Suzanne Beware of the Devil (The Best of Dandy Livingstone)

Album Review

Say the name Dandy Livingstone to most American reggae fans and they'll draw a blank, but in the U.K. he remains a revered figure, and one of the most influential. Born in Jamaica, but relocating to the U.K. in the late '50s at age 15, Livingstone cut his first single in 1963 while still at college, and over the next decade defined the U.K.'s reggae sound both as a singer and producer. On some levels he was Britain's answer to Prince Buster; both were fine singers and an even more gifted producers with their own distinctive sounds. While Buster famously melded the military tattoos that entranced him as a child to the music he loved, Livingstone blended the myriad styles of music he adored — Jamaican, American, and British — then decanted them over the grooves. Simultaneously, Livingstone was redefining the latest Jamaican innovations for a U.K. audience, the rise of the rude boy and with it rocksteady on 1967's "Rudie, a Message to You" and "Let's Do Rocksteady," the evolution into reggae with the cheekily titled "Reggae in Your Jeggae," and even foreshadowing Augustus Pablo's Far East sound with the 1967 instrumental "East of Suez." This compilation gathers up 25 of the best of Livingstone's sizeable canon. Besides the aforementioned numbers, there's also his two Top 30 hits — "Suzanne Beware of the Devil" and the double A-sided "Big City"/"Think About That," a stream of exceptional covers, notably "I'm Your Puppet" and "Take a Letter Maria," a flood of stellar rocksteady including the fabulous "Move Your Mule," the gorgeous heartbreaker "Raining in My Heart," and even a far from decorous rude reggae fave, "Doctor Sure Shot." This compilation also includes a fulsome biography that with typical Trojan flair is paged out of order. Even more dubious is the label's claim of being unable to identify the composers of "Salt of the Earth." Did Mick Jagger and Keith Richard simply slip their mind, or are they the only Brits alive unfamiliar with the Beggars Banquet album? Those qualms aside, this is a superb tribute to a musical legend.