The Exit and Hold Your Corner

Two King Jammy LPs are making their CD debut with this collection, featuring 19 tracks that are new to CD.

The collection includes Al Campbell’s previously unissued LP. Widely acclaimed as one of Jamaica’s most gifted producers and the island’s most influential music maker of the 1980s, Lloyd James AKA King Jammy is rightly revered as a titan of reggae music today.

After making his mark on the local music scene in the 70s, Jammy demonstrated his talents as a record producer with a series of immensely popular recordings towards the decade’s close. The hits and acclaim continued into the early 80s, but it was the arrival of the digital era that saw him dominating the Jamaican music scene.

In 1985, Jammy produced Wayne Smith’s smash hit, ‘Under Me Sleng Teng’, which kick-started the digital era in Jamaican music. A year later, he signed a deal with Trojan Records and delivered a number of superior albums, including the two collections featured in this CD collection.

The collection opens with the best-selling The Exit (AKA ‘History’) by Jamaica’s Crown Prince of Reggae, Dennis Brown, which makes its CD debut almost 40 years after its original release. Also included is ‘Hold You Corner’ by another reggae vocal great, Al Campbell, whose LP and most of its tracks have remained unreleased until now.

Rounding off the collection are four high-quality recordings by Leroy Smart and Mighty Rudo, with the quartet of tracks recorded in 1986, like the sets from Dennis Brown and Al Campbell.