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Calling Rastafari
Burning Spear
(Heartbeat)
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FOR FANS OF:
Peter Tosh, Lee Perry at his least bizarre, and roots reggae...
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When Burning Spear released their debut, Marcus Garvey, in 1976 it was a stunning wake-up call for the just-burgeoning genre of reggae. With it's haunting melodies, hypnotic rhythms, and frontman Winston Rodney's gravelly intonations about forgotten histories and uncertain futures, Marcus Garvey was never less than harrowing. It's follow-up, Garvey's Ghost, a hollowed-out dub version of the debut, was even more bleak. If Bob Marley conjured thoughts of a day in the sun, Burning Spear conjured the opposite, a rainy and black night. In the world of Winston Rodney, (who is the group's only remaining member and has since taken on the name Burning Spear for himself), every little thing was not going to be alright.
Through the 70s and the 80s Spear's production was spotty. The highs (1977's Dry And Heavy, 1979's Harder than the Rest), nearly attained the sort of anti-passion of the debut, but the lows (1988's Mistress Music), were forgettable. To his credit though, Rodney has never followed musical trends, preferring instead to stay true to the roots vision he first sketched out in the 70s. Unfortunately as he's run out of new things to write about in the last decade (songs about Jerry Garcia somehow don't have the power of songs about centuries of oppression), he's more or less resigned himself to turning out the same album every year or two as an excuse to tour. And since the live shows are something of a cross between a Southern Baptist church service and a mesmerizing voodoo ritual, few have thought to complain.
If you're unfamiliar with Spear's past work, the deep grooves and choppy bursts of brass all over Calling Rastafari will come as a revelation, but for those with even one of his records on their shelf, it will sound a little too familiar. "As It Is," in fact, is merely a re-recording of the debut album's "Old Marcus Garvey," with new, somewhat banal lyrics replacing the original's inspired history lesson. Loose, danceable rhythms on "House Of Reggae" and "Let's Move," give the tunes a lighter touch which works reasonably well, even considering the tremendous gravity in Rodney's voice, but really nothing here approaches the spiritual heights of Spear's early work. In fact, most fans will find Calling Rastafari to be exactly what Spear's debut was not: unremarkable, predictable, and unobtrusive.
David Peisner
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