BURNING SPEAR

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Burning Spear is how little his approach has changed after nearly 40 years as a recording artist. His themes and concerns -- freedom, self-determination, equal rights -- have remained constant, and he sticks pretty close to his original musical template of slow to midtempo roots rhythms with plenty of horns and percussion layered into the mix for added punch. As new styles have swept through the Jamaican music business, Spear has stayed his ground, sure in what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, and even as he indignantly details the suffering of the impoverished, Spear also fully praises the resilience of the human spirit. What all of this means is that any Burning Spear collection, no matter how randomly conceived it might be, is going to deliver on all of these tenets. This set, although it is labeled "The Best of Burning Spear," is hardly that, since it has nothing from his mid-era masterpieces like Dry & Heavy or Man in the Hills and draws mostly from 1980s Hail H.I.M., which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but it just doesn't make this the best of Burning Spear, no matter what the title says. Steve Leggett??a.

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