1971 Dave & Ansel Collins: Double Barrel

Britain in the early Seventies was rather a dour place to be. Racial tensions saw the re-emergence of fascistic politics and the rise of the right wing National Front in the face of an economic downtown. Once welcome immigrants came to be seen as an easy target as the root cause of everybody's woes, bolstered no end by Enoch Powell's infamous 1968 'Rivers Of Blood' speech. The hope and promise of a multi-cultural society generated by the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 seemed distant.

Not that I intend venturing into the world of politics, but I think bit of context is important here. In terms of popular music, reggae was still very much a new sound and although The Beatles were early adopters who appreciated it's worth (with 'Ob-La-Di , Ob-La-Da.'), the initial fan base take up in the UK was with the working class skinhead subculture. Odd then that examples of the genre should find themselves at number one both in 1969 with Desmond Dekker, and now again in 1971 with 'Double Barrel'. Odd, but no mean feat and something worthy of celebration in itself (along with a crushing sense of disappointment that the British record buying public have long abandoned such a willingness to embrace the shock of the new).

'Double Barrel' is a bit of a hybrid - producer Winston Riley came up with the backing music and Ansel Collins played it. Jamaican toaster Dave Barker was asked to provide the vocals. And it's his toasting that raises 'Double Barrel' out of the realms of the ordinary. Sure the tune is a fine, up-beat Ska rhythm jogged along by the usual spaced out piano and woozy Hammond, but it's nothing that sticks in the mind once it's over. Two barrels maybe, but only one is really firing - Dave Barker's

Barker's opening gambit of "I am the magnificent. I'm backed by the shack of a soul boss most turnin' stormin' sound o'soul" is memorable. A proud boast that's both humorous and deadly serious at the same time. And it doesn't end there, Barker is all over 'Double Barrel' like a plague of locusts - "Build it up", "One time", "Work it on baby" - his interjections jockey the record along, papering over the bland colour of the music and providing a template for future Rap MC's to follow. So much so that he must be feeling a bit miffed at the billing on the sleeve - Ansel and Dave Carter might be a more accurate description of what's in these grooves, particularly as their next single 'Monkey Spanner' showed this was no fluke.