专辑简介

Having completed his high school education Skip left Dayton with a band called the Ohio Hustlers, which broke up not long after relocating to New York City. His first professional work as a musician began when he formed the Entertainers who taured the east coast through to the mid-70s. He moved on to Hartford, Connecticut, and there's when he met Doug Wimbish, who played in a band called Wood, Brass & Steel. Wood, Brass & Steel recorded a selftitled album for All Platinum Records, the Iabei of Sylvia and Joe Robinson, in 1976. Skip and Doug played a Iot ot music together, in clubs and colleges around New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. ln 1979, three years after the Wood, Brass & Steel album, Skip and Doug teamed up with drummer Keith LeBlanc and they became the house band for Sugarhill Records, the Robinson's new Iabei. The trio played on some of the earliest rap hits such as The Message and White Lines (Don't Do lt) with Grandmaster !Flash. While they worked at Sugarhill, LeBlanc also freelanced at Tommy Boy Records where he first met Adrian Sherwood. LeBlanc introduced his colleagues to Sherwood and the trio were persuaded to relocate in London. Upon their entry into the On-U Sound fold, the group formed a production team and, again, a house band, this time for On-U. The three participated in dozens of records on Sherwood's Iabei. The partnership developed and metamorphosed into a fully-fledged band, Tackhead. Though good working relationships remain to this day, the dispersion of Tackhead in the early 1990s saw Keith and Doug pursue more of their own projects and play less often togther. For Skip the time since has seen him work ever more closely with Sherwood, both on his own projects and as a musician or guest vocalist on many other of Adrian's On-U Sound productions - such as by Junior Delgado, Bim Sherman, Dub Syndicate and African Head Charge, sometimes along side Keith and /or Doug. Skip has been the prime mover behind Little Axe since araund 1992. Under a name inspired by Bob Marley's Small Axe and gospel singer Willmer 'Little Ax' Broadnax, the debut album Wolf That House Built was a personal take on blues and dub, and was released to critical acclaim in 1994. This had followed a partial release in Japan compiled in a slightly different form and with a different title (Never Tum Back) the previous year. The second Little Axe album, Slow Fuse, was also weil received. NOW „ R E T U R N“ is the essence of those first two albums (digital remastered) and very sensitive compiled with remixes, rarities (two tracks are unreleased out of that ssessions = #) and plenty of bonus tracks on the digital version.