Celebrating Gregory Isaacs’s 72nd ‘strong’
Today, July 15, Gregory Isaacs would have turned 72.
Known as the Cool Ruler, he is said to have left a red rose in our hearts as one of Jamaica’s most prolific singers.
The artists release over 125 albums to his credit, including the album Red Rose For Gregory, in a 40-plus-year career.
He had 13 albums with VP who was the first to press and distribute the seminal LP Mr Isaacs, one of the first LPs the company handled in the US. The album included the enduring hit Slave Master, later popularised in the film Rockers.
His other major track handled by VP and Greensleeves at the time of first release was the Gussie Clarke produced Rumours from 1988 — a song written by Tetrack’s Carlton Hines. Rumours showed the singer in full control of the new digital reggae and dancehall sound of the late 1980s.
Isaacs’s 1975 remake of Dennis Brown’s Easy Take It Easy, entitled Babylon Too Rough, has emerged as one of his most popular tracks in the digital streaming era.
The Mr Isaacs album established the template for Gregory Isaacs’s subsequent superstar status. Conceived by Gregory and producer Ossie Hibbert as an album project, it contained two of the Cool Ruler’s greatest hits — Smile and Set The Captives Free.
Mr Isaacs‘s status as one of reggae’s cornerstone albums was cemented when it was given full Blood & Fire reissue in 2001.
