Bob Andy Fire Burning CD

After leaving the Paragons in 1964, Bob Andy became one of the most dexterous talents in the reggae field, a producer, arranger, songwriter, musician, and vocalist on recordings with Clement "Coxsone" Dodd for Studio One and, later, Harry Johnson and Rupie Edwards for the Trojan family of labels. Fire Burning is the first CD collection of his Trojan sides, most of them coming as a duet act with the wondrous Marcia Griffiths. They covered a variety of interesting material, including the Motown duet classic "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," a pair of Dylan covers ("Lay Lady Lay," "It Ain't Me Babe"), and even Tin Pan Alley standards like "Let's Fall in Love" and "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You?" Unsurprisingly, their biggest hits were also standards, Nina Simone's "Young, Gifted and Black" and the Duboff/Kornfeld nugget "Pied Piper" (a hit for Crispian St. Peters in 1966). With the great divide between Studio One and Trojan material, however, this collection unfortunately doesn't include many of Andy's most familiar solo songs: "Feeling Soul," "Going Home," "Unchained," and "My Time," among a few others. For those, look to one of the many fine Studio One/Heartbeat collections. ~ John Bush