Blood and Fire is a British reggae record label.
Steve Barrow, Bob Harding, Mick Hucknall, Elliot Rashman and Andy Dodd formed the record label in Manchester in 1993 with the objective of reissuing roots reggae, dub and DJ albums with the integrity of jazz reissues. In the process, Blood and Fire influenced the overall aesthetic of other labels issuing archival Jamaican recordings in the 1990s and beyond.
Initial releases drew on mid 1970s Bunny Lee produced material but the label has since proceeded to reissue material produced by Yabby You and Glen Brown along with the Lee "Scratch" Perry produced Congos set Heart of the Congos and a three-CD Big Youth set, Natty Universal Dread.
Despite the reissue objective, the label has released two one-riddim albums. The first was Tree of Satta (2003) which utilises the original "Satta Massagana" riddim featuring a mixture of new and vintage voicings over the riddim along with the original version of the song by The Abyssinians. The second, Fisherman Style (2006), utilises The Congos' "Fisherman" riddim and features new material from a variety of singers including Horace Andy, U Roy, Big Youth, Luciano, Tony Tuff and Dillinger.
The label also had a sound system which has featured original Jamaican artists such as Dilinger, Trinity, Ranking Joe, U Brown, Horace Andy, Dennis Alcapone, U Roy, Spikey Tee, Country Culture, Raggamonica along with Steve Barrow and Dom Sotgiu. In July 2006 the sound went to Japan with U Roy on a three date sell out tour.
In 2007, news leaked out via the company's popular message board that Blood and Fire had stopped trading as an active company. The loss of their American distributor due to bankruptcy as well as some unfortunate management decisions, combined with an industry-wide decline in sales were to blame. Although the company has declined to make any official announcement, it is effectively out of business.
Famous quotes containing the words blood and/or fire:
“A Spirit free, to choose for my own share,
What sort of Flesh and Blood I pleas’d to wear,
I’d be a Dog, a Monkey or a Bear,
Or any thing, but that vain Animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.”
—John Wilmot, 2d Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680)
“Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present.”
—William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)