Brent Dowe And The Melodians

★★★ Build Me Up/PreMeditation

DOCTOR BIRD. CD/DL

Brent Dowe’s solo debut, an overlooked Melodians LP, and bonus tracks.

One of the most popular harmony groups in rock steady, The Melodians endured many ups and downs in the 1970s, causing lead singer Brent Dowe to pursue a solo career on the side. Sensual love song Build Me Up, recorded for Sonia Pottinger, was a breakthrough hit in 1973 that inevitably led to an album of the same name, with a strong underpinning of soul balladeering and a touch of country. Pre-Meditation saw the regrouped trio working at the Black Ark for Pottinger in 1975, this time on sociallyconscious work like Survival Is The Game and Na Ga Long So, but the album was left unfinished, surfacing a few years later padded out by earlier hits. This double reissue adds 26 bonus tracks of varying quality, relying heavily on Dowe’s standard love songs, mixed here with a few lesser-known conscious tunes.