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Check out Dennis Brown's back catalogue
When one thinks of the
average pop star of limited (at best) musical abilities that result
in months in the recording studio to eliminate the incompetently
“performed” bits, then contemplate the incredible prolific
output of the classic reggae artists. I mean, they must have been
churning out a song every other day. Perhaps churn is an inappropriate
word because many of these songs from the vaults are perfect self-contained,
direct emotional statements with genuine lyrical, melodic and
rhythmic meaning that say as much today as when they were first
uttered.
The late Dennis Brown’s
The Promised Land 1977-79 (Shock)
is a reissue of the singer’s Joseph’s
Coat Of Many Colours with several bonus tracks added that
were originally on 45s. Dennis was Jamaica’s consistently
most popular singer and shortly after the time of these recordings,
with the demise of Bob Marley,
was even touted as a possible international successor. That never
eventuated, but, as this reissue attests, Dennis had an immediately
identifiable sound often described as a “fist in a velvet
glove.”
He was both urbane and grittily intense and sang
of real issues such as poverty, despair and discrimination…probably
too many simultaneous currents for wider success outside of Jamaica.
Be that as it may the messianic power of such numbers as Three
Meals A Day or the drive of his great hit Man
Next Door, where the voice soars over dense skank, can’t
be denied. There is also a knock-out version of Marley’s
Slave Driver, which to this listener
is superior to the original. There are a couple of dubs and a
superb DJ toast by Ranking Dread
over the previous song Want To Be No General,
entitled simply General, but in the main these are songs from
the “Crown Prince Of Reggae” are of extremely high and
consistent quality. Jan 2003
