PABLO IN DUB: Augustus Pablo (left), popular reggae musician blowing one of his hot songs on the melodica at the Carib theatre in 1974.

The first CD/DVD combination box set of works by the late Jamaican musician, Augustus Pablo, has been released by the international recording company, Shanachie Entertainment.

Billed The Mystic World of Augustus Pablo: The Rockers Story, the box contains four CDs, one DVD of video footage on the artiste, as well as a 20-page booklet featuring comments from entertainment writers in Jamaica, England and United States, together with some rarely seen photographs.

The music ranges from instrumentals to dubs and vocals, with recordings taken from his wide repertoire, including such classics as East of the River Nile and King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, as well as his ground-breaking productions with such major vocalists as Jacob Miller, Hugh Mundell and Leroy Sibbles.

Roots reggae selections

There are also roots reggae selections, which show Augustus Pablo's prowess on the clarinet and xylophone, as well as his trademark melodica. Such relatively unknown, but talented singers as Earl Sixteen, Delroy Williams, Paul Blackman and Norris Reid can be heard, so too collaborations with Lee 'Scratch' Perry.

Augustus Pablo won worldwide acclaim as one of the great architects of dub music and composer of melodies. A New York Times critic declared: "Pablo is more than a gifted instrumentalist; he is a masterful pop composer whose recordings are possessed by a reflective, almost mystical sadness."

Ironically, despite this recognition, only a relatively small portion of Pablo's artistic achievement is widely known, because very few people who have heard the music of this recluse has seen him in concert. Also many of his finest productions were issued in small quantities and have only been intermittently available.

Augustus Pablo was born Horace Swaby on June 21, 1953 in Kingston, Jamaica, where his father was an accountant. A self- taught piano player, Augustus Pablo began cutting classes in secondary school to prowl record shops and recording studios in downtown Kingston. In 1970, he was discovered hanging around Aquarius Records by proprietor Herman Chin-Loy, who was fascinated by Pablo's uncanny ability to play a melodica and recorded him.

Signature sound

Soon afterwards, Augustus Pablo's schoolmate, Clive Chin, introduced Pablo to his father, who owned Randy's Records and it was at that studio that the hit Java was recorded. That record introduced Augustus Pablo's signature sound in minor key and opened the doors of opportunities for him to play several instruments on records.

This introvert had always seemed uninterested in fame or fortune and over the years he recorded only when inspired, after which he often retreated to a simple life in rural areas of Jamaica. Augustus Pablo died suddenly in 1999 at age 46 from complications from a rare nerve disorder in Kingston.