Prison Oval Rock : Barrington Levy

This is a 10 track Barrington album originally released by Volcano in 1984, a couple years after his massive breakout in the years of '79 through '80 wich gave us such great albums as Shaolin Temple, Englishman, Robin Hood, and Bounty Hunter.  Junjo Lawes took the production leed on this album, bringing the Roots Radics in to back Levy during the sessions at Channel One and Harry J's in Kingston.  Sylvan Morris and Scientist sat at the boards and earned the mixing engineer credits on this one.  It's a pretty solid album - my cd copy was released by VP in about 1992 and  the sound quality is excellent.  It leads off with the title track, followed by the dub version.  Out of the remaining eight tracks I really enjoyed #4 (Good Loving) and the very catchy #3 (You Say You Love Me).  Along with the classic Barrington Levy style and voice inflections, you might hear familiar Junjo rythms (a good example is #8 Hammer - wich shares beats with Daweh Congo's Human Rights & Justice). This is a nice albums with it's sweet spots, but no real need to add it to your top notch group of discs unless you are a true Barrington Levy aficianado.

Rich Man Poor Man : Barry Brown

There are 14 tracks on this late seventies greatest hits with most of them ranging from roughly 3 to about 4 minutes.  The Revolutionaries, Roots Radics, The High Times Band, and the Aggrovators are all credited as backing bands on different tracks giving this a disc a wide variety in instrumental styles.  This is a true Kingston production going down at Harry J's, King Tubby's and Channel One.  This is a fairly good representation of the Barry Brown style and coupled with King Jammy presents Barry Brown you should get the best of Barry Brown.  This CD is from the Moll Selekta label with material from 1978-1980.  My favorites in this one are #1 (Fire Fire), #4 (Pass Up the Chalice), and #7 (Burial).  This version of "Burial" is my personal favorite of all the attempted covers - very nice pace - very nice vocal delivery.  The last two tracks on this disc are the title track and it's dub counterpart, a very nice way to end the set,  instead of starting the album with the title track.