Added 07/08/09: The aspect of reggae music that has generally failed to be appreciated outside its grass roots audience is the plain and simple singer of songs. Outside of the core audience it’s all Bob Marley, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, roots, deejays and dub, with little appreciation of the likes of Pat Kelly, Alton Ellis, Slim Smith, Garnet Silk and Sanchez. Only John Holt managed to infiltrate largish swathes of white suburban housewives. It seems that the singers who specialised in reggae interpretations of soulful ballads or country tunes failed to attract attention amongst a wider cross-section of music fans who scratched their heads at the appeal of good songs sung well, appearing to them to be anachronistic throwbacks to the crooner days, like Engelbert Humperdink, and left them alone. Delroy Wilson was amongst the best of these interpretators of song, rarely writing his own, he specialised in covering soul hits or reggae songs that suited his style. He had been one of Jamaica’s first pop stars as a child recording mainly for Coxsone Dodd, an inspiration to Dennis Brown in particular, whose career began in similar circumstances. By the early seventies he was recording mainly for Bunny Lee scoring a big hit in Jamaica with Better Must Come, continuing throughout the decade recording the songs collected here and many more. In 1978, London sound man and record producer Count Shelly issued a double album entitles 20 Golden Hits on his Third World label, it is this album that Pressure Sounds now retrieve from the past for nowadays consumption, and it is hoped that it will be better appreciated than the Third World release which sold in very small quantities before disappearing of the radar of all but a few collectors. What almost everyone missed first time round is that these titles, familiar as they are from countless reissues and compilations, differ in one important respect and that is that in this instance the mixes are unique Prince Jammy at King Tubby’s mixes, deep bottom-heavy drum and bass mixes, sound system style, that push the already classic material into another level. Remastered from the original master tapes and beautifully packaged, in a perfect world this set would raise Delroy’s beautiful voice, stilled forever by his tragic passing in 1995, to the heights it deserves. PSCD64
Track listing:
1. A Bright & Sunny Day
2. You Have To Get A Beating
3. I’m Still Waiting
4. Can I Change My Mind
5. Find Yourself Another Girl
6. Ms Grace
7. Living In The Footsteps Of Another
8. Batter Must Come
9. Rain From The Skies
10. Joe Liges
11. I Am Doing My Thing
12. She Is Just A Play Girl
13. Love Uprising
14. Here Comes The Heartaches
15. Who Cares
16. Mash It Up
17. Stick By Me
18. You Are Mine
19. Conquer Me
20. Do Good (Everyone Will Be Judged)