Further excursions on Black Oney’s Jah Jah Send The Parson rhythm. Far I rides a stripped dub (originally for a Carib Gems LP); the straighter Oney return was first released in a tiny run of blanks.

The mighty deejay in irresistible form, riding all-time-killer rhythms by way of Yabby You, Dennis Brown, Burning Spear and company. Plus a side of tough Skin, Flesh & Bones dubs. Errol T is at the controls. Ace.

Absolute murder.
A searing, haunting song about abuse, bitter disappointment, and heartbreak, set to a tough, chunky Jimmy Radway rhythm, with edgy organ and dread trombone.
Hortense Ellis is rawly, indelibly authentic: this is her best record by miles.
Plus some stone-classic Big Youth on the flip, ecstatically riding a lethal dub of the same megaton Fe Me Time rhythm.
Killer.

The first disc contains his 1982 LP — irresistible early dancehall — plus contemporaneous twelves sparring with the likes of Cornell Campbell and Barrington Levy. The second rounds up some Joe Gibbs heavy-hitters by other deejays and singers, from the same period.

From 1983, the same year as Jamming In The Street, his unmissable collaboration with Sugar Minott. Kicks off with a Queen Of The Minstrel excursion. Drifter is here, Late Night Blues, No More Will I Roam, Yo Yo, Real Rock. Sly & Robbie with the Aggrovators; Bunny Lee at the controls. Full-strength, body-rocking, early-eighties deejaying. It’s obvious why sounds like Black Scorpio and Kilimanjaro favoured him.

In his dazzling, rubadub flow, with intricate rhyming, lavish word-play and off-the-wall allusiveness, his genial socialism and jubilant, green-fingered vegetarianism, his knockabout sense of humour and all-round irrepressible good vibes, Ranger is the peerless heir to U-Roy and Dennis Alcapone… and the most diplomatic of envoys for the new dancehall styles just around the corner. He’s undervalued because of a perceived lack of gravitas, but he’s one of the all-time great deejays, and this is his best work.
Have a listen to the musical shock attack Automatic: over Take A Ride, no less, he bundles the Last Poets into a breakneck stream of consciousness, with walk-ons for Marcus Garvey, Bag O Wire, and Garvey’s secretary Mother Muschett; Dovecot Memorial Park and Madison Square; a bad boy who doesn’t know Ranger’s dad is a cop; succinct advice like ‘natty don’t play card inna Babylon yard’; a big baboon in the light of the moon, a broken chair, a felt hat, an anchor you can’t conchor…
“Everybody was wondering why I sounded different. And the reason I sounded different was through I did grow in England and I have the English accent and when I speak you can hear every word I am saying clearly. It was a plus for me. And then through I liked to write poetry and write songs, you know I’m a writer, I stick to the topic from start to finish.”
And the musical rhythms are a preposterous fish-tea tidal wave of Studio One classics (plus a Shank I Sheck): Take A Ride/Truths & Rights, Real Rock/Armageddon Time, One Step Beyond, Hot Milk, Throw Me Corn, Never Let Go, Full Up, Please Be True, Things A Come Up To Bump.

So let the good time roll, with Sir Coxsone at the control. When Ranger talk, the dance it have fe cork.
Deliriously enjoyable. Terrific cover art, too.
Very highly recommended. Five ribbits, five bims, five flash-its, five oinks.

Brute of a Shaka stomper.

Out-of-this-world toasting, the absolute bees knees, over Old Fashioned Way; and a stupendous piece of Skatalites, way from creation. Swing baby swing and do your own thing. Uptight and rocking out of sight.
Bims almighty.