that there is an element of colonialism and exploitation at work here, I don't think that any worthwhile musical artist has ever had that kind of motivation at heart. Just listen to "The Israelites." It's a genuinely inspiring song.
This song also captures something essential to reggae and West Indian culture. The identification with an ancient tribe of exiled people is a powerful and empowering element in African American culture and in West Indian culture, though it is more pronounced thematically in reggae than in blues. Given the stately resonance of Dekker's voice, though, what we hear in the song is strength, a will to endure and overcome, not enslavement. The rocksteady beat and the Aces' spot-on harmonies fill out the picture, presenting Dekker as the Moses of his tribe, leading his people to, if nothing else, a rightful place in the culture of the Western world.
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