Magnificent, super-soulful sufferers for the ages; full of yearning and hurt, and staying power.

Both sides are knockout.
The Willacy is terrific roots, rough and mystical, compacted and bristling, with fine trumpet.
On the flip is Big Youth’s toast of Gregory’s Look Before You Leap.

Mid-seventies Harry J dub, led by keyboardist Leslie Butler, but featuring Joe White on melodica. The original LP plus eight spaced-out dubs from the vaults, including a dubwise take on Me And Mrs Jones. (There’s no messing with Billy Paul’s singing, though. Thankfully the melodica comes to the rescue.)

This is the original, way-superior version of the song redone for Island. The dub was a Shaka special.
Recorded by Dennis Harris in 1975 at Gooseberry Studios, in London’s Chinatown.
Ijahman remembers his unscripted performance ‘pouring out from inside’. Maybe the short spell he’d just spent at Her Majesty’s Pleasure has to do with it.

Superb 1983 LP out of Channel One.

From the Life Style LP, produced by Alvin Ranglin in 1981, where it’s entitled I Hold The Handle. The lyrics re-purpose The Heptones, drawing its male-vs-female venom. Barrington’ superb singing luxuriates in this restrained, mid-tempo setting.
Plus dub.

Ace Barrington, from the Englishman sessions; with a concussive Scientist dub.

Prime, early-eighties Barrington, expertly fronting chunky Radics on rhythms like The Russians Are Coming and Get In The Groove, in Scientist mixes. No losing with those cards.