Misty in Roots, a British roots reggae band that took shape in the mid-1970s in Southall, London, began as a collective of five lead singers and assorted musicians. Their first album, the 1979 live recording Live at the Counter Eurovision, was captured at a Brussels event organised as a counterpoint to the established Eurovision and is packed with Rastafarian songs. John Peel of BBC Radio 1 championed the album, which helped introduce roots reggae to white listeners. The band released Wise and Foolish in 1981, followed by Earth in 1983 and Musi-O-Tunya in 1985, and by the time of its second proper album the lineup had been reduced to three members. In 1982 they were asked to perform in Zimbabwe as a nod to their backing of the independence cause, and no reggae band had toured South Africa, Poland and Russia before them. They also appeared twice on BBC Radio 1's In Concert series, in 1983 and 1985, and in 1995 they released the album The John Peel Sessions, which mixed new tracks with new versions of earlier material. Following a pause in recording, they came back in 2002 with the mini-album Roots Controller, released through Real World Records and made up of six new tracks plus earlier material. The band kept playing live at least through 2014 and supported Rock Against Racism, with several benefit gigs for anti-fascist causes. Its catalogue also includes the 1994 compilation Chronicles – The Best of Misty in Roots.
