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TETRACK LET'S GET STARTED * * * *  1978 - Greensleves - studio
- discs:1Tetrack was a harmony group formed by Carlton Hines, Dave Harvey and Paul Mangaroo. Hines ws born in Kingston in 1951 and grew up in the East Kingston, the are top musicians like The Melodians, Max Romeo and The Gaylads came from. In this same area at the foot of the Wareika Hills also lived Dave Harvey and Paul Mangaroo. They met when they were around nine years old. Around the beginning of the 70s they used to hear every night the Tetrack Hi-Fi Sound System. They started practicing with the various artists that gathered around the Sound utill in 1972 they formed their harmony group called Tetrack after the same Sound. A mutual friend introduced them to the late and great producer and musician Horace "Augustus Pablo" Swaby. They recorded a cassette with three songs: The Heptones' "Sweat For You Baby", Slim Smith's "Born To Love You" and The Chi-Lites' "Never Had It So Good". Finally in 1974 they met Pablo. A business relationship started from there, with writing and cutting their first single "I'm Not Satisfied". The song reprised Jacob Miller's rhythm of "Girl Name Pat". This was followed by "Let’s Get Together", recorded at the legendary Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark studio. But their real success came in London, where Pablo promoted five singles: "I'm Not Satisfied", "Let’s Get Together", "Let’s Get Started" ,"Only Jah Jah Know" and "Isn't It Time To See". All the three members were professional in other fields and they basically sung as an hobby. In the late 70s the musical mood was changeing quite fast with the new Dancehall sounds, therefore Pablo chose to arrange their debut album with previous successes and some brand new material. The present set is the result. Very strong and precise harmonies with a Roots feel throughout the entire set with some high peaks, with a general relaxed and meditative mood. An album that (on my side) takes more than a few listenings to be deeply understood (overstood, sorry ;) ) and appreciated. Strangely there is just a few melodica from Pablo here and there. Not surprise that "Let’s Get Together" is the stellar tune here (with melodica in the background to punctuate the rhythm), having been engineered by "Scratch". In 1981 Tetrack released a sigle called "Come A We" for Gussie Clarke, and eventually this was part of their second album called "Trouble" released in 1983. By the mid 80s Carlton Hines wrote a lot of succesfull lyrics including "Deceiving Girls" (Dennis Brown), "Rumors" (Gregory Isaacs) and "Let Off Sup'm" (both of them). Having said that, this is an overlooked harmony group that deserves the right attention. This re-release (2018) from Greensleeves label also features the overlooked Dub album "Eastman Dub". The comments will be available soon and separately at Augustus Pablo's page. 1. Only Jah Jah Know
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