The Cool Ruler in Fine Form

As an album, this is not quite the masterpiece that Night Nurse is. However the best tracks on this mostly socially conscious collection (Sacrifice, Storm, Storybook Children, etc.) rank with Isaacs's best. Slavemaster is on a whole other level entirely - simply one of the greatest reggae songs of all time. The dub is a nice bonus. Get Ready is probably the weakest track, with Isaacs having to wrestle a cheesy synthesizer into submission. His vocals win in the end but it's a pitched battle! In any case, it's an excellent album - highly recommended.

Originally released in the 1970s on the Jamaican Cash & Carry label and reissued in the U.S. on Shanachie in 1988, Mr. Isaacs is one of the best albums Gregory Isaacs ever made. On it he abandons, for the most part, the loverman crooning for which he was already famous; he instead unburdens himself of sharply observed social commentary, all of it delivered in the cool, dispassionate voice that earned him the title “Cool Ruler.” The album opens with one of the most striking couplets in the Isaacs catalog — “I was given as a sacrifice/To build a black man’s hell and a white man’s paradise” — and that line, and the song that follows it, sets the tone and the context for the rest of the album. Accompanied by the Revolutionaries and the Soul Syndicate (with backing vocals courtesy of the Heptones), Isaacs rolls out songs with titles like “Handcuff,” “Slavemaster,” and “Set the Captives Free,” breaking the tension occasionally with such lighter fare as “Smile” (originally a hit for the Silvertones) and the dancehall boast “Take a Dip” (in a dub mix featuring toaster Dillinger). The Blood & Fire reissue improves on Shanachie’s by beefing up the sound somewhat and adding five bonus tracks, among them the excellent Dillinger showcase mentioned above and an extended disco mix of “Mr. Brown.” Absolutely essential. – Rick Anderson