Customer Reviews:
  Amazing October 15, 2008
A truly masterful work of music. Everything about this album is extraordinary. Definitely a true gem.
 Great, but... September 16, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The reviewer below is right on the money. In fact, the guitar solo he mentioned is, IMHO, the ALL-TIME WORST GUITAR SOLO ON RECORD! It's an unfortunate combination of impossibly awful taste and complete incompatibility with the song. (Actually there are TWO concurrent solos, each stepping all over the other, to make it even more obnoxious.) I'd love to be able to separate the tracks to pull the ugliness out and enjoy the music. Otherwise, some fine grooves though, and soulful singing from Mr. Williams...
ROCKING UNIVERSALLY September 14, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
MESSENGER MAN: I sometimes wonder how long labels like Blood & Fire and Pressure Sounds and so on will be able to continue in the roots re-issue game. No doubt, Jamaica was - in the 1970s especially, and still so today - the most fertile musical hotbed on Earth, but surely there's only a finite number of neglected classics to be remastered and repackaged for a new audience? Well, as long as the revival lasts, Blood & Fire is sure to keep unearthing only the highest quality material - and Willi Williams' MESSENGER MAN is no exception. Another name on the seemingly endless ledger of underexposed Jamaican songwriters of the 1970s, Williams' is primarily remembered for writing and recording ARMAGIDEON TIME. (Based on the timeless REAL ROCK rhythm, ARMAGIDEON TIME was subsequently picked up and popularised by The Clash.)
ARMAGIDEON TIME is not included here, but there's an excellent reworking of the song as ROCKING UNIVERSALLY, which has pretty much the same effect. The remainder of MESSENGER MAN is equally accomplished. Williams' soulful voice moves with ease between impassioned plea (ZION TOWN, SLAVE) and irie meditation (I MAN, ROCKING UNIVERSALLY), and his songwriting skills are second-to-none. The backup band is based around first-class sessioneers like Santa Davis (drums), Lloyd Parks and George Fullwood (bass), Bingy Bunny (guitar), and Williams' collaborator and all-time Jamaican legend, Jackie Mittoo; the sound is loose, somewhat bluesy, and always buoyant. Taken as a whole, the overall package - as is the custom with these Blood & Fire reissues - is of the finest quality, and includes speaker-destroying dub sides for each of the original album tracks, as well as an extended mix of the excellent VALLEY OF JEHOSEPHAT, plus the usual illuminating archive photos and informative sleeve notes. The only real problems are an awful hard rock guitar solo by Carl Harvey - who quite literally sounds like he's auditioning for a Black Sabbath session - that completely ruins the opening title track, and the very rudimentary and utterly annoying vocal sample at the center of UNIVERSAL DUB. Look beyond these very minor glitches, and you'll find another "lost classic" of the genre that really should be a part of everybody's reggae collection. That guitar solo really is HORRIBLE, but I'm giving MESSENGER MAN five stars regardless. Dis yah one essential!
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