Peter Tosh and Friends "Black Dignity, Early Works of the Steppin' Razor" 2005

This is a great collection of rare Peter Tosh alongside various Jamaican ensembles and vocal groups. The 24 roots tracks featured on this collection capture Tosh singing and performing many of his early Studio 1 and Intel-Diplo classics.Among those featured are The Wailers,Winston Wright,The New Generation,The Soulnotes,and various Jamaican All-star rhythm sections.The Trojan label has been remastering many gems from the vaults, everyone from Jimmy Cliff to Alton Ellis have been showcased by Trojan,and this collection rises high alongside those classic editions. The various tracks are remastered very nicely and the booklet and vintage photos details the history of Reggae music as it relates to the Bush Doctor, Peter Tosh. --Amazon customer reviewBlack Dignity is by no means the only Peter Tosh collection anyone should own, since it covers a tumultuous sliver of time. The tracks here are Trojan Records-associated songs that come from the early '70s, a time when Tosh was issuing solo singles out of resentment for the slow pace his band, the Wailers, was taking and resentment for the back seat he was taking to the Wailers' leader, Bob Marley. You miss the earlier Tosh carving out a solo career and all the post-Wailers success that was to come, but the Wailers' most distrustful and urgent member didn't issue anything without a purpose. The singles here are all important and as the excellent, career-spanning liner notes by Rick Glanvill point out, the producers Tosh was working with were in their prime, most notably Joe Gibbs. It was a producer/singer match made in heaven with Gibbs tempering Tosh's venom with sweet but very certain soul. On the Gibbs tracks it feels like that tense moment right before the kettle is about boil, something you'll feel when the excellent "Maga Dog" comes through the speakers. Black Dignity fills a void just by including the heralded Gibbs version of the track, but it also includes no less than four mostly faceless dub versions of the song that contain little or no involvement from Tosh (to be fair, the cover does mention "and friends"). The wild "Here Comes the Judge" -- which is followed by two of its dubs -- and the earthy, nyahbinghi-flavored "(Earth's) Rightful Ruler" are also crucial cuts the collection makes easy to obtain, the latter featuring an appearance by a young, very different-sounding U-Roy. The Lee "Scratch " Perry tracks are the Tosh-centered cuts he did with the Wailers and do a good job of representing the singer's contribution to the group. "Brand New Second Hand" shows what the Wailers were like with Tosh at the controls and makes a great argument that there should have been more of it. The track list doesn't flow as well as one would hope, but this is a more academic outing without any best-of disguise. Taking that into account and looking at the scant bit of Tosh Trojan has in its vaults, one can't help but respect how well Black Dignity brings the singer's "lost years" into the light. Start elsewhere if you're a newcomer, because this is a gap-filling gift for hardcore fans. --David Jeffries, AllMusic (Rating: 3,5/5 stars)

trax:

01. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Brand New Second Hand 02. Peter Tosh / Them A Fe A Beaten 03. Winston Wright and Larry McDonald / Rueben 04. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Stop The Train 05. Peter Tosh / Here Comes The Judge 06. Winston Wright / Rebelution 07. The Destroyers / Ah So 08. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Soon Come 09. Peter Tosh and the Upsetters / Memphis 10. Peter Tosh / Arise Black Man 11. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Four Hundred Years 12. Peter Tosh / Maga Dog 13. Peter Tosh and Winston Scotland / Skanky Dog 14. The Now Generation / Boney Dog 15. Joe Gibbs and the Love Generation / Fat Dog 16. Bunny Flip / Maingy Dog 17. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Go Tell It On The Mountain 18. Peter Tosh / Nobody's Business [aka Leave Me Business] 19. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Downpressor 20. Peter Tosh and the Soulmates / Rudie's Medley 21. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Can't You See 22. Peter Tosh / Black Dignity 23. Peter Tosh and U Roy / (Earth's) Rightful Ruler 24. Peter Tosh and the Wailers / Brand New Second Hand [Alternative Version]

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