What a Man a Deal With?

Album review

Winston McAnuff waged a seven-year court battle to beat back the bootleggers who pirated this album, valiantly fighting to set the record straight about its origins. Fresh from success with his Derrick Harriott produced debut album, Pick Hits to Click, the singer met up with Inner Circle, who took McAnuff straight into Channel One studio. The result was What a Man a Deal With, released in Jamaica on the Top Ranking label in 1978. Overseen by Circle members, not Tommy Cowan as the illicit reissue claimed, the group also provided the bulk of the backings, although Sly Dunbar and bassist Michael Ras Star guested on a couple of tracks. The riddims are phenomenal, Circle at their best, the rhythms hefty, the sound bubbly, and the musicianship stunning, with each song better than the next. McAnuff, too, was in top form, and there's not a number here that isn't a stand-out. "Hypocrites and Parasites" was one of his best, a biting song that also spun successfully on 45. That was an original, "Unchained" was a cover of the Bob Andy classic, with McAnuff's emotive performance twinned with Trinity's smoking toast. This, too, stormed the sound systems, as a 12" single. "What Man Sow" was just as strong, and contains a particularly powerful message, the title track is especially biting, "Praying for That Day" a spiritual wonder, while "Everyman" is the catchiest song on the set, with the rest all having something equally special to offer. Having won back his album, McAnuff celebrated by appending six of the numbers's dubs, most previously unavailable, to the end of the set. These are worthy of an album of their own, with spectacular work by Channel One's engineers Anthony "Crucial Bunny" Graham and Lancelot "Maxi" McKenzie. A cultural masterpiece finally gets the reissue it deserves.

© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo