In every genre there are those singers who have an incredible talent that effortlessly drips off the tongue and onto wax - Sarah Vaughn perhaps in jazz. And by contrast there are those who's G-d given talent might not surpass too many people, but the emotional content of their work makes up for any shortcomings - Billie Holiday maybe. Still, there are folks who just can't sing - Sinatra. No really, he can't sing - and I still don't want to hear about his phrasing.

In the reggae, dub and dancehall genres it's necessary to be a bit lenient in regards to those vocalists who on occasion decide to get chatty amidst some track. No one needs to be in key a hundred percent of the time. But sometimes singers just lack the ability to get anywhere close to where they need to be. Delano Tucker is one of these folks.

Gather Israelites being Tucker's only recorded outing might explain why his vocals flutter around notes while never really landing there. It would be truly wonderful to be able to blame some producer, studio musician or record executive for the problems here. Unfortunately, Tucker produced the album and surrounded himself with a pretty impressive lineup. Early Chinna Smith, Ansel Collins and Sly Dunbar all perform here. And what's more, the Scientist and Augustus Pablo engineered the entire deal. Just looking at that line up would indicate that the music is nothing short of on point - and even if Pablo had his share of cheesy albums, in the '70s he hadn't really encountered that problem.

Again, the music is pretty impeccable. And at the beginning of the disc, punctuated with some high register horns and a steppers drum part, Tucker chants for a bit before getting into his singing mode. This early section of the track can without doubt be ranked alongside some lesser Dillinger fare from the time - that's still a compliment. Unfortunately, a great deal of the disc is given over to singing. Even if it wasn't, though, the toasting would have become pretty tiresome after a while. Tucker, though, doesn't possess the improvisational prowess of a U-Roy, the aforementioned Dillinger or their ilk. Just looking at the cover, though, one wouldn't have figured on this. Bo Diddley was right - again.

Lyrically - since there's only so much complaining I can do about Tucker's singing - Gather Israelites is mostly made up of conscious tracks that touch on G-d, righteous living, war and peace. It's this latter tandem that becomes problematic when "Running from War" seeks to address the topic.

The track relates how Tucker seeks to do to extricate himself from the violent situations on the that surround him on the street. He's gonna run away. So not only can he not sing, he apparently is a coward. Of course, I've not ever been confronted by some rogue law enforcement officer, but even if my immediate response would be to run, I'd probably not relate that idea to the world via an off key song.