yardie's reggae collection
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DAVE AND ANSEL COLLINS DOUBLE BARREL - THE BEST OF DAVE AND ANSEL COLLINS * * * 
1969-1973 - Trojan -
studio - discs:1Dave John Crooks was born on October 10, 1947. His career started with The Tecniques (along with Bruce Ruffin and Winston Riley). After this group Dave worked with Lee "Scratch" Perry cutting among the others tracks as "Blowing In The Wind", "Build My Whole World Around You", "Runaway Child" and "Prisoner Of Love", "Shocks Of A Mighty", "Upsetting Station" and "Skanky Chicken". Some were included in the "Prisoner Of Love - Dave Barker Meets The Upsetters" album released in 1970. Around the same period he cut for Duke Reid ("Funky", "Funky Reggae", "Lock Jaw") and Bunny Lee ("Hot Sauce", "A Quiet Place", "On Broadway"). The big hit came with Winston Riley (as producer) recording "Double Barrel", a song also credited to Ansel Collins (playing keyboards). Collins was born on April 16, 1948. He started as vocalist of the Caribbeats, a group lead by Bobby Aitken. He he started to play the keyboard. By the late 60's worked on various sessions and cut some instrumentals for Leslie Kong including "Night Of Love", "Fat Man", "High Voltage", "Sam Fire" and "Cotton Dandy". The latter was the version of Dave's "Lock Jaw". Later he worked for Perry as part of the Upsetters. He played on the famous "Night Doctor" and "Double Barrel". These sessions were the debut for Sly Dumbar. Dave and Ansel Collins released their debut album "Double Barrel" in 1971. The playlist of this set produced by Winston Riley reads "Double Barrel", "El Fegobacca", "Wild Bunch", "Secret Weapon", "My Best Girl", "Ten To One", "Monkey Spanner", "I The Third", "Impossible Mission", "Glory Of Love", "That Girl" and "Memories Of Love". The collection presented here includes only three of those tracks: "Double Barrel", "Secret Weapon" and "Monkey Spanner". After this experience the duo quit for different paths. Dave started to use Collins as his surname and formed the Chain Reaction group in the UK with former members of the Sensations Bruce Ruffin and Bobby Davis. Ansel kept working with Riley delivering some classics as "Nuclear Power", "Point Blank" and the classic "Stalag 17". The latter will be reprised from then to now, with versions from a countless number of artists. By the mid 70's he worked with Jimmy Cliff, Augustus Pablo and Sly And Robbie's Revolutionaries at Channel One. This side of the Jamaican music is not exactly my preferred one but this does not mean that Dave and Ansel Collins were not important. During the late 60's early 70's they were actually quite seminal for the introduction of that type of "DJ - singer meets the keyboards" style. The sounds were changing in a terrific and fast way. They were there with some huge hits, maybe not many but those still stand the test of time.
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