Private Beach Party

Last updated
Private Beach Party
PrivateBeachParty.jpg
Studio album by
Gregory Isaacs
Released1985
Genre Reggae
Label Greensleeves
Producer Gussie Clarke
Gregory Isaacs chronology
Easy
(1984)		Private Beach Party
(1985)		All I Have Is Love Love Love
(1986)

Private Beach Party is a 1985 studio album by the Jamaican reggae singer Gregory Isaacs. The album continued Isaacs' working relationship with producer Augustus "Gussie" Clarke, to whom he would return in 1988 for the hugely successful "Rumours" and Red Rose for Gregory . [1] Clarke employed Carlton Hines to write several of the songs on the album, and the musicians featured include Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, Lloyd Parks, and Willie Lindo.

Jamaica Country in the Caribbean

Jamaica is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning 10,990 square kilometres (4,240 sq mi) in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about 145 kilometres (90 mi) south of Cuba, and 191 kilometres (119 mi) west of Hispaniola ; the British Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands lies some 215 kilometres (134 mi) to the north-west.

Reggae Music genre from Jamaica

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use the word "reggae", effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political comment. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as "Rudie Blues", then "Ska", later "Blue Beat", and "Rock Steady". It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat, and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.

Gregory Isaacs Jamaican Singer

Gregory Anthony Isaacs OD was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in The New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae".

Contents

The album features duets with Carlene Davis (on "Feeling Irie") and Dennis Brown (on "Let off Supm"). [2]

Carlene Davis is a Jamaican gospel and reggae singer active since the 1970s. Successful since the early 1980s as a reggae artist, she survived cancer in the mid-1990s, after which she dedicated her career to gospel music. She has released over ten albums.

Dennis Brown Jamaican reggae singer

Dennis Emmanuel Brown CD was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a subgenre of reggae. Bob Marley cited Brown as his favourite singer, dubbing him "The Crown Prince of Reggae", and Brown would prove influential on future generations of reggae singers.

Originally released by Greensleeves Records in 1985, it was released in the US by Ras Records.

Greensleeves Records record label

Greensleeves Records & Publishing is a record label specialising in dancehall and reggae music. The company was founded by Chris Cracknell and Chris Sedgwick and started as a small record store in West Ealing, London, in November 1975 and is based in Britain.

Reception

Allmusic's Jo-Ann Greene called the album a "masterpiece", stating "There's not a mis-step within the entire set, and every song is so high-caliber that's it's useless to try to pick favorites". [1] Robert Christgau rated the album B+, commenting "there's a light touch to this music--Isaacs whispering and murmuring around diffident horn-section filigrees--that I'd call sexy". [3] Trouser Press described Private Beach Party as "his best album in years — a fresh, diverse package". [4] Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton selected the album as one of their recommendations in The Rough Guide to Reggae, calling the duet with Davis "outstanding". [5]

Robert Christgau American music journalist

Robert Thomas Christgau is an American essayist and music journalist. One of the earliest professional rock critics, he spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for The Village Voice, during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop poll. He has also covered popular music for Esquire, Creem, Newsday, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NPR, Blender, and MSN Music, and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University.

<i>Trouser Press</i> American music magazine

Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press". Publication of the magazine ceased in 1984; the unexpired portion of mail subscriptions was completed by Rolling Stone sister publication Record, which itself folded in 1985. Trouser Press has continued to exist in various formats.

Track listing

  1. "Private Beach Party"
  2. "Wish You Were Mine"
  3. "Feeling Irie" - Gregory Isaacs & Carlene Davis
  4. "Bits and Pieces"
  5. "Let Off Supm" - Gregory Isaacs & Dennis Brown
  6. "No Rushings"
  7. "Better Plant Some Loving"
  8. "Special to Me"
  9. "Got to Be in Tune"
  10. "Promise Is a Comfort"

Personnel

Lloyd Parks is a Jamaican reggae vocalist and bass player who has recorded and performed as a solo artist as well as part of Skin, Flesh & Bones, The Revolutionaries, The Professionals, and We the People Band.

The bass guitar is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, except with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the 1960s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music.

Robbie Shakespeare

Robert "Robbie" Shakespeare is a Jamaican bass guitarist and record producer, best known as the one half of the reggae rhythm section and production duo Sly and Robbie. Regarded as one of the most influential reggae bassists, Shakespeare is also known for his creative use of electronics and production effects.

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References

  1. 1 2 Greene, Jo-Ann "Private Beach Party Review", Allmusic, retrieved 2011-04-29
  2. ↑ Thompson, Dave (2002) Reggae & Caribbean Music, Backbeat Books, ISBN   0-87930-655-6, p. 130
  3. ↑ Christgau, Robert "Gregory Isaacs", in Christgau's Record Guide: the '80s, 1990, Pantheon Books, ISBN   978-0-679-73015-6, reproduced at robertchristgau.com, retrieved 2011-04-29
  4. ↑ "Grgeory Isaacs", Trouser Press , retrieved 2011-04-29
  5. ↑ Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd edn., Rough Guides, ISBN   1-84353-329-4, p. 287
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