Island
2002
More Gregory
About This Album
Among the most prolific recording artists in reggae (if not in all styles of music), Gregory Isaacs cut tracks with seemingly every producer in Jamaica in the 1970s and early '80s. But he produced 1981's More Gregory himself and, released on the Pre label in the U.K. and later picked up by Island's Mango subsidiary for U.S. distribution, it gave him his widest hearing outside his homeland, even making the British charts. Those who were encountering the singer for the first time heard a series of spare, medium-tempo reggae tracks over which Isaacs sang in his vulnerable tenor, usually of love. "I don't want to be lonely tonight," was the hook line of "Front Door," and that was the message Isaacs seemed to want to convey in most of his songs, even though the full lyric suggested that he was going to be alone after all. It was easy to see how Isaacs could make so many records, since his songs sounded so similar to each other; this was an artist who was accustomed to turning out singles rather than albums, and he wasn't concerned with varying his approach to accommodate the different dynamic demands of an LP-length recording. But this simply meant that the way to enjoy an album like More Gregory was to accept and revel in its constant groove, at which point subtle distinctions in the arrangements began to make themselves felt. The 2002 reissue of the album added to those distinctions by including a couple of tracks backed not by the Roots Radics, who performed on the original songs, but by Sly & Robbie, who added unusual percussive effects to "Oh What a Feeling" and "Wailing Rudie." "Top Ten," the third bonus track, used a music-business metaphor to put across Isaacs' characteristic romantic sentiments. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
Track List (try tracks 3,4,5,7,8,9,10 and 12)

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