Silver & Gold 1973-1979

Silver & Gold 1973-1979

Nicknamed “The Voice of Thunder” by Jamaican audiences awestruck by his resonant baritone, Prince Far I was one of the most distinctive of the early Jamaican DJs. Where other DJs would win the crowd with jokes, wordplay and amiable exhortations to dance, Prince Far I earned their respect with his protean vocal talent, which might find him assuming the voice of a vengeful deity, issuing threats in the character of a wild gunman, or reading prophecies from a deck of cards like a divinely inspired gambler. Blood and Fire’s remarkable Silver & Gold collects Prince Far I’s earliest self-released recordings on the Cry Tuff label. The set opens with “Johnny Get Worse” a thunderous account of the life of a petty criminal that finds Far I warning of the evils of crime in slang heavy thieves argot over a bass heavy version of The Slackers’ Rocksteady anthem “Johnny Get Worse.” The remainder of the set contains equally impressive DJ pieces, and a handful of spacious dubs produced by Far I himself. This set of classic material serves as a fine, earthy prelude to Prince Far I’s later more experimental work with British producer Addrian Sherwood, and is a fascinating historical document in its own right.

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