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Glenmore Brown — known throughout his career as 'the Rhythm Master' and, less flatteringly, as 'God Son' — began as a vocalist in Sonny Bradshaw's jazz group in the 1960s before moving into production, founding the Pantomine and South East Music labels and scoring an early hit with the melodica duet 'Merry Up' in 1972.
He was one of the first producers to give King Tubby a formal credit on his releases, and Termination Dub, compiled by Blood and Fire in 1996 and spanning rhythm tracks cut across six years at Federal, Dynamic, Duke Reid, Randy's, Joe Gibbs, and Harry J studios, is the fullest single-disc account of that partnership. All mixing was done at King Tubby's own studio, 18 Dromilly Avenue, Waterhouse.
The personnel roster is unusually deep even by Blood and Fire's standards, reflecting how many hands touched Brown's rhythms across nearly a decade of recording: bass from Aston 'Family Man' Barrett, Robbie Shakespeare, Val Douglas, Jackie Jackson, Lloyd Parks, and Karl Pitterson across different sessions; drums from Carlton Barrett, Fish Clarke, Santa Davis, Winston Grennan, and Mikey 'Boo' Richards; and guitar from a genuinely startling cast that includes Peter Tosh and Al Anderson (the Wailers' American lead guitarist) alongside the more expected Willie Lindo, Ranchie McLean, and Eric Frater.
The title track — a previously unreleased dub of Brown's own 1972 'Dirty Harry' instrumental, prominently featuring Richard 'Dirty Harry' Hall's tenor saxophone — is cited by nearly every reviewer as the collection's centrepiece, alongside two contrasting takes on 'Assack Lawn No. 1 Dub' and an extended, over-six-minute return to the 'Wicked Can't Run' rhythm.
Discogs reviewers consistently place the album alongside King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown and Pick A Dub as an essential entry point into dub as a genre, and one reviewer's technical observation is worth repeating: on 'Assack Lawn Dub,' Tubby stops the track just after the intro, audibly rewinds the tape, and lets it restart from the beginning — a turntablist's trick executed decades before turntablism had a name.
Several vocal originals that these rhythms were built from resurface on Sylford Walker's Lamb's Bread album, also documented in this vault; the royalties from that shared catalogue reportedly allowed Walker to buy a house.
Glen Brown relocated to the United States in the 1980s and died in a New York nursing home on 4 October 2019, suffering from diabetes, dementia, and kidney failure — a difficult end for a producer whose rhythms are still being rediscovered by new listeners.
A note on the label: Blood and Fire was founded in Manchester in 1993 by reggae historian Steve Barrow, Bob Harding, and Mick Hucknall of Simply Red. Their releases were remastered from original analogue masters and documented with liner notes that treated Jamaican music with the same scholarly rigour previously reserved for jazz reissues. The label stopped trading in 2007. Steve Barrow died on 27 May 2026, aged 80.
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TRACKLIST & TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Termination Dub
3:40 - Save Our Dub
7:08 - Leggo The Herb Man Dub
10:55 - World Dub - Away With The Bad
14:27 - Wicked Tumbling Version
16:54 - Dub Universal
20:34 - Wicked Can't Run This Dub
23:55 - Assack Lawn No. 1 Dub (Version 1)
27:09 - Assack Lawn No. 1 Dub (Version 2)
30:42 - Father For The Living Dubwise
33:26 - There's Dub
36:32 - Version 78 Style
40:10 - Lambs Bread Dubwise
42:36 - Melodica International (Extended Mix)
*(Total runtime: 49:02 — matches Discogs' documented 49:01 to within 1 second)
VAULT SPECS:
🎵 Artist: Glen Brown & King Tubby
📀 Album: Termination Dub (1973-79)
📅 Year: 1973-1979 (recorded) / 1996 (Blood and Fire release, BAFCD015)
🏷️ Label: Blood and Fire
🎚️ Style: Dub
🎛️ Produced By: Glenmore Brown (mixed by King Tubby at 18 Dromilly Avenue, Waterhouse)
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