With yet another Beatles eulogy currently imposing unwarranted strain on a nation's already overburdened bookshelves, it is remarkable to pause a moment and reflect that Lloyd Bradley's Bass Culture is the very first comprehensive telling of the history of an entire musical genre: reggae. Which to many, of course, will automatically mean Bob Marley, and, while it's true that there are plenty of volumes devoted to the late Rasta superstar, the part he plays in Bradley's engrossing work is surprisingly slight. Paradoxically, whilst venerated in his Jamaican homeland (around half the island's population turned out for the funeral), no indigenous DJ would have been caught dead playing one of his records.

No, if Bass Culture proves anything then it's the dominant position not of the musicians themselves but of reggae's extraordinary producers. The players are here -- Marley, of course, Sly and Robbie, naturally -- but the stars of Bradley's tale are King Tubby, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Prince Far-I and the rest. Men who played their studios as surely as any instrument in shaping and defining a sound.

A sound, as Bradley explains, born of a unique set of circumstances. With nightlife in late 50s Jamaica dominated by outdoor parties and their warring sound systems, competition was fierce to be first to spin the latest Stateside jazz and R&B imports. Exclusivity was all, with the likes of top DJ Duke Reid, a former policeman, turning up to sound clashes armed with pistols, rifles, even the occasional hand grenade. But when improved communications began to rob them of their edge, the quest for new product turned inwards. Local youth adopted and adapted the import sound to give birth initially to the pumping R&B-flavoured Ska, then slowing things down for so-called Lover's Rock. From there, in the late 60s, it was but a short step -- with the addition of the outcast Rasta tradition -- to Roots and Dub as the 70s dawned, moving the music from good time tunes to genuine folk-protest.

Fortunately Bradley casts his net wide in the telling, following that reggae tradition out of the islands -- with emigration -- and into Britain, with London swiftly establishing itself as the world centre outside of Jamaica. Here Bradley examines the changes wrought by the new country -- not least the transfer indoors of the sound systems -- and is especially strong on the undoubted links between reggae and a rapidly emerging punk movement of the mid-70s. (West Londoners, the Sex Pistols and Clash grew up on it, and for a while it was considered de rigueur for punk bands to take reggae support out on tour.) The BBC, mind, were reluctant to embrace the music, often bizarrely claiming the discs -- often cut here anyway -- failed to meet broadcast standards.

Of late reggae has been on the wane. A victim of its own success and the often incendiary political strife at home (this is a bloody tale), much of its technique has been purloined by today's dominant dance trends. Ragga usurped reggae as rap's influence spread to Jamaica from America, and Roots and Dub largely survive only through dedicated reissue labels like Pressure Sounds and Blood & Fire. But if the music in its purest form is rarely seen in the mainstream anymore, its influence has never been stronger. If you genuinely want to understand most anything you hear coming out of a radio these days, Bass Culture is essential.