PART 1 00:00-21:30
BONGO NATTY ON THE RISE IN THE BIG APPLE: LOCAL1.4 CARIBBEAN STATION WHBI

Recorded by Kenneth Bilby direct off the NYC airwaves, Labor Day, September 2, 1974.

 

A 20-minute cassette anthropologist Kenneth Bibly recorded more than 50 years ago straight off the air. For reggae enthusiasts, this one is especially special: it captures a just-released Bob Marley single, “Natty Dread,” at a time when Marley was barely known in the U.S. (Rastaman Vibration was still two years away). The DJ doesn’t even play the full track. You’ll also hear Lee Perry on one of his rare local vocal hits (a mento-inflected dub B-side), plus artists who were big in Jamaica but not yet global stars—Justin Hinds, Ken Boothe (whose “Everything I Own” would top the UK charts just months later), Owen Gray, and Gregory Isaacs. A non-reggae track by Barbados’ Merrymen rounds it out, showing the station’s mixed Caribbean audience.

 

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PART 2 21:30-44:58
WHBI RADIO, PART 2 – ‘THE CARIBBEAN EXPERIENCE’ – AFRO-ATLANTIC NYC IN THE MID-70S

Recorded by Kenneth Bilby direct off the air, September 3, 1974.

 

More from WHBI (which went off the air around 1985). This follow-up tape, recorded the very next day, is equally—if not more—compelling. It opens with Freddy McKay, followed by an early “version” side (with just hints of the dub experiments then emerging) of the same Gregory Isaacs track from Part 1. Sierra Leone’s Afro-Nationals deliver a brilliant semi-cover of Fela’s “Who’re You” (“Mr. Who You Be?”) that feels completely fresh and earns a warm “motherland” shout-out from DJ Wesley Morgan. Other highlights include Black Eagles’ “60 Minute Man” (a UK production), Ernie Smith’s “Must Be a Duppy or a Gunman,” Jerry Morris (aka Jerry Matthias of the Maytals) with the dance craze tune “Rock Back,” Lord Kitchener’s calypso classic “Millicent,” and Stanley Beckford’s deeply Jamaican mento-rooted reggae. The “Afro-Atlantic” label fits perfectly—even though the term became fashionable much later, this 1974 broadcast reveals how vibrant those diasporic musical connections already were. A lovely touch: the female announcer who periodically chimes in, “From Jamaica, taking you to Grenada, St. Vincent, Barbados, Trinidad, Haiti, St. Kitts, Puerto Rico… with the baddest jazz he can find.”