Consumer Guide Album

Gregory Isaacs: Private Beach Party [RAS, 1985]
After sinking into ever more unctuous hits-plus-filler formula for most of the decade, JA's love king hied to producer Gussie Clarke, who put contract songwriter Carleton Hines on the case. Despite some icky moments, notably a duet about feeling irie, the move is for the good: there's a light touch to this music--Isaacs whispering and murmuring around diffident horn-section filigrees--that I'd call sexy. Maybe even irie, who knows. B+