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Sanchez VibeZ

Forty-nine tracks from a Jamaican singer whose speciality is taking someone else's song and making it permanently his.

 

Sanchez

Sanchez — born Kevin Anthony Jackson — has one of the most recognisable voices in Jamaican music: high, pure, and with a quality of yearning that has made him the island's definitive lovers-rock singer for four decades.

His career is built substantially on interpretation. A large part of this playlist consists of readings of American soul and pop songs, recast over Jamaican rhythms, and the reason it works is that he treats each one as a song rather than as a novelty. He is not doing reggae versions; he is singing the song, and the rhythm happens to be Jamaican.

He also came from the church and has returned to gospel repeatedly, which explains the particular kind of intensity in the upper part of his range.

What to listen for

"Brown Eye Girl" and "I Can't Wait" are the dancehall-era records that made him a star at home.

"Love We Had Stays On My Mind" is the Dells reading and one of the finest things here — a Chicago soul ballad that turns out to have been waiting for a Jamaican arrangement.

"Wherever I Lay My Hat" appears twice and is the Marvin Gaye song, and "End Of The Road" is the Boyz II Men one.

"Let It Be Me" with Sly & Robbie is the best-produced track on the list — that rhythm section can make almost anything sound inevitable.

"Missing You", "Lonely" and "Hurt" are where the voice is most exposed, and "Paper Roses" is the country-pop reading that has no right to work.

"Amazing Grace" and "Jah Promise" are the gospel selections, and "With You" with Shaggy is the crossover.

"Pretty Looks" and "I'll Always Be True" are the ones Jamaican audiences would name first.

Go deeper

Number One and the various Praise Him gospel records are the two ends of his catalogue, and both are worth hearing.

For the wider lovers-rock tradition: Beres Hammond is the other great modern Jamaican ballad singer and the essential next stop, along with Freddie McGregor, Gregory Isaacs and Dennis Brown — the last of whom is the voice everyone in this tradition is measured against.

Why the covers work: he is not making reggae versions of soul songs; he is singing the songs, and the rhythm underneath happens to be Jamaican. That distinction is everything — the arrangements serve the melody rather than the novelty, which is why several of these readings have displaced the originals for a whole audience.

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