| Mr. Isaacs | 
 enlarge | Buy New: $16.98
Buy New/Used from $15.99
Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 3 reviews)
Sales Rank: 127331
Category: Music
Artist: Gregory Isaacs
Publisher: Blood & Fire Records
Studio: Blood & Fire Records
Manufacturer: Blood & Fire Records
Label: Blood & Fire Records
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 783564003525
EAN: 0783564003525
ASIN: B00005A03D
Release Date: April 10, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Sacrifice | | • | Storm | | • | Story Book Children | | • | Handcuff | | • | Slave Master | | • | Take a Dip | | • | Get Ready | | • | Set the Captives Free | | • | Winner | | • | Smile | | • | Mr. Brown [Extended] | | • | Conversation | | • | Mr. Brown | | • | War of the Stars |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Details
Produced by Ossie Hibbert. This ultimate version includes 14 tracks along with bonuses and extended mixes, including an extended dub mix of 'Mr. Brown', a dub version of 'Conversation', the 12" mix of the Cool Ruler LP's 'Mr. Know It All'.
Amazon.com
Gregory Isaacs may be best known for his cool, romantic approach to reggae. But this smooth singer is much more complex than a mere pop balladeer, as the reissue of his fourth album proves. Produced by the keen-eared Oswald "Ossie" Hibbert and written primarily by Isaacs, Mr. Isaacs was conceived as an existential song cycle that traces the sufferings, incarceration, and ultimate freedom of a Jamaican ghetto youth. Isaacs's purr of a voice slips tough lyrics about the "black man's hell" into the passenger seat of a shiny pop vehicle. Standout track "Handcuffs" describes one of the singer's first arrests for drugs with an understated intensity that doesn't flinch from conveying pain. Sizzling backing band the Revolutionaries (featuring Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare) provides a nervous, often harrowing atmosphere, while harmony trio the Heptones add wraithlike accompanying vocals. Even the lighter fare feels edgy, including a vaguely ominous cover of the Temptations' "Get Ready" and love song "Story Book Children," which buttresses the loss and deliverance motif. Compiler Steve Barrow widens the scope of the original 1977 release by adding Dillinger's "Take a Dip" deejay version of Isaac's "Slavemaster" along with other rarities culled from Jamaican 12-inch singles. --Bob Tarte
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| Customer Reviews:
"Mister I" is Essential Reggae and Essential Isaacs December 28, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
"Mister Isaacs" makes you wonder why Gregory never found the same broad crossover audience that Bob Marley found in America. Isaac's career longevity in Jamaica and Europe has eclipsed nearly every other survivor from the golden age of reggae, with the possible exception of reggae's elder statesman, Winston Rodney (aka Burning Spear).
Gregory's trademark was his stylized winsome croon, his sense of vocal dynamics, and his nuanced phrasing of lyrics. He was an instictive vocal prodigy of the rarest kind generally found among an elite class of standards and jazz interpreters.
Billie Holiday's vocals could breathe an emotional life into a mawkish sentimental standard like "These Foolish Things." Similarly, Gregory Isaacs could sing a trite children's song as he did with "Puff the Magic Dragon" and transform it into an emotionally stirring statment of vocal artistry.
Gregory's high stylized vocals are capable of expressing any emotion: be it anger, world weariness, lonliness, romantic yearing, cynicism, pain, erotic sensualtiy, or despair and he will make the most banal of lyrics dance under the sway of his velvet voice.
"Mister Isaacs" was recorded in 1983 within a five year span when Gregory Isaacs was at the height of his artistic brilliance. I was living as an alien resident in Jamaica when Gregroy recorded this album. At the same time Gregory was making the rounds of nearly every studio, on the island releasing a new dancehall hit on different label on a weekly basis.
Isaacs had so many ongoing musical projects happening that many of his album and single releases never reached his musical catalog. Gregory once remarked that he was in a cabal of musicians who wanted to corner the international music market by flooding it with thousands of reggae releases. I still am not sure if Gregory was joking, when he made that remark.
The material in "Mr. Isaacs" is uniformly dazzling but "Sacrafice" with the angry lyirc: "I was given as a sacrifice/To build a black man's hell and a white man's paradise" is remarkable. Gregory's winesome vocals add a poignant element to the angry lyric of "Sacrafice" which humanizes the message of the song. Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakepere's seductive bass and drum riddims that drive the song "Storm" and march a simple one drop riff into a churning, langrous juggernaut that underscores Isaac's impassonied lyrical plea to hang on steady until the storm has passed.
"Mr. Isaacs" is one of the essential reggae albums from a singer who made so many classics during 1978-1983 crest of the roots reggae era. During those memorable years Gregory produced "Mr. Isaacs" along with "Soon Forward", "Extra-Classic", "Cool Ruler", "Night Nurse" and "Out Deh." This album is one of those six blockbuster albums that define Gregory Isaacs's artistry and the elegance of smooth lover's rock crooning style. I give my unqualified recommendation for any of those albums. Of those six albums "Soon Forward" is the incontestable, hands down pick of the litter and on my own terms is the best reggae album ever made and "Mister Isaacs" get an honorable metion somewhere in the Top Twenty albums of the golden age of reggae.
For those Amazon shoppers who are new to Gregory Isaac's music, "The Ultimate Collection" a 20 song retrospective of selected tunes by Gregory during 1978-1983 era is highly recommended. The songs are a smart sampling of his albums from that era that will give you a taste of Gregory without spoiling most of the new content you'd get from purchasing any of his regular non-anthology releases.
Listen to this and learn why Gregory is a Star December 27, 2001
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The best Gregory Isaacs release I've heard yet. He's performing at the height of his talent here. This is an eminently listenable record: clear, rootsy, and melodic. The "bonus" tracks are particularly fine, especially the dub of "Mr. Know It All" which closes the cd.
WOW! Roots Reggae Excellence July 17, 2001
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The lyrics, the production and the singing are nothing less than the very best.
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