Flashback review of Horace Andy: "In the Light/In the Light Dub"

Since there has been a notable slowdown of reggae releases in the last month or so, I've decided to take this edition of the column to look back on one of my all time favorite albums.

Horace Andy, who will be celebrating his 49th birthday in less than a month, has one of the most recognizable voices in reggae. His unusually high tenor is instantly recognizable, both by old school reggae fans as well as fans of 90's trip-hop group Massive Attack. One of the best available collections of Andy's music is the 1977 album In the Light and it's dub counterpart, In the Light Dub. Blood and Fire did us all the great favor of re-releasing these albums in 1995 on a single disc.

The album starts off with my personal favorite Horace Andy tune, the incredibly wicked "Do You Love My Music." His voice is in absolute top form here and the melody is slow, deliberate, and incredibly memorable. I thought it would be hard to dub this in such a way that it was as powerful as the vocal version, but King Jammy did it -- nice heavy bass, very sparse vocals, and just a touch of echo. As a matter of fact, if that's how you like your dub, Jammy serves it up like that on each of the ten dub tracks here. Nice and wicked...

Another favorite Horace Andy tune is the politically-charged "Government Land" with the simple, but intense plea: "Give up Jah land, government man." Andy was always one for simple, yet powerful, lyrics, and this is a fine example. "Problems" is another social statement, this time to the people: "Everyone got problems, / Who can solve them?"

The lineup is stellar: Michael Taylor and Leroy Sibbles on bass, Leroy Wallace and Noel Alphonso on drums, the mighty Augustus Pablo on keyboard (is that his melodica I hear on "Rome"?), and Privy Dread and Andy on rhythm guitar. There are loads of others, but you get the idea.

Horacy Andy has so many good albums -- Skylarking is an outstanding collection of his career's work and any of his albums with Massive Attack or Mad Professor showcase his recent work -- but In the Light remains my favorite and is a perfect snapshot of what Horace Andy was accomplishing at the time.

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