Dave & Ansel Collins - Doing Their Own Thing (1974)

David John Crooks, aka Dave Barker (born on 10 October 1947 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a session vocalist, and Ansell (sometimes Ansel or Ansil) Collins (born 1949, also in Kingston) is a keyboard player, and both worked for producer Lee "Scratch" Perry in Kingston in the late 1960's, joining forces in 1970 to release a single 'Double Barrel'. It was released in late summer by Techniques Records, which was part of the Trojan Records label, and it topped the Jamaican and UK charts in May of the following year. It was the first record that 18 year old drummer Sly Dunbar played on, and an album of the same name soon followed in the US on Big Tree Records. A second single was released from the record, and 'Monkey Spanner' also enjoyed international success. After cutting the album, Collins and Barker parted company, with Collins becoming a session player and Barker, now resident in the United Kingdom, singing with several soul groups. In 1986 Collins appeared as one of Ernest Reed's (played by Jimmy Cliff) back-up musicians in the reggae-themed comedy film 'Club Paradise', while Collins has played and worked with The Upsetters, Black Uhuru, The Mighty Diamonds, Barrington Levy, Gregory Isaacs, U-Roy, Pama International and Jimmy Cliff. Madness sampled two of Barker's introductory exclamations, adding "Don't watch that, watch this!" from 'Funky Funky Reggae' and "This is the heavy, heavy monster sound!" from 'Monkey Spanner' into the introduction to their single 'One Step Beyond'. A second album appeared in 1974, credited to Dave & Ansil Collins on the cover and to Dave Barker & Ansil Collins Group on the labels, and in 1976 they issued 'In The Ghetto' under their original name, but they will mostly be remembered for those two classic singles from 1971. Luckily they recorded a number of extra tracks at the sessions, some of which were later used as b-sides, and they actually laid down two versions of those singles, with version one of 'Double Barrel' and version two of 'Monkey Spanner' becoming the hits. By adding the out-takes to the unused versions of the singles, plus a couple of 7"s from 1973 and 1974, we can enjoy one more album from the original classic line-up of the band.   

Track listing

01 You Ain't Got A Heart At All (previously unreleased)
02 I Feel Alive (previously unreleased)
03 Doing Your Own Thing (b-side of 'Karate' 1971)
04 Point Blank (previously unreleased)
05 Double Barrel (Version 2) (b-side of 'Double Barrel' 1970)
06 Lonely Man (I Can Count The Days) (previously unreleased)
07 Iron Joe (Elfrego Bacca Version) (single 1970)
08 The Heart Of A Man (previously unreleased)
09 Your Love Is A Game (previously unreleased)
10 Monkey Spanner (Version 2) (single 1971)
11 Lonely Lonely Man Am I (previously unreleased)
12 Nuclear Weapon (previously unreleased)
13 Ton Up Kids (single 1973)
14 Bandwagon (b-side of 'Ton Up Kids')

15 It's Summer (single 1974)