by Howard Campbell
NEW YORK – A special green vinyl reissue of Just A Man, Beres Hammond’s 1979 album, will be released on November 29 by VP Records. Produced by Joe Gibbs, it is the singer’s last major R&B project before he exploded as a reggae act in the 1980s.
The new edition is being released specifically for Record Store Day Black Friday. It includes remastered versions of the eight songs from the original set. These songs produced hit singles like the title track, “I’m In Love,” and “Music Is Positive Vibration.”
I’m in Love was the biggest of that trio, topping charts in Jamaica in the summer of 1978. Gibbs was the hottest producer in Jamaica at the time, as his camp included Dennis Brown, Culture and George Nooks.
Three years earlier, Hammond recorded his acclaimed Soul Reggae album, produced by Willie Lindo. Lindo arranged the songs on Beres Hammond Just A Man. This album features Hammond with trumpeter David Madden and saxophonist Glen DaCosta. They are his colleagues from Zap Pow, the band he began his career with in the early 1970s.
Lindo also produced What One Dance Can Do, the 1985 rocker that broke Hammond into the dancehall market. That track launched a 20-year run of hit songs, making the throaty vocalist one of reggae-dancehall’s most successful acts.
Saxophonist Dean Fraser, drummer Mikey “Boo” Richards, guitarist Mikey Chung, bassist Val Douglas, keyboardists Robbie Lyn and Harold Butler, multi-instrumentalist Clive Hunt and singer Pam Hall also worked on Just A Man.
