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		Dennis Brown - The Promised Land 1976-1979 album from Blood & Fire ('02.7.6) CD (BAFCD039 / import from UK): 1890 yen

デニス・ブラウンのアーティストとしてのハイライトシーン満載の名曲揃いです!! 今回のBlood and Fireのリリースはデニス・ブラウンです。デニス・ブラウンがアーティストとしてもっとも脂ののっていた時代のタイトルで [ Joseph's Coat Of Many Colours](余談ですがスティーブ・バロウのラフガイドで4つ星です) にデニスのDEBレーベルの7インチと12インチから5曲を追加収録したアルバムです。このアルバムに収録されている曲のすべてはデニス自身がプロデュースし制作された、アーティスト=デニス・ブラウンの魅力が充分に堪能できます。とりわけ07."The Half", 01."Emmanuel God Is With Us", 10."Cup Of Tea" と アルバムタイトルにもなっている02."Promised Land"はこのアルバムのハイライトといっても良い素晴しいトラックです。

track#		title
1		Emmanuel God Is With Us (Extended)
2		Promised Land
3		Well Without Water
4		Open Your Eyes
5		The Creator
6		Troubled World
7		The Half
8		Oh What A Day
9		Together Brothers
10		A Cup Of Tea
11		Slave Driver
12		Three Meals A Day
13		Man Next Door
14		Don't Want To Be No General
15		General (feat. Ranking Dread)
16		Home Sweet Home
17		Emmanuel Version

Blood & Fire are proud to be releasing their first Dennis Brown album. The Promised Land 1977 ﾐ 79 is a compilation, containing the complete Josephﾕs Coat Of Many Colours album, together with five additional tracks taken from 7ﾓ and 12ﾓ singles which originally appeared on Dennisﾕ DEB imprint during 1977 ﾐ 1979. Highlights include The Half, Emmanuel God Is With Us, A Cup Of Tea, and the title track Promised Land. This special re-issue will be available from 8th July.

Dennis had started the DEB label in late 1976, in association with Castro Brown, a Jamaican who ran the Morpheus label during 1975-76 from his shop premises in Croydon, South London.

This release arose out of conversations with the great deejay Ranking Joe, who was working on the Blood & Fire sound system tours. The label were planning to release Joeﾕs album Around The World which had been produced by Dennis in 1979, but both Joe and Blood & Fire wanted to use some of Dennisﾕ vocal tracks to make the album better value in terms of playing time. And so negotiations with Dennis himself commenced, who proved easy to deal with. One contract was produced and Dennis asked for some amendments, which were sent back to him. Tragically, Dennis Brown died from respiratory failure before he signed the amended contract, and the label had to wait a couple of years before concluding the deal with Dennisﾕ widow Yvonne.

It is extremely difficult to objectively evaluate the life and work of Dennis Brown because what he always represented in real terms to the world of reggae was of far greater importance than how the rest of the world saw him. For the best part of thirty years he was the peopleﾕs choice, The Crown Prince of Reggae, Jamaicaﾕs most consistently popular singer. In his own way he was the choice of reggae, yet to outsiders he was a competent singer who had achieved a couple of crossover hits during a long career. Dennis Brownﾕs tragic death in 1999 bought forth a series of hastily turned out obituaries that focused on a career blighted by missed opportunities and alleged inherent weaknesses. They tended to concentrate on what might have been but, for Dennis Brownﾕs entire life, he sang for his public and not for any notions of what might have helped to make into a pop star or for the demands of an international audience. Dennis Brown was a hero to his public and he always will be ﾐ he was loved by the reggae music audience like no other singer. He spent practically the whole of his life singing and he never lost sight of the fact that he was dependent on his public. He loved his people and they loved him back.

He was a charismatic, gifted and supremely confident live performer and as he ran through selections from his vast repertoire his adoring audience would sing along note for note. He was the voice of Jamaica filtered through the works of Curtis Mayfield and Nat King Cole and his songs of love for everyone were indivisible and inseparable from his love songs. He triumphed at them all.

Dennis Brown started singing at the age of ten in Kingstonﾕs National Arena at a political conference and he did a number of shows with Bryon Lee before making his first record with Derrick Harriott in 1969. Itﾕs A Crime sold reasonably well and its moderate success encouraged the thirteen year old to make more records.

The Promised Land is not just another Dennis Brown album but hopefully part of an intelligent and systematic re-issue program of his catalogue so that it can be properly appreciated. His work needs to be presented properly in order to give the uninitiated easy access and enable them to appreciate and enjoy his work without being confused and misled by the bewildering amount of what is on offer. It is of paramount importance to make his name and his output as relevant to the rest of the world as it was to the reggae audience. There is already a danger of his becoming yet another reggae music tragedy too easily written off and too easily forgotten. His music had nothing to do with gimmicks or hype but musical talent and a personality that shone through in everything hat he did. Dennis Brown was the voice of reggae and his voice still cries out to be heard.

related artists: Dennis Brown Presents Prince Jammy