Monday, November 24, 2008

Rockers Roadshow "Supposedly" to be released on DVD!!!

At last! this is great news for all you Reggae film fans, finally a new dvd release is planned for the 10 part vintage series 'Rockers Roadshow' which was made by the UK Reggae/Rasta film maker Howard Johnson, who doesn't get anywhere near as much credit as he deserves for his contribution to films of this kind.

Howard Johnson was the man responsible for one of the best reggae documentaries ever made 'Deep Roots' and documentaries like 'Rasta-in-A-Babylon' and the 'One Love' series. One of the most sought after films amongst Reggae film collectors is the 'Rockers Roadshow' series which aired on UK TV in 1983, it was a real big step at the time to be able to see Reggae bands singing about corrupt governments and Babylon system burning down on prime time TV.
10 episodes aired, the show traveled around the UK visiting some of the countries best Reggae and Black Music nightspots.

For anyone whose seen the show you will understand the energy captured on film at the time and just what a special show it was. It was the first time that such a show had been aired on the nations TV, and it helped switch on allot of people to Reggae at the time.
you can find some shorts clips of the show circulating on websites like youtube, which featured bands like 'Prewax' who happen to be reforming, 'Macka B' and 'Natural Roots' to name a few.

Packed full of Mikey Dreads great hosting &toasting talents, incidentally Mikey Dread himself had not even been able to track down a copy of his own show which was a shame, he would have been very happy to see this released at long last, don't miss this one.........
No definite dates yet but i hear it may be released in February sometime, under the 'Reggae Nashville' series on the Screen Edge Label which will dealing with more of Howard Johnson's film releases over the coming year. Already they have released 'Deep Roots', 'Marcus Garvey - A Giant of Black Politics' all of which can be purchased on amazon.com
 


11 comments:

  1. rasta !!! fire blaze !! what a show !!! I will make a purchase for family and brothers !!! from babylon central los angeles california usa

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  2. The show was supposed to have been released in Feb.2010 but i see that they released the 'ONE LOVE' dvd set instead, then some other of Howards films, still waiting on Rockers Roadshow, the company who releases it doesn't like giving out information but i have been assured that it is getting a release soon, so just keep an eye out on the "Reggae Nashville" dvd series from Screen Edge and i'm sure we will see it very soon, i'll be posting up a thread soon as it comes out....

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  3. OK, well I'll be still waiting then - 1!

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  4. Yeh it is a shame it's still not been released but it was the films director who told me that is is comming, he mentioned February 2010 but i see they went with some other titles of his first, i am sure it will be released soon, just a shame that Screen Edge don't give out any info about their forth comming releases! i'm sure it won't be long...

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  5. I really hope they release it in 2011 as I really want to see Beshara's performance.

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  6. Check Beshara Live here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngsNjnNM3Pw

    The dvd is long overdue but the info came from the producer of the show so i'm confident we'll see it soon. They are slowly releasing most of his films.

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  7. as its now 2012 does anybody know if its been released yet. i would like to re-new the copy i did in the early 80s.

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  8. No still nothing but i have heard rumours that the reason is they are missing one episode! i have a feeling it's the episode with Beshara in Birmingham! Will post on here as soon i hear anything but the label releasing the dvds Screen Edge does not reply to questions via email... maybe someone else will get better luck...

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  9. I must change the title of this post to "Supposedly" as the info was obviously not correct about the time of release etc...

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  10. Would love to hear from you if you have copies of the whole series....

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