ROOTS GROUP MYSTIC REVEALERS MAKING A CRUCIAL COMEBACK!

Mystic Revealers emerged in the 1990s, a time when self-contained Jamaican reggae bands were quickly disappearing from the music scene.

They are on the comeback trail. Last week, VP Records released Crucial Cuts, a 13-track set that revisits the band’s music from the 1980s and 1990s.

Anthony ‘Billy Mystic’ Wilmot, Revealers’ guitarist and lead vocalist, said the album is also available on iTunes. It is the first time their music has been released digitally.

“We’ve been getting a lot of demand for the music but all the stuff we did with Ras and Mesa are no longer available,” Wilmot explained. “VP approached us to put out the whole catalogue but we thought that was extreme, so we agreed on a compilation.”

Mystic Revealers were signed to independent companies Ras Records and Mesa/Blue Moon Records in the 1990s. They recorded one album for the latter (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records) before major label politics saw Mesa being cut from the Atlantic roster.

Wilmot notes VP’s involvement is strategic.

“They see that there’s a lot of West Coast reggae out there an’ none of it is by Jamaicans. The music is popular with surfers in that part of the US, an’ because I’m a surfer they thought it would be great to get into that marketplace,” he explained.

Crucial Cuts contains Judgement Time, Righteous, Border Line, Got to be a Better Way and That’s Life (Jah Works), some of the songs that made Mystic Revealers attractive to labels like Ras and Mesa/Blue Moon. Now in his mid-50s, Wilmot expects the set to spur renewed interest in the band he started in 1978.

Mystic Revealers in the early days

“I think it will definitely introduce us to a new generation,” he said.

Drummer Nicky Henry, bassist Leroy ‘Lion’ Edwards and keyboardist Earl Fitzsimmons, who played on most of the Crucial Cuts tracks, are the other members of the band.

Mystic Revealers formed in the St Andrew coastal community of Bull Bay. Their first hit, the ballad Saw You Smiling, was released in 1985.

— Howard Campbell