Keep The Pressure Down (Essential Roots Reggae Rarities/The Jimmy Radway Productions) - Various Artists

Advantages: Timeless classics; 50 tracks for £7
Disadvantages: Recording quality of older tracks

...instrumental with shrill brass. Grating. 9. Tyrone Evans: You Done Me Wrong Heartbreaking vocals from an underrated R&B crooner. Delicate. 11. Beverley's All Stars: Double Shot More instrumental capers from the All Stars. A cover of the Pioneers' track. Fat. 12. The Melodians: Banana Water Instrumental with bold brass section, murky production. Swampy. 13. Derrick Morgan: Copy Cat The best singer on this CD back with another superb, nippy little track. Essential. 14. The Kingstonians: I'll Need You Tomorrow What a reggae barbershop quartet would sound like. Harmonious. 15. Beverley's All Stars: Smoke Screen Third offering from the band without a singer. Zippy. 16. The Clarendonians: Lick It Back Love the title, bad production. Instrumental. 17. Beverley's All Stars: Busy Bee Guess what? It's an instrumental but a very brisk one... Read review

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Advantages: some classic reggae tracks including Rivers of babylon
Disadvantages: 2 tracks are repeated

...legendary combo in 70's Jamaica. Calypso influenced Reggae song about a tragedy waiting to happen called Johnny. Good sing-along stuff. *8-007 (Shanty Town)* Sung by Desmond Dekker of 'Israelites' fame. Better in my humble opinion. What is this obsession the Jamaicans have got with 007? *9-Pressure Drop* Toots and the Maytals again. Probably the song they're best known for. *10-Sitting in Limbo* Jimmy Cliff singing the most commercial song on the CD. It's ok but nothing to write home about. Every CD has to have one. *11-You Can Get It If You Really Want* *12-Harder They Come* These are my main complaint with this album. They aren't the same as the previous versions, but almost. The only difference is that they include protracted instrumentals. As I said, this a soundtrack CD which is able to stand alone as an album. It could be a Reggae... Read review

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Advantages: Excellent covers of some old reggae standrads
Disadvantages: Sometimes a bit too slick

...and professionalism to Labour Of Love. The original Jamaican reggae artists of the 1960s were usually poor and often recorded their songs on old second hand recording equipment handed on from the US. They also had very limited time available in the recording studios so the songs were often recorded in one take and were little better than demo tracks. What they lacked in production excellence they more than made up for in the immediacy and the urgency of the presentation. So where the old originals will regularly feature bum notes and missed intros the remakes by UB40 are clean and slick. The album opens with the Eric Donaldson song Cherry Oh Baby which UB40 released as a single. The original features a much starker wailing section than UB40s but the song is a simple love song typical of early reggae before it gained its sociological credentials. Keep... Read review

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