Barrington Levy – Money Move

Reissue

Barrington Levy’s Money Move is finally back on vinyl, more than forty years after it first dropped on George Phang’s Power House label in early 1984. Given that timing, the sessions were most likely cut sometime in 1983, so this reissue is a genuine artifact from that golden run of early dancehall.
Here’s something collectors will want to know straight away: the tracklist on this reissue doesn’t match the original pressing exactly. Side B of the original LP closed out with Suffer The Little Children, but the new edition swaps that one out for Praise His Name instead. Jah Shaka took to that tune hard, and it didn’t take long before it became one of his signature selections on the sound.

Barrington

Money Move landed at a moment when Barrington was already cementing himself as one of the defining voices in reggae. He’d come up through Jamaica’s sound system culture as a youth, and from 1979 onward he was dropping album after album, working with Alvin Ranglin, Linval Thompson, and most heavily with Henry ‘Junjo’ Lawes alongside the Roots Radics. His link-up with George Phang gave us Money Move, released through Power House, a label that actually started out as a subsidiary of Sly & Robbie’s Taxi imprint before Phang took it and built it into something of its own.

Musicians

For this one, Phang called on Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, with Lloyd Parks also stepping in on bass. That Sly & Robbie drum-and-bass foundation was central to the sound that made Phang’s productions hit so hard during this period. Willie Lindo handled guitar, Robbie Lyn and Franklin ‘Bubbler’ Waul covered the keys, and Scully took care of percussion. Recording and mixing happened at Dynamic Sounds and Channel One, with the final cut done at Prince Jammy’s Music Room.

Riddims

Musically, Money Move is a proper lesson in how Jamaican producers leaned on classic riddims to build new hits. The title track rides Jackie Mittoo’s One Step Beyond, also known as the Bobby Babylon riddim, and Barrington’s cut turns it into a proper dancehall burner, deservedly a big hit. Horace Andy’s Studio One classic Mr. Bassie gets used twice on this album, powering both Jah Save My Life and Come In A Dance. Spinning True Love, revealls that it leans hard on the bassline from the Swing Easy riddim.
No question Misunderstanding is underpinned by He Prayed, a riddim straight out of the Studio One and Burning Spear catalogue. Phang had already cut You Have Fe Move (Sweet Reggae Music) with Echo Minott and here the it resurfaces under the title Hard To Believe. And in the lovers tune I Feel Free, you can hear the melody of Junior Byles’ Curly Locks running underneath.

Purists

This reissue works on two levels, really. For Barrington Levy heads, it puts a harder-to-find stretch of his catalogue back within reach. For collectors chasing George Phang and Power House specifically, it brings an important early dancehall document back to wax. Swapping Suffer The Little Children for Praise His Name probably makes this edition a bit more interesting to some ears. But purists will likely see it differently, and fair enough.