David Isaacs minus the (later day) Itals

Being credited with supplying a label with some touted hit during the early days of a genre should enable a singer or musician to become a well recognized part of the any scene. Of course, external factors usually preclude anything akin to smooth sailing in the music industry, which is obviously littered with sharks and predators of every sort.

So it’s only the most talented – or savvy folks – that wind up becoming anything that people recall years on.

The way that people recall the past is also a curious thing. And while all of this applies to David Isaacs, who recorded a cover of a Stevie Wonder tune for Studio One during the late ‘60s, but didn’t really wind up impacting reggae music and the culture that surrounded it until the mid to late eighties, it does so unfairly.

Taking the place of a singer in the Itals because of visa problems made Isaacs a member of the touring band from ’87 through the group’s last tour in ’09. In December of that year, after returning home, Isaacs passed away in while hosting family members from out of town. He was 63 years old.

The thing is, in a great many obits that discuss, in depth, the singer’s career, there’s usually a mention of Isaac’s participation in the Itals measured by some quip about his tenure being a relatively short one. Fair or not, it seems that Isaacs is going to be recalled in distorted terms. What should mitigate this slight, though, is the fact that his mid seventies’ album Place In The Sun is still available the world over. And while the disc is named after the aforementioned Stevie Wonder cover, the rest of the disc is all boss stuffs – apart from “Breaking Up,” another cover that didn’t end up being as appealing as the title track.

Like much of the other discs being released during the same part of the decade, there’re a buncha message songs, although the religiosity that was so pervasive at the time is largely absent. That’s a plus. But “Stealing, Stealing,” while not the American standard covered by everyone from Jerry Garcia to some punk band, is a meditation on the after effects of robbing another person. The song at points devolves into an examination of interpersonal stuffs, but the music that accompanies it all makes it a pleasure to take in.

And while Bunny Lee, the man behind the boards on this one, crafted a unique sound during his mid ‘70s output, there are points when the music is a bit lacking. The wah-wah guitar on “Winter World of Love” is a bit tired, but it still sounds like all of those low rent JA Music compilations that bear Lee’s name. So while there’s an inconsistent flair to some of Place in the Sun – and those compilations as well – David Isaacs and his voice render the entire endeavor something worth revisiting. It’s probably not for the reggae novice, but should please the stoned masses pretty easily.