During the 1980s Wilfred Limonious (1949--99) became one of Jamaican music's most prolific graphic artists, designing countless reggae album jackets and record-label logos. With silly characters, scribbled commentary and outrageous Patois-filled speech bubbles, the world he created was the perfect visual counterpart to the island's emerging dancehall scene.

In Jamaica, Clarks are loved like no other brand. They are the island's ruling name in footwear -- the "champion shoes" -- and it has been that way for as long as anybody can remember. This book celebrates the rich history of Clarks in Jamaica, with a focus on the Jamaican reggae and dancehall musicians who have worn and sung about Clarks shoes through the years. Documenting the origins of the Clarks brand in 1825 through to the introduction of their shoes into Jamaica in the 1920s and the impact of styles such as the Desert Boot, Wallabee and Desert Trek on the island, Clarks in Jamaica explores how footwear made by a Quaker firm in the quiet English village of Street, Somerset became the "baddest" shoes in Jamaica and an essential part of the island's culture. Building on the success of the first release in 2011, this updated second edition includes new interviews, previously unseen photographs, insights into Jamaica's favourite styles of Clarks from former company employees, and an expanded chapter on Jamaican fashion detailing the histories of island fashion staples such as the mesh marina (string vest), Arrow shirt, knits ganzie and beaver hat. Beautifully presented and thoroughly researched, Clarks in Jamaica is a wonderful document of Clarks' deep roots in Jamaican culture, a fitting tribute to the rich cultural exchange that has taken place between Jamaica and the UK that will appeal as much to Jamaicaphiles and lovers of Clarks shoes as to musicologists, fashion stylists and cultural historians.

An unofficial history of Jamaican dance hall music told through its graphic design, Serious T’ings Gonna Happenbrings together more than 200 original posters and signs from the early 1980s through today, drawn from the poster collection of Jamaican film and television producer and director Maxine Walters. Jamaican dance hall emerged out of reggae in the late 1970s and brought with it a new visual style characterized by bright colors and bold, hand-drawn lettering. One-of-a-kind, hand-painted posters advertising local parties and concerts have become a ubiquitous part of Jamaica’s landscape, nailed (illegally) to poles and trees across the island. Over the past three decades Walters, who has been called “the queen of Jamaican dance hall signs,” has amassed a collection of some 4,000 of these street posters, advertising local "bashments" held at bars, on beaches and in primary schools. Treated by most Jamaicans as simply a fact of life, the dance hall poster has until recently received little careful, critical attention; this volume begins to rectify that with essays by Vivien Goldman and others, alongside the posters themselves, reproduced one to a page in full color. The book also includes liner notes by and interviews with Muta Baruka and Mikie Bennett of Grafton Studios, and Tony Winkler, author of The Lunatic, as well as a compilation of original dance hall tracks curated by Mikie Bennett and Rory of Stone Love.

During the Great Depression, Harry Partch rode the railways, following the fruit harvest across the country. From his experience among hoboes he found what he called ""a fountainhead of pure musical Americana."" Although he later wrote immense stage works for instruments of his own creation, he is still regularly called a hobo composer for the compositions that grew out of this period of his life. Yet few have questioned the label''s impact on his musical output, compositional life, and reception. Focusing on Partch the person alongside the cultural icon he represented, this study examines Par.