Although he was only 42 when he died of respiratory problems in 1999, Dennis Brown had already enjoyed a three-decade career in Jamaican music, a career that saw him begin singing professionally at the age of nine, begin recording at 11, and score his first hit, "No Man Is an Island," at the age of 14. Before the final curtain fell, Brown recorded close to 100 albums and some 300 singles with various producers, making any attempt to chart his musical history a difficult one. The impressive two-disc Money in My Pocket ...
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Although he was only 42 when he died of respiratory problems in 1999, Dennis Brown had already enjoyed a three-decade career in Jamaican music, a career that saw him begin singing professionally at the age of nine, begin recording at 11, and score his first hit, "No Man Is an Island," at the age of 14. Before the final curtain fell, Brown recorded close to 100 albums and some 300 singles with various producers, making any attempt to chart his musical history a difficult one. The impressive two-disc Money in My Pocket collection does an admirable job, though, and quite wisely gives most of its space to Brown's creative peak in the mid- to late '70s and his work with Winston "Niney" Holness and Joe Gibbs, his two most consistently sympathetic producers. Holness, in particular, gave Brown a wonderful set of distinctive, often eerie rhythm tracks to work from, and songs like "Westbound Train," the haunting "No More Will I Roam," "Tenement Yard," the unnerving "Cassandra," and two tracks mixed at Lee "Scratch" Perry's Black Ark studio, "Wolf and Leopard" and "Whip Them Jah Jah," are nothing less than magnificent. Gibbs understood Brown, as well, and his two versions of "Money in My Pocket," the original from 1972 and the revisit from 1978 (which gave Brown a U.K. hit a year later), are similarly striking. Also worth noting are the Phil Pratt-produced "What About the Half" and two early Derrick Harriott productions, "Silhouettes" (originally done by the Rays) and "Concentration." Most of these tracks are on the first disc, with the second disc carrying Brown through to the 1990s, and while cuts like the Sly & Robbie-produced "Revolution" and the Flabba Holt-helmed "Wisdom" (from 1996) are strong and striking, Brown's increasingly declining health and the mind-bending changes in the Jamaican music industry were obviously taking their toll on the singer's creativity. By the end of the trail he begins to sound weary and a little lost. His death ended any hope for a rebound. This essential compilation shows why Brown is so beloved in Jamaica, and there is little doubt that his 1970s work, in particular, will stand the test of time. That he never achieved international stardom is both a musical crime and a complete mystery, for at his best no other island singer could touch him. ~ Steve Leggett, Rovi
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Add this copy of Money in My Pocket: the Definitive Collection to cart. $9.99, good condition, Sold by Salzer's Records rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from ventura, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Sanctuary Records.
