Chase the...Devil

One of Jamaica's best and provocative lyricists is without doubt the man we know as Max Romeo, a singer who gave us such enduring songs as the PNP-used 'Let The Power Fall On I', 'Chase The Devil', 'Public Enemy Number One', 'No Joshua No', 'Macabee Version' and 'Three Blind Mice', which are too few to mention here and hardly even scratching the surface of a vast catalog of classic music from the so-called golden era of Jamaican music. In the mid seventies he cut two albums which could easily be regarded as milestones, namely 'Revelation Time' and the Lee Perry-produced 'War In A Babylon'. Two outstanding contributions that will, most likely, remain in print for as long as coming generations will investigate what went on in the the music's glorious past. But he began, solo, in a filthy and rude manner, 'Wet Dream' was exactly about what you would believe such a title would be about; some the most elementary and natural of our needs and pleasures, sung in a suggestive way that the skinheads found to their liking and supporting at the time, 1969, and thus making it into a big novelty hit around the UK and kick-starting our artist's overseas career after he had called it quits with groups like the Emotions and the Hippy Boys on Jamaican ground. But he had to reconsider the direction his career was taking, and so he chose the cultural side of things, which proved right in the long run and to be one of the most interesting developments in Jamaican songwriting from the early seventies onwards.

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