The Very Best Of Delroy Wilson

They Say...

Review by Jo-Ann Greene, All Music Guide

In the rock world, a Best Of set by definition is a career-spanning compilation. One can only imagine the outcry from fans presented with a set titled The Best of the Rolling Stones, which omitted the band's '60s smashes and '80s delights. In the reggae world, that is the norm, and fans have become inured to it. The Very Best of Delroy Wilson is a case in a point; an album that certainly contains much fine music, but leaves many of the artist's best out in the cold. The set is drawn from the deluge of songs the singer cut between 1971 and 1977, a period when Wilson recorded profusely, but not exclusively with producer Bunny Lee. 1973's "It's a Shame", for example, was cut for Joe Gibbs, while the excellent "Have Some Mercy", which arrived the following year, was produced by A. Folder. Wilson's 1975 hit "You Keep on Running" was overseen by Tony Robinson, and the same year's laid back "Pretty Girl" was cut for JoJo Hookim. The bulk of the set though, belongs to Bunny, the man behind a slew of Wilson's biggest hits, including "Better Must Come" and "Call on Me". Many of the numbers included here are covers, sublime versions of American R&B songs that Wilson makes his own. But there's equally good originals as well, like "Mash It Up", where the singer stomps out in song illiteracy and poverty. There's not a bad number within this set, virtually everything Wilson cut during these years was high quality, but there's a clutch of crucial numbers missing, and shorn of his past and future work, to call this the Very Best is misleading indeed.