The career trajectory of acts from a time prior to electronic interferences - aka the internet - found acts necessitated to do a great deal of leg work, release countless singles and tour before being granted the opportunity to record a proper full length disc. This was the case for many vocal groups in JA during the '60s - including the Maytones.

Based upon my disappointment with the latter day release from the Melodians, I was reticent to check out this disc, One Way. However, after getting only moments into the first track, it became clear that producer Alvin Ranglin had done his job properly. Ranglin, who had set up his own studio and had a stable of musicians at his disposal named the GG All Stars, that included Sly and Robbie in addition to a few former Skatalites, was able to create backing tracks that uniquely fit the needs of the Maytones. Even if the group isn't generally remembered as a top tier act, the ability of its two principal singers, Vern Buckley and Gladstone "Son" Grant, the duo was able to match even the most talented trios of the time with seemingly effortless grace. Between Ranglin and the group, though, a slate of marketing gimmicks still wouldn't make them stars.

On the back of the Mighty Diamonds, the band was briefly sold as the Mighty Maytones. It was a slight attempt to garner more press and sadly, it still didn't work. The band did, though, make some in roads to success as they were featured on the soundtrack to Rockers - their track "Money Worries," which is one of the better financially related reggae tracks to get recorded, was included. But that would come after the shift from rock steady, as heard on the misnamed "Loving Reggae", to actual reggae, found on tracks like "How Long."

The aforementioned 1979 album, though only trafficked in the latter, leaving the faster tempos to the past. But even as the music underwent a slight change, the lyrical content remained roughly the same. There are unquestionably some fine poets in the reggae canon, but more often then not, songs focus on some simple topic, lay it bare and see what happens. That was the approach that the Maytones took, at least. Offerings like "Jah is the Master" don't reach too deep into heavy language while relating a topic that was obviously close to the group's collective heart. In that, though, religious fare from this group seems odd due to their pretty consistent appearance as clean cut singers, closer to a Motown image than dreaded revolutionaries that were taking over the genre by '79. This track, though, while dispensing enough of a religious motif to endear the group to a Rasta audience, sported a bit of forward looking production. The ghostly addition of phantom organ noises, that were clearly added after the fact were a step towards a wide embrace of dub. And while, by this time in the '70s those stripped down odd production numbers were a part of the islands' overall culture, group's that sought to include some hints of dub can be thought to be a weird evolutionary go between for reggae, dub and dance hall that would come later.