Search - Burning Spear :: Gold

Essential Spear

Dee Sharp | Long Beach, CA United States | 02/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For an artist with the longevity and prolificacy as Spear, it's impossible - short of a box set - to fully (re)present Spear's career in a retrospective, especially a 2CD one. That said, for what Gold *is* (versus what it is *not*), Gold is a superb collection.



Gold focuses on the finite period of 1975-1980, when Spear was, arguably, at his creative zenith.



The 28 songs are drawn from seven of his internationally released albums (six for Island and one for EMI):



Marcus Garvey (1975)

Garvey's Ghost (1976)

Man In The Hills (1976)

Dry & Heavy (1977)

Live (1977)

Social Living (1978)

Hail H.I.M. (1980)



Gold presents the best songs from these albums, while also drawing in a few fan favorites, like the 'Rockers' soundtrack version of "Jah No Dead" (where Spear sings a cappella on the beach) and the extended mixes of "Social Living" and "Civilized Reggae," plus the rare B-side "Cultivation" (the dub mix of "Man In The Hills," previously available only on the 'Chant Down Babylon' anthology).



To be sure, there are other extarordinary periods to Spear's career (his early '70s stint at Studio One, for example) and collections like Creation Rebel and Spear Burning do excellent jobs of encapsulating those facets of Spear's output.



But as an overview of Spear's international albums from the late '70s, and as a primer for the newcomer, Gold can't be beat."