JOHN CLARKE レコード& CD

Review: "Visions Of John Clarke" was a little thrown together for its original release in 1979. Still, its sleeve carried a ringing endorsement from Bullwackies himself - president of the John Clarke fan club - and the album attracted the interest of no less than Studio 1 boss Coxsone Dodd, whose bid for distribution-rights was thwarted when the Brooklyn label Makossa quickly put in for a full licence. The singer - not to be confused with Johnny Clark - had been running with the Wackies operation for the past six years, ever since moving from Jamaica to New York. He'd cut memorable sevens with co-founder Munchie Jackson for the Tafari label - like "In Search of The Human Race" and "Recession" - and with Lloyd Barnes for such Bullwackies imprints as Versatile and Wackies. Several are collected by these two albums, with another layer of modification: for example, on "Wasn't It You", Lloyd Barnes and Prince Douglas give a new treatment - and adding guitar - to the jumbo Caribbean disco twelve; on "Pollution" they remove the horns from the Wackies seven (though generally Baba Leslie is in full effect here).