Round 1968 reggae arise, again more quiet than rocksteady, but still good for dancing. In reggae the second and fourth count are stressed with a little bas. Reggae has a strange rythm, even the best Jamaican drummers have sometimes problemw with it.
Just as with rocksteady, it isn't very clear where the name reggae came from. According to Toots Hibbert (singer of Toots & The Maytals), the term is evented bij himself. He and his band had a song "Do the reggay". He says it comes from 'do the regular", do 'common'. Some say the term just came out of someones mouth and that Toots doesn't have the "rights".
The first real reggaesong seemed "Isrealites" from Desmond Dekker. Ofcourse it isn't possible to say this song or another was the first reggaesong; reggae arised from rocksteady, so it evolved. However "Isrealites" is the first song where you hear clearly the caracteristics of reggae. The cast of a reggaeband is mostly: a singer, a background choir, lots of guitarists and a rythm section. The instruments you can hear in reggae a lot are: trumpet, trombone, horn, piano, keyboard, rythm guitar, bass guitar, lead guitar, drums, bongo's, congo's and so on. Everything was possible, it had to be nice.
In a lot of songs the lyrics are overflowing, the music feels good without being bored. You can recognise this tenet in dub. As well, reggae is good music to 'jam'.
There are different sorts of reggae.
Roots reggae
Roots reggae is a sort of reggae that doesn't sound commercial. Most of the time the lyrics are to think about. The lyrics are very important. Often there's a charge against the system in it. When you examine Bob Marley's song "I Shot The Sheriff", you would say it's about someone who shot the sheriff. Actually it's about the whole Jamaican system that isn't working, and the police doesn't do anything about it.
When Bob Marley wrote this song, it was first named "I Shot The Police". In this song he criticized the corrpution and the bad function of the police. They warned him that he would be sent to prison if he didn't change the song. So the song became "I Shot The Sheriff".
But roots reggae doesn't have always a serious character, also themes as love pass the review. "Is This Love?" is an example. Roots reggae has different faces, but most of the time you find a message in it. Roots reggae is slower as commercial reggae.
Typical roots reggae artists are: Bob Marley & The Wailers, Burning Spear, Israel Vibration, Toots & The Maytals, Bunny Wailer, Jimmy Cliff.